Posted on 04/15/2017 1:15:20 PM PDT by Salvation
WASHINGTON—A married couple in their golden years, a couple inspired by their late daughter's legacy, and a salesman who heard Jesus' call to conversion on a stranger's porch, are among the thousands who will be welcomed into the Catholic Church on Easter Vigil, April 15, in parishes across the United States. All have participated in the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), a process of conversion and study in the Catholic faith for catechumens and candidates coming into full communion with the Church.
Catechumens, who have never been baptized, will receive baptism, confirmation and first Communion at the Holy Saturday Easter Vigil. Candidates, who have already been baptized in another Christian tradition whose baptism is recognized by the Catholic Church, will enter the Church through a profession of faith and reception of confirmation and the Eucharist.
In the Diocese of Grand Rapids, Michigan, 175 catechumens and 249 candidates will receive the sacraments. Among them, Mac, 90, and Barb Harless, 85, who will join the Church this Easter after finding their parish, St. John Paul II Church in Cedar Springs, a source of prayer, peace and hope during Barb's battle with cancer.
In the Diocese of Rochester, New York, the RCIA involvement of Dan and Michaela Cady –along with their sons Aidan, 15, Solas, 12, and Merritt, 10 – was spurred by a family tragedy. Two years ago their daughter and sister Kennis, then 12, died suddenly. "It just turned our heads about life," Dan Cady said. He added that his family was grateful for the support it received from the staff of St. Jerome Parish in East Rochester, and from there opted to pursue RCIA. As the Cadys advance on their faith journey, Dan said he's confident his daughter is watching over them: "We would like to think it's orchestrated by her," he said. Some of the family members will receive the sacraments this year, and others next year.
While in Orlando, Florida, Jarrid Perusse of Most Precious Blood Parish in Oviedo said he, "got saved on a porch" during a summer internship as a door-to-door salesman. He realized that God was reaching out to him, and "it was my turn to start reaching back," he said.
About 60 of the nearly 200 dioceses in the United States reported numbers for 2017 to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest diocese in the United States, will welcome 1,756 catechumens and 938 candidates; while the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston reports 1,667 catechumens and 708 candidates; and the Archdiocese of Washington reports 483 catechumens and 698 candidates.
Other archdioceses report the following totals: Archdiocese of Seattle: 679 catechumens and 409 candidates; Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: 201 catechumens, 623 candidates; Archdiocese of Philadelphia: 235 catechumens, 322 candidates; Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky: 227 catechumens, 279 candidates; Archdiocese of Oklahoma City reports 290 catechumens, 368 candidates; Archdiocese of San Francisco: 174 catechumens, 207 candidates; Archdiocese of Newark: 499 catechumens, 693 candidates; Archdiocese of Dubuque, Iowa: 63 catechumens, 94 candidates; Archdiocese of Miami: 524 catechumens, 214 candidates; Archdiocese of Atlanta: 722 catechumens and 1,170 candidates.
In California, the Diocese of Stockton will welcome 284 candidates and 532 catechumens; Diocese of Oakland reports 176 catechumens and 376 candidates; the Diocese of San Diego reports 333 catechumens and 635 candidates; and the Diocese of Fresno will welcome 593 catechumens and 56 candidates; the Diocese of San Jose reports 496 catechumens and candidates.
In Florida, the Diocese of St. Petersburg reports 456 catechumens and 514 candidates; the Diocese of Orlando reports 586 catechumens and candidates; the Diocese of Palm Beach reports 147 catechumens and 474 candidates; and the Diocese of Venice reports 169 catechumens, 219 candidates.
In New York, the Diocese of Rockville Centre reports 232 catechumens 327 candidates; the Diocese of Rochester reports 96 catechumens and 149 candidates; the Diocese of Buffalo reports 56 catechumens and 105 candidates; the Diocese of Syracuse reports 49 catechumens and 70 candidates.
Other dioceses reporting hundreds of catechumens and candidates include: Diocese of Dallas: 945 catechumens and 1,230 candidates; Diocese of Little Rock, Arkansas: 252 catechumens and 324 candidates; Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana: 187 catechumens and 208 candidates; Diocese of Salt Lake City, Utah: 273 catechumens, 153 candidates; Diocese of Tyler, Texas: 120 catechumens and 270 candidates; Diocese of Charleston, South Carolina: 160 catechumens and 317 candidates; Diocese of Pittsburgh: 444 catechumens and candidates; Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut: 78 catechumens and 241 candidates; Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri: 106 catechumens and 172 candidates; Diocese of Tucson, Arizona: 111 candidates and 209 catechumens; Diocese of Youngstown, Ohio: 97 catechumens and 130 candidates; Diocese of Camden, New Jersey: 174 catechumens; Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey: 195 catechumens and candidates; Diocese of Metuchen, New Jersey: 125 catechumens and 200 candidates; Diocese of Worcester, Massachusetts: 114 catechumens and 101 candidates; Diocese of Springfield, Massachusetts: 53 catechumens and 105 candidates; Diocese of Manchester, New Hampshire: 95 candidates and 67 catechumens; Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware: 101 catechumens and 152 candidates; Diocese of Belleville, Illinois: 54 catechumens and 120 candidates; Diocese of Springfield, Illinois: 160 catechumens and 159 candidates; Diocese of Yakima, Washington: 115 catechumens, 145 candidates; Diocese of LaFayette, Louisiana: 55 catechumens and 96 candidates; Diocese of Reno, Nevada: 139 catechumens and 40 candidates; Diocese of Greensburg, Pennsylvania: 92 candidates and 44 catechumens; Diocese of Steubenville, Ohio: 39 catechumens and 52 candidates; Diocese of Rapid City: 27 catechumens, 83 candidates; Diocese of Shreveport, Louisiana: 40 catechumens, 89 candidates; the Diocese of Bridgeport, Connecticut: 97 catechumens, 313 candidates; Diocese of Memphis, Tennessee: 60 catechumens, 200 candidates; Diocese of Gaylord, Michigan: 49 catechumens, 63 candidates; Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey: 200 catechumens, 508 candidates; Diocese of San Angelo, Texas: 221 catechumens, 264 candidates.
In Minnesota, the Diocese of St. Cloud reports 17 catechumens, 76 candidates; Diocese of Crookston: 8 catechumens, 25 candidates; Diocese of Winona: 42 catechumens, 112 candidates; Diocese of Duluth: 11 catechumens, 69 candidates.
These numbers are based on participation in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion, the final phase of the RCIA process celebrated at the beginning of Lent.
Not included are infant baptisms that according to the 2016 Official Catholic Directory (OCD) totaled 683,712 for the year 2015. The OCD also reported that there were 39,721 adult baptisms and 71,809 people received into full communion during the same year, the latest with complete statistical data.
New Catholics Ping!
My 32 year old son will be one of the new Catholics this Easter service..... I’m very happy for him as he did it as part of getting married in the near future.
And may God bless each and every one!
God bless him!
I’m honored to be a sponsor for the third year running. It’s such a blessing.
Congrats and God Bless!
WELCOME!
Amen to that!
I took first communion as an adult at Easter 30 years ago.
In our parish tonight there will be 21 baptisms!!! Most in parish history. God is good!
Congratulations to them for choosing Christ, the life, the way and the truth!
I was accepted into the Church 9 years ago on Easter Saturday, 2008.
Amen!
Congrats on your anniversary!
Happy Easter :)
Really, outside of Catholicism what other faith is there?
The Eucharist IS the Resurrection.
To deny the Eucharist, you will have to REFUTE:
1. Scripture itself. John 6:53
2. The sacred oral tradition, the very tradition that was used to cross check and cross reference the books in the Bible that were infallibly assembled as authentic by the Catholic Church. So if you doubt the oral tradition, you must doubt the fact-checking sources for the Bible, and consequently the accuracy of the Bible itself. You cannot have it both ways by accepting the Bible as authentic and un-tether its infallibility from the sacred oral tradition.
3. The beliefs and practices of the early disciples of Christ before the Bible was assembled in the early fourth century.
4. The beliefs of saints, martyrs, and stigmatists who believed that the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist is at the very center of Christian belief and this is why the Tabernacle was at the center of all Catholic Churches and worship and was so for FIFTEEN CENTURIES (AND CONTINUES TO BE) before the curse of Protestantism in 1517 (especially now with their mainline denominations using scriptural warrant to ordain gay, lesbian, and coming soon, transgender pastors) washed ashore spreading, what the great essayist Hillaire Belloc called, a “cluster of heresies.”
5. The explicit writings of the early Church fathers.
This would include St. Irenaeus of Lyons, an early Church Father and Doctor of the Church
In fact, the real presence of the body and blood of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist (transubstantiation), also known as Mass or the Lord’s Supper, was taken for granted in the early Church.
Written by St. Irenaeus about 185 AD, this excerpt in the link above makes clear the Church’s realistic interpretation of the Eucharist as the risen body of Christ.
6. The brilliant Catholic theologians after whom colleges and universities have been named.
7. The pre-eminent Episcopalian and Lutheran theologians who have converted to Catholicism such as Rev. Richard Neuhaus who wrote he found “the fullest expression of Christ in the Catholic Church.” (However, Bible Christians tell us the “Holy Spirit” rather than having led them to the ONE truth, instead deserted them and the Holy Spirit is somehow, somewhere else, perhaps among some Protestant sects but we don’t know for sure which sect it is: Joel Osteen’s or Jeremiah Wright’s)
The resurrection is not some simple belief of a dead man coming to life.
Pope Benedict XVI (the theological Einstein of our times) captured this brilliant in the following passage. In the middle volume of his triptych, Jesus of Nazareth, Pope Benedict XVI tried to describe those Resurrection-changes in history and nature (which are, of course, ultimately indescribable) like this:
“Christ’s Resurrection . . . is a historical event that nevertheless bursts open the dimensions of history and transcends it. Perhaps we may draw upon analogical language here . . . [and think of] the Resurrection as something akin to a radical “evolutionary leap,” in which a new dimension of life emerges, a new dimension of human existence. Indeed, matter itself is remolded into a new type of reality. “
“The man Jesus, complete with his body, now belongs to the sphere of the divine and eternal. From now on, as Tertullian once said, “spirit and blood” have a place within God. . . . Even if man by his nature is created for immortality, it is only now that the place exists in which his immortal soul can find its “space,” its “bodiliness,” in which immortality takes on its meaning as communion with God and with the whole of reconciled mankind.”
“This is what is meant by those passages in Saint Paul’s prison letters (cf. Colossians 1.12–23 and Ephesians 1. 3–23) that speak of the cosmic body of Christ, indicating thereby that Christ’s transformed body is also the place where men enter into communion with God and with one another and are therefore able to live definitively in the fullness of indestructible life. . .”
St. Paul says: “Let a man examine himself … for anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment upon himself (1 Corinthians 11:27-29).
“[Thus] Jesus’s Resurrection was not just about some deceased individual coming back to life at a certain point. . . . [An] ontological leap occurred, one that touches being as such, opening up a dimension that affects us all, creating for all of us a new space of life, a new space of being in union with God.”
You can now see without the living body and blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist, without a belief in Eucharist, the Resurrection has no meaning.
Without a belief in the Eucharist, one may as well pack a McDonald’s breakfast, attend a sunrise service at the beach o rat Hollywood Bowl with picnic basket and dog in tow and join hands in a kumbaya dance.
God Bless the new Catachumens. They have seen the Light.
Great post!
When my daughter (age 12) was baptized, had her first communion, and was confirmed, there were about 150 in our parish who went through the same. Mass lasted almost five hours, there little kids and some adults asleep on the pews and the floor by the time it ended. It was great. :0)
?? comment for Easter time?
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