Contact

We really hope to hear from you! Do contact us!

Whether you are keen to join us, or have some questions to ask or simply want us to pray for you ... we will be more than glad to help you out.

If you wish to ask a faith question and remain anonymous at the same time, you may fill out the email as askRCIY@gmail.com and we will answer your question via the blog on the Home page. Do give us some time to reply, we got regular lives you know!

About

We are the Rite of Christian Initiation of Youths (RCIY) from the Catholic Church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM).

Quite a mouthful huh.

In other words, we are a group of youths within the church of IHM and our mission is to introduce God to other youths, like youself! We do this through a journey. A journey to discover life and to discover God: the RCIY journey.

The RCIY Journey

The RCIY journey can be compared with the one you made from toddler to teen, we start you off with the most basic and fundamental questions:

"Who am I?",
"What is my place here in this world?"
"Who is God?"
"Is there a God?"

As time passes you will learn more about yourself, about God, about the Catholic faith; You will find youself growing, the way you grew from a baby to teen.

The journey is made of weekly sessions that consists of a bunch of friends coming together to share about their faith stories and experiences. You will not be alone, of course. Dedicated catholic youths (known as "sponsors") will be your traveling companion through the entire journey. They are committed to be your friend and guide.

Our sessions are held on Sunday mornings in IHM (IHM is located in the Serangoon district).

The RCIY Team

We are a bunch of happy, friendly, sometimes cranky, but altogether fun-loving group of youths; We come from all sorts of backgrounds, shapes, sizes, levels of kookiness etc. We have one thing in common though... we have a burning desire to introduce God to everyone! (and to make many friends along the way)



Next... Go to the RCIY Team page to see our profiles.
Our Faith would show you what we believe in.

Our Faith

Who am I?
Where do I come from?
What is my purpose in life?

Are you bothered about such questions? At some point in time of our lives, we may find ourselves asking, “Who am I?” “Am I alive by mere chance?”

You are not an accident. You are alive because God wanted to create you.

You were loved into being.

If there was no God, we would all be “accidents,” the result of a random dice roll by evolution. Life would have no real purpose, no destination to dream about. Everything would end with death. There would be no meaning … no significance.

But there is a God who made you for a reason, and because of this, your life has profound meaning.

God created you to love Him and to love others. He gave you dignity by shaping you after his own likeness.

God considers you to be of great value. He takes personal interest in knowing you completely.

He has a path planned specially for everyone of us, a path that will lead us to love and to Him.

However Man is unable to fully understand and return to God because of sin.

All have sinned and are deprived of the glory of God. - Romans 3:23

To bridge the gap between God and Man, God took the form of a man, Jesus. He came to be with us, to teach us and finally to suffer and die for us.

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. - Romans 6:23

He was tortured and put to death by us, the people He loved so much.
However all was not lost, as within three days of his death, He rose up again, returning to heaven in glory.

With His sacrifice, God showed us how much He loved us. He also removed the sin that is blocking us from Him, opening the way towards Him again.

All He asks from us is to open our hearts to Him.

You have tried many other things in your search for happiness; why not try opening your heart to Jesus, right now?

Come to Me with your misery and your sins, with your troubles and needs, and with all your longing to be loved. Behold I stand at the door of your heart and knock. Will you open and let Me in?

Sponsor/Catechist Recruitment

Hello!

If you're here, you're probably at least a biiiiiit interested in either being a sponsor or a catechist for the next RCIY journey (2009 - 2011).

So what roles do these two play?

A sponsor is a companion to the inquirer (someone who is interested in the Catholic faith) throughout the entire journey. Many inquirers come in unsure and seeking - the sponsor is there to reassure the inquirer and to be a friend to the inquirer. The sponsor will (try to) answer questions from the inquirer, share about his/her own struggles/faith stories to the inquirer, basically be the inquirer's personal connection to the parish.

A catechist's role is to show the inquirer what the Catholic faith is all about. He/She has the 'teacher' role. The catechist will be in charge of conducting the weekly sessions - to present the teachings of the Church to the inquirers.


FAQ:

Why don't I see any catechists in the RCIY Team page?
Previously, sponsors did the role of both catechist and sponsor, thus everyone is called a 'sponsor'.

I'm not very good in xxx or yyy... can I still be a sponsor/ catechist?
Sure, why not! Though we recognize that people have different skillsets and personalities that gravitate them towards certain roles, we won't pigeon hole you to a certain role. There will be ample training provided for both sponsor and catechist, so don't worry!

What is the commitment level like?
At the basic level, it's every Sunday for the sessions. Then we also have other activities like monthly meetings, training sessions once every few weeks and prayer meets once every few weeks.

Any other questions, just contact us! If you are interested, fill up the form below and we will get back to you soon!

Resources

Truth, is sadly not a strong virtue of the internet. There is a lot of misinformation on the internet regarding the Catholic faith. These are spread by people who want to sow discord in the church and to promote their own biased, flawed ideas. Some even masquerade as "Catholic" websites to confuse everyone.

Fortunately there are some websites which do not fall under this category. They provide a wealth of information regarding the faith and the church. Some recommended ones are:

The New American Bible
This is the New American Bible (not to be confused with The New American Standard Bible, a protestant bible) which is fully online for your use daily.

The Complete Catholic Handbook
This is a very useful handbook for Catholics that tries to answer almost any question that a Catholic can ever think of with regards to faith. The answers are kept short and direct, making the whole handbook very readable.

Catholic Answers
This site focuses on core teachings of the church that may be difficult to understand or controversial to the outside world. It is goes more in depth into these topics as compared to the Catholic Handbook.

Catholic Online
This is more of a portal that deals with anything Catholic.