An interesting part of my forty-four years of teaching high school full-time was the time I spent as a “mentor in the craft of teaching” for beginning faculty. Their enthusiasm and often their anxiety were palpable. My job was not to help them learn how to present the curriculum; it was rather to listen to and help them process their stories of what had been going on in their classroom. With me as sounding board, they were able to understand much better all that had been involved in a particular, challenging incident—and to discern its implications for the future.

The same kind of reflection and pondering is meant to occur in the fourth and quite crucial phase of the catechumenal process. Traditionally called “mystagogy” from the Greek for “leading through the mysteries/sacraments,” its purpose is twofold. First, it is meant to enrich for the participants in the process their understanding of what they experienced during Baptism or Affirmation. Second, it is meant to help them see the implications for their ongoing life as Christian disciples—and in some denominations to prepare them for the Affirmation of Christian Vocation at Pentecost.

Yet the “mainline” denominations have very few resources for this portion of the process. And so, several years ago the eastern conversation of Journey to Baptismal Living spent over a year devising an integrated catechetical and liturgical program for this phase. Just like the period of immediate preparation, the suggestions offered there try to open the minds and hearts of the participants to the work of the Spirit by integrating those two components in Sunday worship.

Here I would like to give a brief explanation of the principles that guided the creation of those suggestions so that practitioners might be better able to adapt the material to their own congregational situation.

First Principle

The process of reflecting upon the past and pondering its implications for the future is founded upon the Sunday lectionary.

The first four Sundays offer Gospels that call us to reflection on how the risen Lord and his people are connected: in the acceptance of faith (2nd Sunday), in the sharing of the eucharistic Meal (3rd), and in trusting the guidance of the Good Shepherd (4th). All these passages about relationships offer insights into what celebrating Baptism or Affirmation could imply. The 5th, 6th, and 7th Sundays all have Gospels selected from John’s Last Supper Discourse, the most extended description of the meaning of a life of discipleship in the New Testament.

Second Principle

The catechetical process described there is very influenced by experiential learning.

The first session is outlined as a walk-through of the rites of Baptism and Affirmation so that the very bodies of the participants, encountering again the gestures and words of those rites, might come to appreciate what they experienced. The second recalls the words and gestures of the Eucharist—and suggests that on the 3rd Sunday the participants should take on the roles of reader or distributor or usher, so that through actual service in worship they might enact the commitment just made. The subsequent sessions suggest that both the Gospel and the Acts readings be discussed in the light of how they describe an ideal Christian community and of how the Spirit has distributed a diversity of gifts. More experiences of service to the larger community are also appropriate for this phase.

The foundational presupposition of mystagogy is that the Spirit has been at work in distributing gifts to everyone through our share in Christ’s death and resurrection. The challenge to the members of the congregation and the catechumenal team is to help the participants, both before and after the Easter celebration, grow in knowledge and love of our Savior and in concrete Christian discipleship. Hopefully these suggestions will help the participants to “bear fruit in abundance.”