When the new Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults* came out in the 1970s, it introduced us to a new way of bringing people into the Church. It also used some vocabulary words that brought us back to an earlier time in Christianity. During the stages of initiation, people are called Catechumens, the Elect, and finally Neophytes. Prayers include scrutinies and exorcisms. After Baptism and full initiation, they enter a time called Mystagogy, a Greek word meaning “initiation into the mysteries.”
The newly baptized enter a period of Mystagogy during the Easter season in which they “unpack the mysteries” that have occurred at the Easter Vigil and other liturgies. The use of the word mystery is not in the sense of a fictional “whodunit,” but in the sense of something not obvious, not seen on the surface, or not readily understood. The idea is to plumb the depths of the experience and be able to articulate what it means to the person and how it will influence future action or thought.
Our days are made up of raw experiences. Few people take the time to ponder the meaning of these experiences unless forced by heightened emotions. Grief or loss on the one hand and joy or delight on the other can cause us to pause and reflect on what is occurring. Current technology may have made it easier to keep a journal, but how many people do so?
We teach the Neophytes how to do this kind of reflection, but it is something that every person should learn how to do, and is part of my reason for writing my book on the Mass and for these website blogs. If we believe that ritual experience can change our hearts and teach us how to live as Christ in the world, then we need to learn how to reflect on the ritual, uncover the truth that is there for us, and consider how to apply it in our daily lives.
We don’t do this reflection once and say we’re done. We ponder these mysteries every year because we are not the same exact persons we were a year ago. Another year of experiences have influenced and changed us. We’ve had moments of joy and sorrow, of growth and setbacks. We see with new eyes.
I encourage you to reflect on your liturgical experiences in your private prayer time outside of the Mass. There is no wrong way to do this reflection. A simple way to “unpack” your experience is to remember what happened, ask what words, phrases, or images touched you in some way. What is the experience teaching you about following Christ in daily life? The beauty of the liturgical year is allowing the story to touch us more deeply and to interact with it over and over again, each time more profoundly than before.
*The revised ritual book is now called the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.
.jpg)
