Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion
- Sunday, March 6, 3 p.m.
- St. John the Baptist Church, 209 South St., Waunakee
- Light reception to follow
WAUNAKEE — Facing Summit Ave. in St. Paul, Minn., the University of St. Thomas boasts these magnificent arches in the Collegiate Gothic style.
I marched through the arches with my classmates during freshman orientation, into the heart of campus.
As a senior, I marched out through those arches on graduation day, and took pictures with my family and friends.
Passing through the arches was a symbolic ritual to the start and end of my college journey — a lot of memories from those years blur together, but I will never forget marching through the arches because of the distinctive ritual and what it represented in my life.
A liturgical rite
The Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion reminds me of the first time I walked through the arches.
It is a liturgical rite that gathers non-baptized men and women who have decided to live a life of Christian discipleship and marks the beginning of the final period of more intense preparation for the sacraments of initiation.
Like almost everything in Catholicism, there is significance and meaning behind it, one just has to seek it out.
Unlike marching through the arches on graduation day, these catechumens will not “graduate” when they receive the sacraments at the Easter Vigil.
They are called, like each one of us, to live holy, engaged members of the Church in the world in the hopes of someday obtaining eternal life.
Being ready
On Sunday, March 6, the first Sunday of Lent, the catechumens (those who have not been Baptized) and candidates (those who have been baptized but seek to receive the Sacraments of First Eucharist and Confirmation) from around the diocese will gather with the Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison, priests, deacons, godparents, and catechists at St. John the Baptist in Waunakee (or a cathedral in any other diocese).
There, their godparents testify to the bishop that these people are ready to become full members of the Church.
The Word of God is proclaimed, the bishop preaches to these men and women, then invites these elect, these chosen, to come forward and sign their names in the Book of the Elect.
The candidates who have been baptized are called to a deeper time of conversion during the weeks of Lent and will be blessed in order to receive the graces to do so.
In closing, I would like to share one particularly coherent prayer from the Rite of Election that Bishop Hying will pray:
“Father of love and power, it is your will to establish everything in Christ and to draw us into his all-embracing love. Guide these chosen ones: Strengthen them in their vocation, build them into the kingdom of your Son, and seal them with the Spirit of your promise. We ask this through Christ our Lord.”
How succinctly and perfectly this prayer requests these catechumens and candidates need for conversion this Lent.
Let us keep them in prayer as they enter into this next step of their journey towards Christian initiation.
Amy Yanzer is the associate director of the Office of Worship in the Diocese of Madison.