An Exploration of the Communal Enactment of the RCIA Scrutinies

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The celebration of the scrutinies in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) could well be described as the lifetime journey of conversion encapsulated in ritualized prayer. Unfortunately, these intense rites, usually celebrated at the conclusion of the Liturgy of the Word on the third, fourth, and fifth Sundays of Lent, are also often some of the most misunderstood and poorly enacted in contemporary liturgical praxis, at least in the U.S. context. The scrutinies’ purpose is to call people to recognize their need for ongoing conversion. Helping leaders of liturgical prayer and others to avoid misunderstanding and malpractice of them—two characteristics that are often integrally interrelated in contemporary liturgical celebration in general—is this essay’s purpose. The scrutinies are offered to “enlighten” both the elect and the assembly about the need to name realities of sin and brokenness in our lives, communities, and the world, while recognizing the power of God at work in Jesus Christ to transform these hurtful situations into the beginnings of liberation and salvation. They are thus ritual acts that are a deepening of the conversion experience that each of the elect is experiencing through prayer, self-searching, reflection on the Scriptures,