Converts find peace, comfort in the Mass
OREM — Family plays a large part in the conversion stories of two young adults who are entering the Catholic Church in Utah at the Easter vigil.
Sadie Lopez and Jon Gauchay are different in many ways: She is single, he is married. She grew up attending religious services in both the Catholic Church and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, while he attended only the LDS Church. Nevertheless, both of them felt their faith life was lacking until they began the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program at St. Francis of Assisi Parish in Orem.
“The parish is the most welcoming environment I’ve ever experienced,” Gauchay said, and Lopez nodded her agreement. “I’ve experienced no judgements here, no negative feelings. Everyone is welcoming, they’re loving, they’re family.”
Lopez, whose father is Catholic and whose mother is a member of the LDS Church, attended activities in both churches while growing up. None of her family ever forced religion on her, she said. However, when she was about 19, she made a New Year’s resolution to choose one religion, so she began attending Mass every Sunday with her grandmother and father.
“It got to the point where I was waiting for Sunday to come; I was just wanting to go to church,” she said. “I found it helped with my anxiety. … It is a little bit like a safe haven.”
After more than a year, she realized she was “almost a full Catholic,” she said, but because she hadn’t been baptized she couldn’t receive the sacraments. Her aunt signed her up for the parish’s RCIA program, and “it just kind of went from there,” she said, adding that her family supports her decision.
For Christmas, her parents gave her a St. Michael’s medallion, which she now wears constantly and finds comfort in. The gift has special meaning: Her father, Art Lopez, has always worn a cross and a St. Michael’s medallion, “and whenever I would have a nightmare he would let me sleep with it,” she said.
One of the most memorable experiences of the RCIA program was when the parish had a guest priest who was very spiritual, she said. “Having that kind of energy from someone was so cool.”
She continues to finds comfort in the Mass. If she is having a bad day, she thinks, “‘I just need to go to church, I just need to go to church and everything will be better,” she said, adding that Sunday is “like a reset button to my week.”
Attending Mass with her father and grandmother is a bonus, she said. Once she receives the sacraments at the Easter vigil, “I’m looking forward to being connected to God, and … to fully take Eucharist with my dad, too,” she said.
Lopez attends school full time, works, and is an intern at the Orem Police Department as she pursues a degree in forensic science and criminal justice.
“Working in law enforcement and forensic science you see a lot of hard things, and I get asked all the time, ‘How do you handle this?’ and it’s because I have faith in God, that he is in control over the situation. Even when people pass away, I know they’re with him now,” she said.
Like Lopez, Gauchay was attending Mass on Sunday long before he enrolled in the RCIA program. He began attending with his wife, Gabrielle, who was then his girlfriend.
Growing up, he regularly attended services in the LDS Church, but “I always felt at odds at church with what they were teaching,” he said, so at about the age of 14 he stepped away from organized religion.
“I never stepped away from God, I just stepped away from church. It’s not that I quit believing, I just didn’t attend church until my wife asked me for a ride,” he said.
While the two were dating, he did ask his wife questions about her faith, and he thinks that was when he started feeling a pull toward religion again.
The day he gave his wife a ride to church at her request, he decided to stay to see what it was about, he said, “and from the minute I walked in, I felt what I was missing: I felt the sense of peace, the sense of calm, the sense of being home.”
Many things about the Catholic faith made him feel at ease, he said. For example, he has always found comfort in talking to Mary, Joseph, and St. Michael the Archangel “even though that’s not what the LDS believe,” he said.
After staying for Mass that first time, “from there I couldn’t get enough,” he said. “Like Sadie said, I was waiting for Sunday. What really drew me in was the Eucharist – the reverence and the importance that is on it.”
Although he attended Mass for six years, he did not begin the RCIA program until one day an offhand comment by his wife: “What do you want your kids to see?” started him praying about what he should do. After six months of prayer, he decided to join the Catholic Church.
He finds comfort in knowing that Christ is present in the Eucharist, he said.
“I’ve been coming to Mass for six years, and it’s started getting really hard to watch my wife and everybody go up and get the Eucharist and I have to sit down. It’s started hurting. … As it’s getting closer to Easter, it’s getting easier and harder at the same time because I’m so close, but I still have to sit,” he said.
During the RCIA program, both Lopez and Gauchay have participated and made comments such that “you know the light bulb has gone on” about understanding the faith, said Julie Boerio-Goates, the pastoral coordinator at St. Francis of Assisi Parish.
“It does my heart good” to see these two young people prepare to enter the Church, she said. “”It gives me hope for the future.”
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