About the Neo Catechumenal Way

Itinerant catechists

Very soon requests from parish priests in other dioceses gave rise to the charisma of itinerant catechists. They leave their own communities for a certain time, and make themselves available to take the Neocatechumenate to the dioceses who ask for it.
Many teams of itinerant catechists, after an experience of evangelization in their own country, have been called by the Lord to open the way in other nations, from whom numerous requests have come - from bishops and parish priests - particularly since 1972 onward.
        One of the greatest experiences we have today, and one for which we bless the Lord, is to see how God allows us to announce the Gospel in so many parts of the world. And not only do we proclaim the kerygma, but a community-based way for the gestation of faith appears, through which, with time, the parish can pass from pastoral work concentrated on the sacraments to one of evangelization.

A concrete way of Evangelizing those who are far away
The Neocatechumenal Way is lived out within the existing structure of the parish, and in communion with the bishop, in small communities each composed of people who are different in age, social status, outlook and culture. It is not a group formed spontaneously, neither is it an association, nor a spiritual movement, nor an elite within the parish. Rather, it is a group of people who wish to rediscover and to live Christian life to the full; to live the essential consequences of their Baptism, by means of a Neocatechumenate divided into different stages, like that of the early Church, but adapted to their condition as baptized persons. As a consequence, these communities have the mission of being, at the center of the parish, the sign and sacrament of the missionary Church (Synod of Bishops); of opening a concrete way of evangelizing the `far- away', by giving - in the measure to which faith has been developed - the signs that call pagans to conversions; that is love in the dimension of the cross, and unity. `Just as I have loved you, you must also love one another. By this love you have for one another, everyone will know that you are my disciples.' (John 12, 34-35). `May they all be one. Father, may they all be one in us, as you are in me and I am in you, so that the world may believe it was you who sent me.' (John 17, 21).

Bringing the Council to the parishes

In the light of the 2nd Vatican Ecumenical Council, the Neocatechumenal Communities seemed to us a concrete way of rebuilding the Church in the form of small communities which are the visible body of the risen Christ in the world. They do not impose themselves; they consider it a duty not to destroy anything, but to respect everything. They present themselves as the fruit of a Church in renewal, one which tells its Fathers that they have been fruitful, for the communities have been born of them.

Charismas and ministries

       

Where the experience develops, one catches a glimpse of a new structure for the local Church, formed of small Christian communities like an organic body which, in the measure in which faith blossoms within her, brings charismas to maturity and requires ministries to help, to serve and to make such a renewal possible, since they are the means