The Seventeenth Sunday in Ordinary Time – July 27, 2025
Today you might consider celebrating either the Order of Reception into the Full Communion of the Catholic Church of Those Already Validly Baptized or the Rite for Entrance into the Catechumenate (for unbaptized adults and children of catechetical age). Both rites are in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults.
The Order of Reception is the culminating rite for a person baptized into a separate Christian community who now wishes to become Catholic. As those who have “already been brought into the Church and become children of God by Baptism” (OCIA 400), they already address God as “Father” and recognize Jesus as the one in whom we pray. After reciting the creed and making a statement of belief in the Catholic Church, the candidate is received then confirmed and welcomed to the eucharistic table.
It is not the seeker but God who always acts first, knocking on each person’s heart, waiting to be let in.
In the Entrance into the Catechumenate, unbaptized seekers publicly declare their intention to follow Christ, and the church accepts their desire. One reason communities might choose to celebrate this rite today is the Gospel reading’s reference to knocking on doors.
Unfortunately, some misunderstand this rite and require the seeker themselves to knock on the church doors to be let in. This is nowhere in the rite and distorts its purpose. It is not the seeker but God who always acts first, knocking on each person’s heart, waiting to be let in.
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