After the announcement of the Kerygma, communities are born in the parish, brothers who live this Christian initiation. Progressively, among them begin to appear the signs of faith, unity and love for the enemy. This moral miracle will call those who are far away to encounter Jesus Christ. The Christian community will bring the love of God to all men.
“You not only do the apostolate by being what you are, with an incitement to rediscover and recover the true, authentic and effective Christian values, that otherwise could remain almost diluted in ordinary life. No! You put them in evidence, you make them emerge, and you give them a truly exemplary moral splendor because, well, with this Christian spirit, you live this Neocatechumenal community …
How much joy and how much hope you give us with your presence and your activity! We know that in your communities you work together to understand and develop the riches of your Baptism and the consequences of your belonging to Christ …
Living and promoting this awakening is what you call a form of “post-Baptism” that can renew in today’s Christian communities the effects of maturity and deepening that were happening in the early Church in the period of preparation for Baptism …
You do it after: whether before or after, I would say,it is secondary. The fact is that you look at the authenticity, to the fullness, to the coherence, to the sincerity of the Christian life.”
St. Paul VI, May 8, 1974
“The praxis and norms of the Church have introduced the sacred custom of conferring baptism to newborns, concentrating in the baptismal rite its preparation that, in the early days, when society was deeply pagan, preceded baptism, and it was called the catechumenate. But in today’s social environment, this method needs to be integrated with an instruction, by an initiation to the Christian’s lifestyle, following the baptism, that is, of a religious assistance, of a practical training to Christian fidelity, of an effective insertion into the community of believers, which is the Church …
Here is the rebirth of the name “catechumenate”, that certainly does not want to invalidate or diminish the importance of current baptismal teaching, but wants to apply it with a method of gradual and intensive evangelization, which reminds and renews in a way of the catechumenate of other times. Those who have been baptized need to understand, rethink, and appreciate, to support the priceless gift of the sacrament they have received.”
St. Paul VI, January 12, 1977