Sorting Fish and Welcoming Alia – January 4, 2018

For the first time in my 30+ years of ministry, I had no inquirers for RCIA this year. The RCIA is the “Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults” – the process for welcoming new members into the Church.  Coordinating the process is a big part of my job.  And I had no takers.

Then Alia called in late September. 

Alia told me she was a baptized Presbyterian who graduated from a Catholic college (University of Dayton) with a degree in Political Science before getting her Law Degree from Ohio State.  She had just moved to Kansas City to serve a year as a Precious Blood volunteer.  She was living with other volunteers and two priests at the Gaspar House at 53rd and Rockhill and working at Legal Aid of Western Missouri. She told me she’d been attending both Sunday and weekday Mass (but not-receiving Communion) for over a year.  She was praying the rosary.  She had more Catholic apps on her phone than I do. She had begun the RCIA process in Dayton before moving.  And she wanted to complete the process and become a “full-fledged Roman Catholic.”

“Sorting fish” is an expression among those of us who work with the RCIA.  It’s inspired by the parable in the Gospel of Matthew about the reign of heaven being “like a net thrown into the sea, which collects fish of every kind” (Matthew 13:47).  The idea is that our welcome is like a net that collects “fish” of every kind: unbaptized adults and children of catechetical age, baptized uncatechized Christians, baptized catechized Christians, baptized Catholics needing Confirmation and Eucharist, baptized Catholics needing only Confirmation, fully initiated Catholics who have been alienated from the Church and seek to return, and Catholics seeking an update.

Part of my job is to “sort the fish” – to discern the path each inquirer will take and then to accompany them on that path.  The Rite for Reception of Baptized Christians into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church states: “The rite is so arranged that no greater burden than necessary is required for the establishment of communion and unity.” RCIA #473.  My goal for each and every inquirer is that communion and unity.

After consultation with Father Steve and our RCIA team, it was decided that Alia would meet weekly with a small group of catechists (Barb Fegley, Lynsi Rahorst, and myself) to pray together, to reflect on our experiences of the Mass, to review the catechism, and to prepare Alia to renew her Baptismal Promises and receive the Sacraments of Reconciliation, Confirmation and Eucharist.

This weekend, as we celebrate the great feast of Epiphany, we will welcome Alia Elizabeth Faustina Sisson into Full Communion with the Catholic Church here at SFX.  May all the saints in heaven – especially St. Gaspar de Bufalo (the founder of the Missionaries of the Precious Blood), St. Faustina (the visionary who inspired the devotion to Divine Mercy), St. Ignatius Loyola and St. Francis Xavier – pray for her!

Click here to read Alia Sisson My Year of Miracles