Many have grown up in this society with no Christian memory. Recent immigration has brought many people from other cultures and religions to our land. Our American culture in recent years bears many similarities with the setting of the first three centuries. It is for both the renewal of the church and evangelistic outreach that we ought to consider how to go about planning for the season of Lent. Reviving the Catechumenate For guidance in such renewal and outreach, the practice of the early church is instructive.
Initiation is a better word.
And process is a better concept, since Christians are in a state of becoming their whole life long. Sin and death, Living Water and the New Birth, the vision of faith, the life of service to God and neighbor, and the participation in the resurrection already now by faith which empowers the living and certain hope of the resurrection of the body at the Last Day-these are the fundamentals that form and shape the Christian. Make it obvious that there is no absolution on this day, but only the desire for a good Lent. Midweek services could profitably be used for catechesis using the catechism. A series on the Divine Service to help both the catechumens and the faithful learn that Christian worship is primarily a present action of God through Word and Sacrament.