The thread about the Rite of Election got me remembering things from my RCIA experience and I thought I'd post a question about it. I have the impression that what I went through was not mainstream, but I'd still love to have some light shed on it. First, the parish I was attending at the time was a "Life Teen" parish (a big one in our area), and they had a special RCIA track just for teenagers. We had our meetings on Sundays during the Life Teen Mass, after we were dismissed. For the most part I think I went through all the standard rites etc. but when we got to the scrutinies we did something sort of different. The week prior to the scrutinies they asked us to write down anonymously on pieces of paper all the sins we were struggling with. At the time I thought it was just an examination of conscience and we would do something with them later. They sure did! They collected them and took them to the Life Teen music folks who made a litany out of them. When we were called up for the scrutinies we were asked to kneel down with our sponsors behind us, and they actually sang the litany with our sins and prayers for deliverance from them. I was really shocked at the time that they would publicly list out our sins for the entire church, although of course no names were named, but it was all of us in the RCIT group. I didn't know in advance that that would happen, and I was really affected by it. They did this for all three Sundays. Anyway, I guess I am just wondering if this is a remotely standard practice or not? It was powerful, it still affects me to this day, but it seems like our parish was a bit out of the ordinary in that we did dismissals and this sort of thing. Anyway, thoughts appreciated, sorry to ramble.
