About the Neo Catechumenal Way

concrete community which acts as a mirror, to show each one clearly his own reality, thus calling them to conversion.
In this labour, the community needs a word to enlighten it about its reality and to help it. Thus it celebrates the Word of God once a week, on appropriate themes - water, lamb, bride etc.- as an initiation into the language of the bible. The Sunday Eucharist is celebrated on Saturday evenings.2 Once a month the sacrament of Penance is celebrated. On one Sunday every month there is a retreat to give everyone the opportunity to freely talk about their own experience of the Word, to say how much it has influenced their lives: at work, in the family, in sexual matters, in social relationships, in connection with money, etc.
After about two years, the catechists who watched over the beginning of the community return, and in a three day retreat, prepare it for the first scrutiny for the passage to the catechumenate. In this scrutiny, in the presence of the bishop, the first part of their Baptism is put before the people, so that they can say `Amen' and so that the grace that this sacrament conferred on them may grow and work. Thus the door of the catechumenate is opened to them.

Second stage: the post-baptismal catechumenate

The catechumenate consists of two periods. During the first one, the community perseveres with the Word, the Eucharist, and brotherly communion, experiencing the power of Christ, who leads the Neocatechumens to put God at the centre of their lives, gradually stripping themselves, but without effort, of all idols (money, career, affections), while they keep watch, like the virgins waiting for the bridegroom. After about another year, the catechists return to prepare the scrutiny for the final entry into the catechumenate, so that if the first scrutiny could be compared to a door opening, at the second scrutiny the door closes. The catechumens are now initiated by the catechists into deep and daily individual prayer, with the presentation of the psalms to them. Then, through the Traditio and Reditio Symboli, they discover how the Baptism that was once given to them by the Church makes them people who are sent, witnessing to their faith where they work, in their families, and above all by working in the parish in an apostolate made explicit in the announcement of the Gospel, two by two, in the houses of their neighbourhood, and in the work of parish catechesis, etc.
        At this stage of the Way, the members of the community become responsible for transmitting their faith to their children. So three kinds of meetings take place: one in the family with the participation of the children, another meeting is in the community, and finally there are meetings of all the parish communities for the great feasts, like the Passover Vigil. We have discovered that the greatest joy and the centre of our life is in the celebration of Easter, in a gtheir lives: at work, in the family, in sexual matters, in social relationships, in connection with money, etc.
After about two years, the catechists who watched over the beginning of the community return, and in a three day retreat, prepare it for the first scrutiny for the passage to the catechumenate. In this scrutiny, in the presence of the bishop, the first part of their Baptism is put before the people, so that they can say `Amen' and so that the grace that this sacrament conferred on them may grow and work. Thus the door of the catechumenate is opened to them.