A Key to the Conversion Experience
Recently I was talking to one of our lay evangelists, Hsu Jr-syung about his work and asked him "why are so many catechumens at St. John's Parish willing to attend make up classes." The reason for asking this is that because people in Taiwan really are very busy with work and family responsibilities, so they often ask permission to miss a class; but generally it is difficult to get them to make up these classes. Jr-syung's response was that during the pre-catechumenate period he was able to lead them toward a deeper prayer experience and at least an initial conversion; the result was that they feel a stronger desire not to miss any important teaching about Jesus and our Catholic Faith. I was very happy to hear him say this: for we have been trying to find ways of leading "pre-catechumens" to pray as early as possible; hoping this will be the surest way of leading them to a relationship with Jesus Christ and the Father: that is, to conversion.
According to the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, the pre-catechumenate is "a time of evangelization: [when] those who are not yet Christians, their hearts opened to the Holy Spirit, may believe and be freely converted to the Lord and commit themselves freely to Him." But immediately a problem becomes evident: many catechumen courses assume a conversion that has not yet taken place. So we have been struggling here in Taiwan to develop an effective pre-catechumenate, one that really helps the pre-catechumen to come to a conversion. We know some things are helpful: teaching them forms of mental pray as soon as possible; encouraging the practice of petitionary prayers; a weekend retreat focused on the Holy Spirit; and much intense prayer on our part for each catechumen. We also find the Rite of Acceptance into the Order of Catechumens is a great help to the pre-catechumens for stabilizing and deepening their conversion and commitment.
I am convinced the one thing we must become excellent at is achieving the goal of the pre-catechumenate: first proclamation evangelism leading to conversion: especially since most who come through our "one-brings-one" evangelism outreach literally start from zero as far as an explicit relationship with Jesus. If any of you have ideas or experiences which would help us to create a more effective pre-catechumenate for the Chinese, please share them with us.
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