The Pauline Communities: A Paradigm for Christian Initiation in the Church
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Abstract
Christian life might be understood as a continuous and increasing process of "christification" of the believer who, after personally meeting with Jesus Christ and radically choosing him through faith, begins a path of self-shaping through His person and word. Such a path is celebrated in the Christian initiation, a process that through the teaching of the catechism, celebration and life; bounds the person ontologically and existentially to the paschal mystery of Jesus. The purpose of this initiation is to work an absolute transformation in the person so that she might participate in the new life of the Resurrected Christ. This is precisely what Paul exposes in Romans 6 when he presents Christian baptism as the redemption act which allows the initiate to immerse herself in the dead and resurrection of Christ. Therefore, the following paper proposes a biblical and theological approach which aims to present the characteristic process of life and celebration of Pauline communities as a paradigm for the Christian initiation of the present-day Church. That way, overcoming the plain ritual sacramentalization, we might achieve an authentic "paschalization" of people in order for them to transform into the transparency of dead and resurrected Jesus Christ and, therefore, they might begin a life according to the rules of the Kingdom of God.
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