Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, April 14, 1990 TAG: 9004140085
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: FRANCES STEBBINS CORRESPONDENT
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Ely and Berger will be among more than 100 adults in the Roanoke, New River and Lynchburg region completing the process known as the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults who wish to join the contemporary Catholic church.
It's a new-yet-old process in which people enter one of the most tradition-steeped Christian churches.
Ely, 34 and the father of two, will be immersed in the baptismal pool at the entrance of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Church in Salem.
As a never-baptized adult, he is known as a "catechumen."
Berger, a 29-year-old stockbroker, will become a Catholic at Our Lady of Nazareth Church in Roanoke County. She grew up in a Protestant denomination, and because she was baptized as an infant, she will be received into her new church without undergoing that rite again. She is among the "candidates."
Since September, when they began the initiation process, Ely and Berger have participated in weekly intensive seminars at their respective churches. In the seminars, they have learned the doctrines and practices of modern Catholicism.
Berger and Ely each have been "scrutinized" - and consequently approved and congratulated - by the diocesan bishop in recent weeks and are now known as "the elect." In recent interviews each said the commitment of preparatory time the initiation requires has been worthwhile.
And like most adults who make a denominational transition, both began the process after marrying Catholics who have a strong commitment to the church.
Ely was reared in Connecticut in a family with only casual church involvement. He occasionally attended Catholic services with Colleen Conley, whom he met in college. The Elys married in 1980 and their son, Jacob, was baptized Catholic two years later.
When job migrations brought the Elys to Salem three years ago, they say they found Perpetual Help an especially friendly and effective church. Even though Kevin had never been baptized, he was invited to become a Scripture reader at Mass, although he could not take the bread and wine with his wife and son.
The Catholic church has a practice of closed communion, at which those who have not been baptized in the church may not take communion.
"That did make me feel left out," Ely said. "As time went on, I just felt ready to take this step of inclusion in the community."
Kevin will not be the only Ely to be baptized Sunday. His daughter, Dana, born in September, will be baptized on Easter Sunday a few hours after her father.
Over at Our Lady of Nazareth, Berger will be one of more than a dozen adults who will take their first Catholic Communion tonight.
Reared in West Virginia in an active Episcopal family, she said her parents' divorce had a chilling effect on her participation in the church.
But when she met and married Tom Berger, a South Carolina Catholic with a close family, "I felt warmed by the way I was received by them."
Berger said, she likes the emphasis on lifetime marriage and family solidarity her new church encourages. "The excitement [the initiation process] has brought to our marriage is a big plus," she added.
She also noted that the volunteer duty required of all candidates has given her an education in social justice. Berger served the Roanoke Area Ministries day shelter for the homeless and the Free Clinic.
Marie Love, minister of education at Perpetual Help, coordinates the Salem church's initiation process.
She explained that each potential member must be sponsored by an active member of the church, other than a spouse. The sponsors attend the weekly training sessions as well as retreats and services at significant times in Advent and Lent as the time for the Easter vigil nears.
Love said that initiation is the way the earliest Christians announced their devotion to Jesus. Christ himself, she pointed out, received adult baptism.
The practice of infant baptism began after the Roman emperor Constantine legalized Christianity, about 300 A.D. After that, the universal European church encouraged families to make everyone an official member as early in life as possible. Baptism came to be equated with salvation.
But in earliest Christian times, catechumens were taken into the church the night before the celebration of the resurrection. Modern Easter services in Catholic, Episcopal and Lutheran churches now include a Saturday night vigil at which receiving new members is especially appropriate, Love said.
After sundown, a service with four parts begins with the lighting of candles, preferably from a fire outside the church.
This fire, transferred to candles of worshipers as they enter the church, symbolizes the coming of the light of Easter into the darkness of Good Friday.
In a series of Bible readings, the heritage of both Jews and Christians is linked through the recounting of God's love from the time of creation to the gift of Jesus.
At this point, those who have been prepared for baptism, such as the initiation groups, are confirmed or baptized. They then are eligible to take Communion with their families and friends.
Love pointed out that the long process of preparation in which the candidates and catechumens share their lives in their small group simulates as much as possible the relationship Jesus had with his disciples and that his early followers enjoyed.
"We have returned to our roots of the first Easters," she said.
***CORRECTION***
Published correction ran on April 19, 1990\ Correction Because of an editing error, a Sunday story on the Roman Catholic Church's Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults incorrectly said Kevin Ely was to be baptized on Easter Sunday. He was baptized Saturday night. Ely's daughter, Dana, is 4 months old. Due to another editing error, her birthdate was incorrectly listed.
Memo: correction