Starting RCIA Classes - Your experiences

[yoshiblue]

To cut a long story short, I have been personally struggling with a couple of big areas in my life ATM, coupled with the state of the world, I am feeling a real pull to God at the moment. I feel like I need to understand my place in the world and guidance from him, if that makes sense.

I was raised a Methodist and attended weekly until the church was condemned when I was a teenager, so am already baptised and believe in God.

After talking to a couple of Catholic friends on the street, I am intrigued to find out more about our local church and RCIA classes. I'm feeling a real desire to learn everything about the church and its teachings and have ordered a book in the meantime! My friend has advised me to start to go to weekly Mass then contacting the priest when I feel comfortable to discuss.

I would really appreciate any experiences of going through this process and how you found the classes and group discussions. I believe RCIA runs from September each year and wondered if I should be able to start them this Autumn or if I needed to wait for a longer time to reflect first.

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

@yoshiblueand @Tallulasdancingshoeshow are you finding RCIA so far? Has anything been unexpected ?

@Ravenclawdropout 👋 I’m a couple of classes in, have another tomorrow. We’re starting with the basics so nothing unusual/surprising yet! He seems to do the doctrine last and he was keen to point out confession is not like it used to be!

He's a lovely, down to earth and funny priest, so I’ve really enjoyed it so far!

Nothing surprising yet, but I’ve been working in a Catholic secondary school for 16 years so know some of it already. Although I have been told that I’ll need to produce my CofE baptism certificate to be able to convert. No idea where it is, so don’t know what I’ll do 🤷🏻‍♀️ Our classes have finished now for summer. They start up again in September. Pleased to hear you’re getting on well with the classes.

You will need to contact the parish that you were baptised in and ask them to find a copy of your entry in the baptismal register. If the church no longer has it, it will be in the local records office. If you can't find it they may do a conditional' baptism. Though they may be happy to take the word of your parents that it was done.

@Toddlerteaplease thanks very much. Useful to know.

@Tallulasdancingshoes Yes conditional baptism was mentioned in one of our chats, that they would only do that if they really thought there was a chance a person wasn't baptised.

My priest thought it was funny I'd been up the loft to find my certificate and hasn't asked to see it. Maybe he will down the line.

Anyway, you should be able to request a record if you can't find it. It wasn't too expensive when I looked too.