October 8, 2025

By Father William Muench
NCC columnist

Catholic parish sacramental programs – First Communion and Confirmation – have begun in every parish. There is one other – one that I am involved in – that is the program that prepares adults who are not Catholic or not baptized to become Catholics. This program has been called the RCIA, the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults. This name has now been changed to OCIA, the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults. This name reflects the process’s comprehensive, multi-rite, liturgical structure. The word “order” reflects the idea that the initiation process is a whole collection of various rites, not just a single ritual.

This program is a good exercise for the presenters, as it is for inquirers. A presenter must review and investigate their own faith and its meaning. Let me share with you the last class I was involved in. The subject was Revelation. We believe that God reaches out with his message, with his concern for all – for Catholics and for all others.

We believe that Jesus came to this world of ours to bring us to the Father and to help us understand God’s message for us. Jesus then commissioned his apostles to preach the Gospel of the Lord to this whole world. The apostles presented Jesus and his teachings and parables to all who would listen. This we call Sacred Tradition. Later, these apostles, at the prompting of the Holy Spirit, committed the message of salvation to writing. This is the Sacred Scriptures. This Bible is important. It is a sacred book in this Catholic Church. It reveals to us the Lord’s message. Those words and teachings are also part of our worship services.

The apostles then left bishops as their successors – bringing Jesus and the Lord’s message to all throughout the centuries. They would continue Sacred Tradition. This is God’s Revelation – the Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture.

Jesus sent his apostles out to evangelize before the Scriptures were written. Jesus’ missionary activity continues to this day through priests and deacons and religious sisters and lay Catholic men and women leaving their homes and going to every part of our world. The following of Jesus has always involved going out to others. Jesus asks us to follow him for the mission of transforming this world. The Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scriptures are like a mirror – bringing Jesus to the world and leading others to contemplate our God.

The mission of the apostles – apostles of all time – is a spiritual one: to preach repentance and the coming of the kingdom of God. But it also brings physical and mental healing. Christianity is concerned with people’s spiritual well-being and with their physical well-being. In other words, it’s concerned with the whole person. God is constantly reaching out to us.

So, our Catholic Church continues to bring Jesus to this world through the reading of Scripture and thought the teaching of many by their words and by other Catholics by their witness as disciples of the Lord – today’s Sacred Tradition. Throughout the centuries the Popes of the Catholic Church have called Ecumenical Councils, calling together Bishops throughout the world to take a serious look at the Catholic Church’s present state and how well the Church reaches the people of the world, how well the Church influences and leads the Catholics throughout the world. Recently Pope John XXlll transformed the Catholic Church and how the Church makes a difference in today’s world.