CATECHUMENS, LITURGY OF THE

the instructional part of the Christian worship service, consisting of hymns, prayers, scriptural readings, and homilies, which precedes the Eucharist (i.e., the Liturgy of the Faithful). In the early church the catechumens, or hearers who had not yet been baptized, were dismissed at the conclusion of the Liturgy of the Catechumens, and the faithful, or baptized Christians, remained to celebrate the mystery of the Eucharist, also called Holy Communion.