Rite of Election brings hope to Catholic Church

The Rite of Election closes the period of the Catechumenate, when those choosing to join the Catholic faith pledge fidelity and begin a period of purification and enlightenment.

On March 9, catechumens and candidates joined Bishop Michael W. Fisher at the altar of St. Joseph Cathedral for the Rite of Election Mass.

Catechumens are non-baptized who will receive the sacraments of baptism, confirmation and Communion on the Easter vigil. Candidates are baptized Christians looking to come into full communion with the Catholic Church.

Bishop Fisher, the main celebrant at the Mass, mentioned Pope Francis declaring this a Jubilee Year of Hope.

“You reflect that great hope for our Church and for our ministries,” Bishop Fisher said addressing those joining the Church. “We give thanks for you and the faith that you bring and the enthusiasm.”

Bishop Fisher said one of his greatest joys as a bishop was to bring his father into the Catholic faith, confirming him, and giving him his first Communion.

“It was such a wonderful experience, and what he brought, certainly to our family after 30 years of marriage to my mother, was a great enthusiasm and fire, a fire for the faith. My mother was a cradle Irish Catholic, and she had been through many years of Catholic school, and again she was a consummate teacher to us on our faith growing up, but we also received from my father a great love of Scripture and a great enthusiasm that he brought from his Baptist faith into the Catholic faith when he became a Catholic. It was a wonderful joy.”

In the Act of the Apostles, St. Luke wrote of the growing number of believers in the early Church during a time of  persecution and adversity, something Bishop Fisher sees today.

“It was the joy that they saw in the hearts and the faces of those who believed, those who were coming, who wanted that joy. And we see that in you this day, as you come forward to be a part of our faith. This afternoon, the Church rejoices, the Church in this Diocese of Buffalo rejoices and embraces this group representing men and women from across the diocese who, following the order of Christian initiation of adults, begin their Lenten preparation for baptism at Easter. You come requesting to be baptized and to be welcomed to the family of Jesus, which is the Church.

“For all of us, it is a time for us to be joyful for you, but also for us to walk with you and to reflect on our own baptism and our own sacraments of initiation and how God has called us into a deeper relationship with the Lord.”

Bishop Fisher reminded the faithful that Lent is not a time to simply give up candy or other vices. It is a time to renew your faith.

“This time of your purification,” he said, “this time of your preparation, this time of your prayer, this time of your fasting, this time as you again embrace that call in your experiencing, in your soul and in your hearts and time to immerse yourself in the Word of God, to feed yourself with God’s Word in Scripture, so that you too at Easter as you embrace the fullness of the faith and be fully nourished with His body, His blood, His divinity, His everything. The Lord wants to give you so much and the best is yet to come.”

Following Mass, Jason Rodriguez, acting as spokesperson for his family, explained why all five members joined the Catholic Church. It had been so long since Rodriguez had been to a church service, he couldn’t even remember what denomination it was.

“I honestly don’t remember it’s been that long, maybe I was like 7, 8 years old,” he said. “It’s been a very long time since I’ve been anywhere near churches and stuff like that, so I just wanted to come back to it.”

Now, with the encouragement of his wife, Ashley, the entire family reached out to St. Joseph Parish in Fredonia and began the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults process.

He has trouble putting into words the exact reason he wanted to return to a faith, which is telling of a need for something.

“It just felt like, you know, my wife and I just day to day, there was just, there’s just no sense of, I don’t know how to think of the word, but, no, like, no point to like … but it just felt like we needed some kind of guidance and some kind of something other than just our local politicians. A higher power, I guess you could say. You know someone with the utmost say, the final word, the final whatever you want to call it. So that’s why my wife and I went to the Catholic Church.”

He and his wife brought along their young children Liliana, Julian and Veya.

The Rite of Election coincides with the first Sunday of Lent. At this rite, upon the testimony of sponsors and catechists and the catechumens’ affirmation of their intention to join the Church, the Church makes its “election” of these catechumens to receive the Sacraments of Initiation. Bishop Fisher inscribed their names in the Book of the Elect as a pledge of fidelity. This period concludes with the celebration of the sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil.