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March 12, 2025By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press
Kyle Trainque experienced a void in his life.
Winifred Macquaye wanted to guide her children, who attend a Catholic school.
Timothy Dunne and Olivia Dean dated in high school, then broke up. At age 24 they’re back together – with a new foundation.
The common denominator in these young adults’ stories? The Catholic Church.
They were among people who filled St. Paul Cathedral in Worcester Sunday for the Rite of Election and the Call to Continuing Conversion. This liturgy is for people preparing to receive the sacraments of initiation – baptism, first Communion and/or confirmation – at the Easter Vigil in their parishes.
Elizabeth A. Marcil, director of the diocesan Office of Religious Education, reported 164 catechumens (unbaptized individuals) and 159 candidates (baptized Catholics seeking to complete their initiation and individuals baptized in other Christian traditions who are now seeking full communion with the Catholic Church). They are from about 42 parishes and the College of the Holy Cross, she said.
During the liturgy, they are called by name. The catechumens inscribe their names in the Book of the Elect and both groups greet the bishop with their sponsors.
“For many of you, it’s the first time in the cathedral,” Ms. Marcil said. She said the bishop – the spiritual father of us all – gathered them there.
Their “search for God has brought them here,” Bishop McManus said.
In his homily he said this liturgy was a source of joy and hope for the diocese and the whole Church.
He spoke of the journey of faith, with the goal of eternal salvation, and said the heart of Christian life is relationship with God in Jesus. The sin of Adam and Eve was not the end; God promised salvation, brought by Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.
The bishop told the catechumens and candidates God is calling them to receive the gift of faith and live it in the Church, and “you have chosen to accept God’s call.”
Some told The Catholic Free Press how they are doing that.
“It was a good opportunity for me,” said Erick Sotomayor, 15. He said he went to church in Ecuador, where he was born, but stopped attending after coming to the United States. His step-grandfathers brought him back, and he’s preparing to receive all three sacraments of initiation at the Easter Vigil at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Fitchburg.
Mr. Trainque, 29, said he attended Higher Ground Ministries in Gardner when he was growing up. In middle school, he stopped attending, and didn’t go to church anywhere else, he said.
Experiencing his life’s struggles, one day in the summer of 2023 “I just felt a strong pull I needed to go to church,” he said. “There was a void.”
He told a friend he’d been talking with over the years, and his friend responded, “Next week I’m going to take you to the church.”
They went to Holy Family of Nazareth Parish in Leominster, which his friend, now a Florida resident, was attending.
Mr. Trainque said he himself attends Mass weekly and “I feel a lot better.”
He said he has full custody of his two children, ages 5 and 6, works full time and is in the Army National Guard. He felt stressed and anxious every day.
Finding Jesus helped him, and going to the Catholic Church furthered his faith, he said.
“I feel like every Sunday it re-sets me for the next week,” he said. “I look forward to it.”
He’s participating in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults, formerly Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), at Holy Family and is to be baptized and receive his first Communion and confirmation at the Easter Vigil.
His sponsor, Christopher Chambers, also in the Army National Guard, said he himself was confirmed at the Easter Vigil last year.
“It’s my new family,” Mr. Chambers said of the Church, explaining that he was brought up Catholic, but left in the early 2000s because of the sexual abuse scandal.
“I needed some type of spiritual guide for my kids,” he said. So, he participated in the RCIA.
A similar concern brought Ms. Macquaye, 38, to the Catholic Church.
“My kids go to Catholic school” (Assumption Elementary in Millbury), she said. “They’ve been going to Mass. As their parent … I wanted to join, so I can guide them along the way.”
She’d been baptized in a Presbyterian church, is participating in the OCIA at St. Brigid and Our Lady of the Assumption Parish in Millbury and is to receive her first Communion and be confirmed at the Easter Vigil.
She said she is “looking forward to learning more,” especially about the sacraments.
Mr. Dunne and Miss Dean are also studying the faith.
“We dated when we were 14-16” as Millbury High School students, Miss Dean said. They broke up and later she started attending church.
“In September [2024] he reached out to me” to catch up and they started dating again, she said.
By then, something was different in her life.
“I went through the RCIA” at age 18, in 2018, through St. Brigid and Our Lady of the Assumption in Millbury, then two parishes with one pastor working together, she said. She received all three sacraments of initiation and has been attending Mass each Sunday.
Mr. Dunne said he was baptized in a Methodist church which he didn’t regularly attend. Later he went to a Congregational church for two years. Then his family stopped going to church.
After he and Miss Dean started dating again “she asked if I wanted to go” to church with her. She didn’t push, but he went, enjoyed it, and kept going each Sunday, he said.
“He just has a love of learning and for God and just reads the Bible and the catechism,” Miss Dean said. She said she was reading them too and now they read together.
He joined the OCIA process and is to receive his first Communion and confirmation at the Easter Vigil.
“We were meant to break up and come back together,” Miss Dean said. “Our relationship has this foundation of God it didn’t have before.”
