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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: You Shall Live!

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This past week brought this 7 week catechumenate course to a close. With some regret for me personally, because I can no longer, as I tell me students, be the apostolate for the catechumenate—at least to them in the course. But I can in this blog post toward you. In this last reflection I’ll highlight a number of things from the last week of class that I believe brought light and life to the students, and, of course, to me.

Family Discipleship Initiative

One of the aims of the catechumenate is forming disciples for life. That means that discipleship formation continues after the catechumenate ends, including in the home. My colleague, Dr. Mart Thompson, spoke to the class about extending discipleship formation in the home through the LCMS Family Discipleship Initiative. It’s goal is to shape the discipled life of parents so that they might disciple their children.

Fostering a Missional Habitus

These and similar efforts aim to foster a mission habitus upon which we reflect in chapter 6 of Journey to Jesus. In the words of Alan Hirsch, the catechumenate shapes a congregation that lives as “people of the Way,” or as one of our catechumens put it, living the “forever walk.” We have embraced the vision of the “forever walk” through the course’s rhythm.

Redeemer Lutheran Church, The Bronx

A congregation that journeys as people of the Way is Redeemer Lutheran Church, The Bronx, New York. Rev. Dr. Dien Ashley Taylor and Deaconess Raquel Rojas spoke to the class about this “praying community of service that receives, teaches, celebrates and shares Christ Jesus” (Redeemer’s mission statement). Seeing the catechumenate “in the flesh” of Redeemer’s life through the ministry of these two servants of God was enlivening and emboldening.

Catechumenal Resources

Interacting with Pastor Taylor and Deaconess Rojas provided the students with resources for shaping a catechumenate in their calls. That has been one of the primary aims of the course, to resource the students. I bring some of those resources to you now:

Images of Baptism by Maxwell Johnson, an excellent resource for study of baptism

The Baptismal River by Richard Davenport, another excellent resource for baptismal study

Sacramental Streams  by Richard Davenport for informing preaching and teaching on baptism

Living Under Water  by Kevin Adams a Reformed pastor’s baptismal reflections

Resilience

This resourcing aims to strengthen resilience in catechumenal practice and in congregational life. As we demonstrate in the Epilogue to Journey to Jesus all the congregations we explored manifested a hearty resilience throughout the Covid pandemic, a significant amount of that resilience attributable to their catechumenates. And as we observe at the very end, while we make no claim that the catechumenate is “the answer” to the 21st century malaise of the church, we commend these congregations’ “deep wisdom, infectious joy, and confidence in the power of the gospel that permeates their reflections. We, too, believe that Jesus knows his way out of a grace, and so does his bride, the church” (175). And so, by the grace of God, do all of us who journeyed in the catechumenate course together.

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Wonder at Baptismal Thanksgiving and Visualization of the Gospel

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Throughout the 7 week catechumenate course—which comes to a close next Thursday— I have tried to expose students to primary ritual experiences and the methods of Bible study that introduce catechumens to the biblical metanarrative centered in the Lord Christ Jesus. We have experienced the rites of acceptance, election, and baptismal thanksgiving, the latter this past Thursday. We gathered around the font in the Chapel of St. Timothy and St. Titus, gave thanks for the Word and waters of baptism and of all the waters that pour over us, affirmed the Lord’s baptism of us into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and prayed that God might lead us into the baptismal way of truth and life. [If you are interested in this rite of baptismal thanksgiving, send me an email, burresonk@csl.edu. Some of the texts are copyrighted and so I can’t provide them here, but I’ll aim to make an outline of the service available on my Substack site (https://substack.com/@kentjburreson).]  The students asked questions about how and when to incorporate this rite into the Sunday liturgy, and all recognized how it could be formational toward a baptismally oriented life.

We have also experienced three primary Bible study methods often employed in the catechumenate: The African (Lambeth) method, the Luther 4-Strand Garland method, and the Visualization method, the latter on Monday. The Visualization method entails:

  • The Gospel text is read two times.
  • Each team collaborates creatively to visualize the story in some way. They may choose to
    • Act it out
      • In a very literal way; or
      • By setting it in a new context
    • Draw it out, using
      • A cartoon format or
      • Artistic rendering
    • Write a song. Could be a simple, memorable refrain, or a metered hymn employing imagery conveying the text. Perhaps …
      • To the tune of a familiar hymn or
      • To the tune of a secular, popular song
    • Write a poem or haiku.
  • Once the groups have completed their visualization each in turn conveys the piece to the entire group in a manner appropriate to the genre they chose: acting it out; discussing the drawing; singing it; reading it.

As is always the case my students were creative in reflection on the gospel reading for the 6th Sunday of Easter, John 14:15-21. Centering things on Jesus’ words, “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you,” they composed a hymn set to Luther’s “Lord, Keep Us Steadfast in Your Word,” an AI-generated contemporary image of Jesus welcoming an orphan through the baptismal waters, a poem, and a haiku. Summarizing what students said regarding the strengths of this approach, “It incorporated them into probing the text and developing something that represented that encounter. Since this was done in small groups, everyone contributed and each of their lives of faith were valued by their incorporation into the body of Christ through this creative process.” It’s as though the Visualization method is deepening the baptismal life reflected in the rite of baptismal thanksgiving. What the students did in class had a formative power upon their baptismal lives, and certainly on the baptismal life of this unworthy professor.

Easter Vigil 2019 (25)

The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: The Divine and Human Dimensions of Conversion

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The last two weeks of my catechumenate class we have focused on the history of conversion and the catechumenate in the church and conversion from the divine side. Alan Kreider’s The Change of Conversion and the Origin of Christendom has facilitated the exploration of this history emphasizing the intertwining elements of believing, belonging, and behaving for the early church’s process of conversion. If you haven’t ever read Kreider’s book, it was an eye-opening experience the first time I read it. I think it was similarly revelatory for my students. Kreider decidedly focuses on the human elements of conversion manifest within the writings of the ante-Nicene and post-Nicene church fathers. He indicates how the Christian community attended to those who were attracted to the Christian community’s way of life as exemplified in what they believed, how they engaged community life, and how they behaved in ways that were at odds with cultural manners and ways. Believing—belonging—behaving all intertwined to create the crucible for a profound experience of conversion. The church today needs to give attention to the balance of those human experiences in conversion. I am convinced that the catechumenate facilitates that balance of experience in the church’s witness and life.

Focusing on the human elements in the history of conversion led to consideration of a Lutheran theology of conversion. Lutherans, perhaps surprisingly to my students, recognize the dual realities in conversion, the divine side and the human side (Francis Pieper uses the terms transitive and intransitive). Unsurprisingly, Lutherans navigate a tension in these two sides to conversion and don’t resolve them. On the divine side, God is entirely the agent of conversion through the Word and God’s means of grace (divine monergism). But, as the Lutheran Confessions indicate, people are not blocks of wood or stone in conversion. God is not working on inanimate objects, but upon God’s creatures. Working on us to bring us to trust in God, the Father employs his spoken and visible Word upon our creaturely facilities: minds, hearts, and bodies. While we humans contribute nothing to our own conversion, nonetheless we are actively involved in our conversion through God’s working upon us through these decidedly creaturely channels. As I indicated to the students, this is one of the most important elements of the course theologically. In facilitating conversion through the catechumenate, the church must give attention to both dimensions in conversion. God converts us to himself, but we humans perceive the effect of God’s working through creaturely and tangible means: our thinking, feeling, behaving, repenting, sense of belonging and relationship, etc… God alone converts US through our very creatureliness. Next week we’ll begin to explore the various dimensions of that human side of conversion.

Easter Vigil 2019 (90)

The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: The “Eye-Opening” Catechumenate

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Last week I took a hiatus from blogging on the catechumenate course I am teaching at the seminary. The last three class periods, however, have provided some “eye-opening” moments. It’s not surprising that an experience that leads catechumens to the revelation of the mysteries of the rites of initiation should pop with eye-opening moments. In this case at least three things have proven so revelatory. The first unit of the course has focused upon the catechumenate’s liturgies, from the rites of acceptance and election to the rites of initiation. As we have been exploring the rites, we have been reading through Journey to Jesus as part of introducing the contours of the catechumenate in specific contexts, in this case the four congregations that Rhoda and I researched. I would point to three things as eye-opening to the students (and they never cease to have the same effect on me): 1) The unique stories of the catechumenate in our four congregations; 2) The catechetical potentials of the African Bible Study method; 3) The profound effect of the post-baptismal anointing in initiation.

First, the unique stories. I had the students  give demonstrations to the class representing each of the congregations, trying to convince us of the benefits of that congregation’s catechumenal structures and practices. They all sought to enter into the individual, contextual character of the catechumenates at St. John, St. Mary’s, Living Faith and Redeemer. It was “eye-opening” to see how very diverse catechumenates can be so compelling in initiating new Christians into the Christian assembly.

Second, the African Bible Study presents to many students a completely new way of exposing people to the Word of God. They noted that it introduces catechumens to the primary gospel story, facilitates the kinds of questions they bring to the text, provides an opportunity for theological and spiritual exploration without having to feel that one has to provide the right answers, and allows—as one student said—the Holy Spirit through the Word to do the primary work of bringing people to faith in the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Spirit. What would not be “eye-opening” about that?

Third, I had them watch the movie This is the Night about the catechumenate at a Roman Catholic congregation in Texas in the early 90’s. While the movie is dated, now some 30+ years old, I can remember the first time I watched it in my doctoral studies at Notre Dame (it was new at the time) and how “eye-opening” it was for me. The post-baptismal anointing (confirmation) was “eye-opening” because the priest pours so much oil on the neophytes’ heads and then rubs it into their faces. “Do all Roman Catholic congregations use that much oil?” (Answer: No) “How would most LCMS members receive an anointing like that?” (Answer: Probably in 90% of cases, not well. But that doesn’t mean oil can’t be used.) But their eyes were opened to how anointing can be part of the way in which the neophytes experience the pouring out of the Spirit in their baptism.

I am thankful that my students’ eyes have been opened in these ways by catechumenal practices even as the church rejoices in all the “eye-opening” experiences of these Great 50 Days!

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Questions from Your Parish is the Curriculum

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Back from July 15-August 20, 2021 Rhoda and I ran a series of blog posts on Diana Macalintal’s aptly titled book published by Liturgical Press in Collegeville, Minnesota. Macalintal is one of the founders, along with her husband Nick, of TeamRCIA.com, A Roman Catholic group promoting best practices in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults or RCIA. Macalintal in her excellent book by affirming that the parish is the curriculum grounds the basic recognition of why there is faith formation at all: it is for incorporating a person into the life of the Body of Christ. And that person is incorporated into a specific Christian community that lives together in a particular place at a particular time. The person being incorporated comes to know Christ in and through the life of that community gathered around Word and sacraments. But it is the community that mediates that relationship to the neophyte (whether unbaptized, baptized, or confirmed). Thus, the parish IS the curriculum.

My students explored Macalintal’s first chapter this week and highlighted these quotes from the 1st chapter as beneficial for attending to her argument:

  • We start to see Baptism more like a verb than a noun (17).
  • Living the Christian way of faith requires, then, a daily discernment of how God is calling us to respond by faith to our baptism (18).
  • Not a textbook or a program but rather our full, conscious, and active participation in the liturgy of the church is the primary and essential way we learn what it means to live as Christians (18).
  • Good parish life fosters and nourishes faith. Poor parish life may weaken and destroy it (23).
  • Because your parishioners have been washed, anointed and clothed as priests, prophets, and kings, enlightened with knowledge of Christ, endowed with the gifts of the Holy Spirit and strengthened by the Eucharist to grow into the full stature of Christ for doing Christ’s mission, they are the best teachers for your catechumens and candidates (24).
  • If we are to announce this at every level and moment, we cannot limit our method of proclaiming it and teaching it to just a weekly meeting in a classroom, no matter how excellent that gathering might be (26).

Your parish as the curriculum is aimed toward forming the baptized to live out of their baptismal identity. Formation to live out baptismal identity comes not primarily through “head” knowledge but through experiential knowledge. As Macalintal says, “We learn by doing, especially by praying” (18). This experiential learning comes through participation in the community of Christ, especially through the assembly’s gathering for worship. Through the corporate liturgical experience catechumens and neophytes are drawn into life with Christ. They receive the eyes needed to see the world as God sees it and perceive the Triune God’s story as being brought to completion for, in, and on behalf of His creation. Everything that the church does flows from its corporate worship and catechizes everyone in the body of Christ. As Macalintal indicates, “Catechesis is helping believers open their hearts to encounter the living Christ active in the church” (21). When baptism matters in this way then the baptismal community—the parish—matters, because it immerses all into Christian life within the community. In this way the catechumenate is an apprenticeship in faith and in the life of faith led by the parish that responds to God’s living voice; encounters Christ’s mercy among those who receive and offer forgiveness; turns to the Father in prayer; walks with and serves those in need (27).  

Hopefully these quotations help you focus on what is at the center of your catechumenal and baptismal formation in this Holy Week as the elect reach the foundational pinnacle of their formation.

Blessings as you celebrate the Paschal Feast in sincerity and truth in this most Holy Triduum!

Redeemer Post-Baptism Neophytes and Newly Confirmed 2019

The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: A Holistic Faith Formation Process

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At the conclusion of our introduction to Part I of our book Journey to Jesus, Rhoda and I write: “A visit to each of these four congregations on a Sunday would reveal differences in styles of worship, preaching, and communal expressions—all part of the contextualization of the ministry  in these disparate congregations. But they share a commitment to a holistic faith formation process that has shaped the missional ethos of each congregation in similar ways” (Journey to Jesus, 16-17). As my students prepare to read about those four congregations next week, they asked these questions about this holistic faith formation process, or The Way, as it is called at Phinney Ridge Lutheran Church in Seattle, Washington (as we read the first several chapters of Paul Hoffman’s Faith Forming Faith). I’ll give brief answer to these questions, perhaps questions you, the readers of our blog, have asked as well.

  • In the context of a post-modern world that doesn’t inherently embrace the Christian

faith, how do you get people to buy into their faith journey?

With intentionality and commitment. The unbaptized are seeking something that has theological, spiritual, and embodied depth and substance. The assembly’s commitment to a process that bears witness to their own formation into biblical and evangelical depth and substance is the strongest witness toward buying into such a faith journey.

  • From where has the disconnect come between faith life and church life? How can post-baptismal instruction bridge that gap?

The enlightenment and normal nihilism have bred this disconnect. Faith life is considered an individual, inner-spiritual matter devoid of public expression. Church is a voluntary association of like-minded individuals, not the body of Christ engage in a journey together into Christ’s kingdom in the power of the Spirit. Post-baptismal instruction (mystagogy) explicitly seeks to connect the experience of the rites of initiation with the baptismal life within this particular baptismal assembly and to show how the baptized live out together their baptismal identity.

  • Should one encourage current members to participate in the catechumenate as you introduce it for the first time?

Yes, without question! This is the best way for the catechumenate to take hold of the imagination of a congregation and to seek to form its baptismal identity.

  • How does the catechumenate fit into other educational opportunities at a congregation?

Since the catechumenate is ultimately a way of life for the congregation, it should provide the metanarrative shape and direction to all the other educational endeavors of the congregation. Those offering should “fit” the general aim and direction of the catechumenate.

  • What is the intent of the timing of the principal catechumenal rites within the church year? What are the connections between the rites and the biblical metanarrative?

The principal rites—Rite of Acceptance/Enrollment; Rite of Election; and the Rites of Initiation—are all organized around their culmination in the Rites of Initiation. The Rites of Initiation are often associated with the Paschal Triduum, and much of the imagery and ritual symbolism arises from the primary baptismal metaphor of death and resurrection. But they don’t have to be. They can be associated with other principal feasts such as Epiphany or Pentecost or All Saints’ Day. When associated with those feasts the catechumenal language needs to draw upon other primary baptismal imagery such as new birth and the pouring out of the Spirit. The other rites fall in sequence with the Rites of Initiation and so have no inherent association with certain feast or seasons, although when organized around a paschal cycle the Rite of Acceptance often falls on Advent 1 and the Rite of Election on Lent 1.

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Forming Pastoral Candidates

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As the baptismal season of Lent reaches its culmination in Holy Week and the Great Triduum, so we’ll transition our blog into a series of reflection on teaching the catechumenate. I (Kent) will start my 7 week half-semester course on the adult catechumenate and Christian formation at Concordia Seminary, St. Louis. This is now the fourth time I have taught this course, itself a fruit of Dr. Schuler’s and my work on the catechumenate. It will be the first time I have used our book, Journey to Jesus, as part of the course. Here in the blog I intend to reflect on the questions, observations, and issues posed, addressed, and critiqued in our class of eighteen students. This time they all come from our residential pastoral formation program, both post-internship and pre-internship students, and some international students.

With this being the fourth time I have taught the course, I think I have developed some measure of pedagogical wisdom in terms of how I teach it, although I am sure the students will teach me more this time around as well. I have realized that exposure to the experiential elements of the catechumenate—especially the rites of acceptance, election, and baptismal remembrance and the Bible study methods often employed in the catechumenate—need to be a formative pedagogical experience in the course. To provide a glimpse of the structure of the course, here is the course outline:

Unit #1: The Structure, Rituals, and Rites of the Catechumenate
Course Introduction and the Ritual Context for Baptism and Conversion
The Modern RCIA and the Lutheran Equivalent Welcome to Christ
A Holistic Congregational Model: The Road to the Catechumenate
Experiencing the Rite of Enrollment
The Catechumenal Journey
Visit to RC Easter Vigil
The Catechumenal Journey
Experiencing the African Bible Study Method
Reflecting on Ritual and the Catechumenate
 
Unit #2: History of the Catechumenate
 
History of Baptism and The Historical Contours of Conversion until Constantine
Experiencing the Rite of Election
The Historical Contours of Conversion through the development of Christendom
The Historical Contours of Conversion: Reformation to the Present
Experiencing the Luther 4-Strand Bible Study Method
 
Unit #3: Adult Faith Formation
              
The Theology of Conversion
Experiencing the Rite of Election
The Shape of Conversion
Experiencing the Rite of Affirmation of Baptism
Personal and Congregational Transformation through the Catechumenate
 
Unit #4: The Future of Adult Faith Formation
 
Issues in Adult Faith Formation: Catechesis, Mystagogy, and Congregational
Education
Experiencing the Visualization Bible Study Method
Issues in Adult Faith Formation: Mission, Vocation and Hospitality
Planning a Catechumenate
 
If you are interested in seeing the entire syllabus I’m happy to share it. Email me at
burresonk@csl.edu.

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Catechumenate Formation for Pastors and Deaconesses-to-Be: Immediacy of Baptism and Implementing the Catechumenate

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Throughout the course over the last two years two issues have surfaced repeatedly: immediacy of baptism and implementation of the catechumenate. Some brief observations on both of those issues. Certainly, the desire for immediacy of baptism with adult candidates reflects the priority of the gospel and the gifts that God gives in baptism. We want people to have those gifts. It also reflects that infant baptism—baptism soon after physical birth— currently is the primary paradigm through which we view the baptism of others, especially adults. But adult baptism is best seen through its own paradigm. When seen through the lens of incorporation into the entire story of God in Christ and into the body of Christ in a particular place, then the Word before baptism plays a central role in forming the disciple toward baptism as a pinnacle event in the adult disciple’s ongoing life. Baptism is an encounter with the crucified and living Christ. The adult should have cognizance of who Jesus is before they come to the waters of baptism. They should have some familiarity with the body of Christ into which they are being incorporated. The ministry of the Word—that is always connected to baptism—provides that formation. Waiting as part of a pattern of eschatological waiting is a formative practice. The adult disciple is formed by life in the Word so that they can fully apprehend—as an adult—what God is doing to them in their baptism.

Regarding implementation, three words: Just do it. You have to risk, just try something. It doesn’t mean you have to lay out in the first year an entire adult catechumenate. That boat probably would sink. But just try something and then you can build on that. In many of the parishes we have worked with that have started a catechumenate they take those small steps the first year. They incorporate a weekly meal into their current adult instruction. They use one of the Scripture study methods, such as the African study method, with their elders first and then begin to use it with the catechumens. They incorporate other modes of teaching into their catechesis such as small group reflection. They implement the use of sponsors for adults. It’s not all of these things, but one or two of these kinds of things in the first year to get the ball rolling. This begins to implant these patterns into the congregation’s consciousness and lays the foundation for them becoming the pattern of the congregation’s life.

Interesting that waiting and patience are part of both the adult baptismal experience and the implementation of the catechumenate. It is formation that reflects Paul’s words in Romans 8:24-25: “But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.”

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Catechumenate Formation for Pastors and Deaconesses-to-Be

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“This course will examine how the church forms, catechizes, and incorporates adult Christians into the church and the fullness of the Christian life. It will give specific attention to the practice of adult faith formation, especially through the adult catechumenate, by (1) studying its ritual and theological origins and development, (2) examining contemporary catechumenal theology and practice, and (3) charting a course for adult formation that meets today’s and tomorrow’s challenges. The course will involve interaction with adult formation and catechumenate experts and church workers who are currently engaged in adult faith formation.” So reads the description for the course on the catechumenate that I (Kent) have been teaching for the last two years (and will again next year).  So, the next four posts will reflect upon our experience in the course over the last two years. I don’t think my students (hopefully all of them are reading this!) will mind being treated as fodder for the blog. I wouldn’t be reflecting on our experience in the class if they hadn’t given me something to say. I appreciate greatly their investment in the class.

               As my students would affirm, and as the course description implies, the course is unquestionably an apologetic for the catechumenate. I don’t make any bones about it. I want them to find things of value in the catechumenate’s intentional way of making lifelong disciples. Most enter the class with little exposure to the catechumenate. They are surprised to hear that the LCMS (alongside the ELCA’s leadership) was involved in the preparation of the Lutheran Welcome to Christ catechumenal materials in the 1990’s. The catechumenate is foreign territory for most of them, a novel concept. But they are all aware that our current ways (usually the 6-8 week adult instruction class) of making disciples isn’t working very well. The making of disciples, assimilation into the body of Christ, and retention for the long haul…well our current patterns don’t have an avowedly strong track record at any of that. My students are positioned to want to find something of value in the catechumenate. My persuasive rhetoric could persuade successfully.

               Following an initial introduction through the beginning pages of Paul Hoffman’s Faith Forming Faith, we begin with the rites of the RCIA and Welcome to Christ. Last year a required visit and this year an optional visit to the Easter Vigil at a Roman Catholic Church exposed them to how the Vigil makes the most sense in the context of a catechumenate (20 baptisms at the Roman Catholic Church in St. Louis that some of us attended). A brief history of the catechumenate and conversion follows, especially through the work of Alan Kreider. Then we center on a Lutheran theology of conversion and the acknowledgement that we need to look at conversion both from below (human perspective) and from above (divine perspective and monergism). The last section of this seven-week course considers contemporary issues in the catechumenate such as ritual and preaching, mission and hospitality, catechesis and mystagogy, and vocation. The only required texts are the aforementioned by Hoffman (best introduction to the catechumenate for any audience) and Kreider. The students must do a resource review to familiarize themselves with other resources. The final course project is developing a plan for introducing the catechumenate or aspects of it in their congregation. Since many of the students are finishing their education and will soon be going to their calls, this exercise might prove an immediately handy resource.

               In the next three weeks I’ll talk about some of the questions that my students have raised and reflect on the pedagogy of the course, an opportunity for self-critique. Entrance into the course is initially like sojourning in a foreign land. I am thankful my students are willing to become like catechumens themselves and journey with me and become no longer strangers but pilgrims into the catechumenate.

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The Adult Catechumenate and Christian Formation: Plumbing the Treasures

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At the end of his book Faith Shaping Ministry, on the basis of Matthew 6:21 “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” Paul Hoffman writes, “Our treasure lies buried deep within the waters of baptism where Jesus himself unites us to a death like his and graciously raises us in a resurrection like his. This is not new. But it is a treasure—the most priceless treasure that one could ever imagine” (100). That has been the goal and raison d’etre of this course on faith formation and the catechumenate that I and my class have journeyed through the past eight weeks. That is really the heart of the catechumenate: plumbing the depths of the treasures of the church through the prism of baptism. As Hoffman says later, “The treasures for which we long are not far from us. They are not new or trendy. They lie deep within the gifts we’ve always had in the church. They are in our Scripture and our tradition” (101). Over the past eight weeks we have gone exploring the ritual, history, and faith formation and transformation of the catechumenate. Baptismal treasures recognized, held, and honored.

Yet, in this final two weeks of the course we have reached as deeply into the catechumenal treasures as we could, all for the sake of the future of adult faith formation. The goal has been that all of us might envision a road to the catechumenate within the congregations in which we live and move and have our being. The goal has been that we might plumb the depths of baptismal life through various aspects of the faith formation journey. And students have led the way in envisioning these gifts of the church. How does the catechumenate foster a holistic model of congregational life? What forms should preaching take to form Christian discipleship, preaching that flows from and feeds toward the catechumenate? How does the catechumenate shape a congregation to embrace hospitality as an identity marker? How does education in the congregation reflect not a consumer, attractional approach, but a formation of disciples approach? How does faith formation gift us with a baptismal vocation that subsumes all our other vocations within it? These are the treasures that our explorations and discussions have unearthed. As Hoffman concludes his final chapter, “The conviction is this: when we reach deep within the treasures of the ancient liturgies and texts of the Church, we find the transformation that Christ promises us in our baptism” (102). That’s where we have been as a class, that’s where we all should be—there, deep within the treasures. Plumbing their depths.

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