Order of Christian Initiation of Adults: Prayers of the Second Scrutiny

This week in our nerdy journey we take up the prayers of the Second Scrutiny rite in the OCIA/RCIA. As Rhoda indicated last week, “our goal is to set forth some principles for making sound theological and pastoral decisions when borrowing rites and prayers from a variety of sources. Our nerdiness is earnest and with good purpose.” Just like the catechumenate itself!

The Second Scrutiny, often on the Fourth Sunday in Lent, follows the Presentation of the Creed. As we saw with the First Scrutiny, the orientation and purpose of the scrutinies in the modern RCIA is for the elect to “renounce sin and evil and profess faith in the Triune God at their baptism” (Guide for Celebrating Christian Initiation with Adults, 58). The Second Scrutiny follows the same pattern as the first (see the first post in this series for that pattern). The gospel reading for the 4^th Sunday in Lent is the account of Jesus’ healing of the man born blind, John 9:1-41. The Second Scrutiny in light of this gospel reading emphasizes to the elect the ways in which blindness might affect them and where they need the light of Christ “so that they might see the truth” (Guide, 60). Seeing the truth, who is the Light of the world, is central to the conversion experience facilitated through the catechumenate. It leads them toward enlivened faith in the Triune God throughout the catechumenate culminating in God’s enlightening them in the baptismal water of their Jordan. These prayers for enlightenment direct the Elect to see their liberation from sin, evil, and the power of Satan in Christ Jesus. How do these prayers facilitate the Elect’s participation in the story told in John 9 as those born unable to see the light who are now led into the kingdom of light?

Here are the texts of both. The first prayer is the lead collect and the second prayer is the actual prayer of exorcism. Major differences are highlighted in italicized bold.

1. Light and Blindness: The man born blind and his encounter with Jesus is the focus of the story. Earthly light is unable to penetrate his sight. But his more profound inability to see is that he cannot see the Light of the world, Jesus the Christ. And so it is for the Elect. They are entering the kingfom of light just as he did. While both the OCIA and RCIA texts communicate this, in the first prayer the OCIA does it in a very clunky mechanistic way: “Granted and come to” versus “Led.” There is a simplistic elegance in God the Father leading the catechumens to the Light. In the second prayer the change from “world” to “people” has both positive and negative repercussions. The conversion of humanity is at the forefront of Jesus’ mission. But ultimately it leads to the enlightenment of the whole world.
2. Faith and Kingdom: Lutheran proclivities shine through with the juxtaposition of these images. Entrance into the kingdom of light is through the sight of faith. In the OCIA the language implies that faith is the beginning of that entry: “through this faith to come to the kingdom of your light.” The RCIA implies that entrance into the kingdom is purely and always by faith: “you led the man born blind to the kingdom of light through the gift of faith in your Son.”
3. Freedom and Deceits: The implications of enlightenment that leads the catechumens into the kingdom of light is that they are free from bondage in the darkness of sin, evil, and Satan. That is the ritual intention of the scrutiny rites: to effect that deliverance. Here the OCIA better captures the nature of the bondage: “freed from deceits.” However, the RCIA captures better the nihilistic age in which we live: “from the false values.” Make your pick depending upon what you are trying to emphasize. In the second prayer the OCIA is simply much more cumbersome: “free all who are oppressed beneath the yoke of the father of lies.” The RCIA is much more direct: “free those who are enslaved by the father of lies.” There is a simple earnestness of the church on behalf of the catechumens in the RCIA version.
4. Delighting in joy versus Rejoicing: Here it is apparent how the traditional collect form imposes a certain clumsiness on the language. The RCIA concludes prayer #2 with the words “Let them rejoice in your light.” A result of entering the kingdom of light is pure rejoicing, in very active terms. I am reminded of the redeemed in C.S. Lewis’ The Great Divorce. There is pure rejoicing at being IN the light that streams from the city of God. Because the OCIA prayer has to make this a subordinate clause, the direct sense of the active and intensive activity of rejoicing is lost: “that, delighting in the joy of your light.” Delighting in the light is certainly delightful, but it is not the same as full-throated rejoicing. Granted, both will be a result of the entrance of the catechumens into the kingdom of light and of all believers into the eternal kingdom of light.

Admittedly these assessments are subtle. But they matter because the rhetoric of faith matters in the ritual moment. And that ritual moment is that all of us might be set firmly in God’s truth, even Jesus Christ our Lord, and be “children of the light forever.”