becoming catholic
RCIA | THE rite of christian initiation of adults
Whether you’re thinking about getting baptized or you’re coming from another Christian community, or you simply never finished the Sacraments of Initiation, RCIA is the answer! RCIA is a program of instruction and formation to prepare you to live as a Catholic. The Catholic Center partners with St. Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village to offer this program to students. To learn more, click below!
The Sacraments of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments are "efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions." (CCC 1131)
There are seven Sacraments: Baptism, Confirmation or Chrismation, Eucharist, Penance, Anointing of the Sick, Holy Orders, and Matrimony. (CCC 1113)
WHY the Catholic Faith?
“God, infinitely perfect and blessed in himself, in a plan of sheer goodness freely created man to make him share in his own blessed life. For this reason, at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength. He calls together all men, scattered and divided by sin, into the unity of his family, the Church. To accomplish this, when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son as Redeemer and Savior. In his Son and through him, he invites men to become, in the Holy Spirit, his adopted children and thus heirs of his blessed life.
“So that this call should resound throughout the world, Christ sent forth the apostles he had chosen, commissioning them to proclaim the gospel: ‘Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.’ Strengthened by this mission, the apostles ‘went forth and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the message by the signs that attended it.’
“Those who with God's help have welcomed Christ's call and freely responded to it are urged on by love of Christ to proclaim the Good News everywhere in the world. This treasure, received from the apostles, has been faithfully guarded by their successors. All Christ's faithful are called to hand it on from generation to generation, by professing the faith, by living it in fraternal sharing, and by celebrating it in liturgy and prayer.”
-Catechism of the Catholic Church | Prologue I-III