RCIA and church-bashing

I was able to attend my first RCIA course evening last week and I was delighted that my wife was able to come along and support me. As the priest I have been meeting with predicted, I found the content a little bit basic - a study of the Resurrection and a short session on 'One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church' - but it was interesting to see the variety of people also attending. The truth is, having worked through some of the Catechism, having read the Compendium to the Catechism and also digested other papal documents I don't really need any convincing.

It was quite wonderful to listen to the Deacon who was doing the presentations though. He was 90 years old, converted from Anglicanism in 1960 and was ordained deacon 25 years ago. His life experience, wisdom and gentle approach was perfect for the session.

However, at the end there was a time of open discussion and one lady - who completed the RCIa last year and was accompanying her daughter this time through - engaged in a certain amount of vocal criticism for what she saw as the spiritual 'deadness' in the Church of England. In fairness, the Deacon quickly closed this down with a comment about not bashing other churches and how important ecumenism was, but for wife the damage was done. She is currently completely committed to the Church of England and found this rather upsetting. Not so much because of the C of E, but because it displayed a sectarianism that she wasn't expecting.

By the time we were able to sit down with our Priest the following Thursday things had calmed down somewhat and we had a fruitful time talking through various issues with him.

This weekend we are attending the local cathedral for Candlemas (or the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord as I think it is now called). It is the first time in around a decade that the feast day has fallen on a Sunday and we plan to take some candles along to be blessed.