‘We gather today, knowing that Christ leads us’

Something just clicked. I knew I needed to do this.”

Brandon Shanks

SCROLL THE ARROWS to see more photos.

CLICK HERE to read a related story.

“After decades as atheists, now suddenly, we’re this.”

Eric Jensen described the transformation that he, his mother, two of his brothers, his sister-in-law and two of his nephews have been undergoing in the past year.

“To say it simply, Mary invited us,” said Mr. Jensen, who with members of his family is preparing to receive Sacraments of Initiation during the Easter Vigil at St. Cornelius Church in Crocker.

They were among about 350 candidates and catechumens from parishes throughout the diocese who took part in the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion on Feb. 22, the First Sunday of Lent.

“I want heaven to get more crowded,” said Mr. Jensen, “and I’d like it to get more crowded with my family. That’s my goal. That’s all I ask.”

“Closer and closer”

The Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion, held in cathedrals throughout the world on the First Sunday of Lent, is a significant milestone for those preparing to become committed, active members of the Catholic Church.

“God meets us here,” said Bishop Ralph B. O’Donnell in his reflections for the day. “God desires to be with us each and every day of our lives, to walk with us in our journey.”

He assured those seeking Easter Sacraments that the entire Church stands together, asking for God’s grace in their lives and the lives of those who are instructing them, “so that as we make this journey together, we will come to know the Lord more fully through the gift of the Sacrament of the Church.”

Catechumens, now known as the Elect, are seeking Baptism and Confirmation at the Easter Vigil.

Candidates have already been baptized and are seeking full communion with the Church.

The bishop reminded them all that they have experienced God’s presence “through the care of those around you, through the curiosity within you.”

“Every day, you walk closer and closer with the Lord,” he said.

As part of the rite, each catechumen and candidate was summoned by name into the sanctuary and greeted by Bishop O’Donnell.

Godparents stood beside the catechumens, and sponsors stood beside the candidates as they answered the bishop’s questions and received his blessing.

Bishop O’Donnell accepted the catechumens’ names into the Book of the Elect and urged the catechumens and candidates to spend the rest of Lent pursuing repentance and deeper conversion with the support of the Church.

The Book of the Elect is now on display through Lent in the Baptistry of the Cathedral.

The bishop encouraged them all to continue praying and preparing. Everyone else present promised to continue praying for them.

“With gratitude, we gather today,” he told the candidates and the Elect. “May God, who has stirred this work within you, see it to its completion.”

“Deliver us from evil”

Carin Camen always considered herself a “praying atheist” — “because I couldn’t find the God who I’ve praying to my entire life, the God I had known since I was a child.”

“I wound up finding him in the Catholic Church,” she stated.

Her son, Eric Jensen, had given up believing in God in childhood.

“Bad prayer is what made me an atheist,” he said. “I felt like I was praying to a brick wall. I never felt anything. Not even a little tingling in the heart. Nothing.”

He recognized the value of living in a Christian-based society, but he did not believe in God.

Not until last year when he recognized something sinister and not of this world.

A series of unsettling spiritual events within his family — including his sister-in-law and his nephews, ages 3 and 1 — got him thinking about evil and what could be done to ward it off.

“I’m familiar with things like sleep paralysis and night terrors,” he said. “I knew what it was. More importantly, I knew what it wasn’t.”

There was no shortage of faith communities for the family to turn to.

“But when it came to the problems we were having, we knew there was one church that would believe us and had people on staff who could help us,” he said.

He contacted an old friend.

“In my whole life, I’ve only known one Catholic,” Mr. Jensen noted. “Thankfully, he’s a good one.”

The friend told him to find the nearest Catholic Church and talk to a priest.

He also suggested prayers and certain Gregorian chants to play at home while they were sleeping.

They went to Mass at St. Cornelius Church.

Mr. Jensen said he hadn’t felt that kind of peace in decades.

“Right away, we knew God was there,” he said. “We could feel that presence.”

They asked a priest to bless their home.

Mr. Jensen began reading books about Catholic doctrine and the Blessed Mother, then turned to the writings of the Early Church Fathers.

“What we read about Mary was completely new to us, and it completely blew our minds,” he said.

Major changes came to their home.

“It bore fruit,” said Mr. Jensen. “Very positive fruit. Especially with the kids. The things we tried worked.”

That helped confirm the faith of each member of the family.

“Every one of us ended up having a very deep and personal, powerful experience that revealed truth to them,” said Mr. Jensen.

Tired of what he saw as “spiritual amateur hour,” he turned to deep, contemplative prayer.

“I knew what I needed was a Church that says, ‘We’ve been praying for 2,000 years. Here’s what works,’” he said.

“The teachings about Mary are true,” he stated. “I got answers, I got resignation, I got truth inscribed in my heart in an undeniable way.”

He came to see the Rosary as a study guide for Scripture and a plea for intercessory prayer.

“Her soul magnifies the Lord, so anything that goes to her, she redirects to Christ,” said Mr. Jensen.

Sometimes, he’d pray the Rosary while reading the Bible.

“The truth came to me through Mary,” he said. “Everything points to Christ, but it came to me through Mary. She was who re-introduced me to him.”

“So, now we’re all here together as a family, and no one has any doubts.”

Broken chains

Ms. Camen had left an unhappy marriage and felt like she was carrying the weight of generations of error and brokenness.

She had been warned while growing up not to go anywhere near “those Mary-worshiping Catholics.”

But now, her son was telling her he found a solution to their troubles, and that solution was leading him to the truth.

“I trust him,” she said. “When he does something, he does it all the way.”

Mr. Jensen brought her a stack of books, and she started reading.

“It was so wild and new to me, I had to figure it out,” she said. “So yeah, we dove deep.”

The family started praying the Rosary together.

“There was something there that I’ve never experienced before,” she said.

The family wanted to begin the process of becoming Catholic and receiving the Sacraments.

St. Cornelius didn’t have an Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA) group at that time, so they went to St. Robert Bellarmine Parish in St. Robert.

“Father Mike Murphy was wonderful to us,” said Ms. Camen. “He really helped us along those early times.”

One Sunday when her sons were out of town, Ms. Camen set out for Starkenburg for the annual Fall Pilgrimage.

Tire trouble sent her back home.

Laughing, she said out loud: “Okay, God. I guess this isn’t where you want me to go today. Where do you want me to go?”

She wound up back in Crocker at St. Cornelius Church, visiting with Father Anthony Onyeihe, pastor of St. Cornelius and of St. Theresa Parish in Dixon.

“I told him, ‘I’m struggling with this,’ and he explained things to me,” she said.

“In the end, it all comes down to Christ,” she stated. “And Father led us closer to Christ and helped explain the Catholic religion, so that we could embrace Christ’s Church.”

Fr. Onyeihe told her the Crocker and Dixon parishes were starting an OCIA group.

“There was nothing wrong with St. Robert Bellarmine,” said Mr. Jensen. “It was great! But Crocker is our home.”

Ms. Camen continued reading, learning and praying, especially the Rosary.

“Mother Mary guided me to find the information I needed to be able to let go and understand,” she said. “Christ helped me see Mary the way he sees her, and Mary deepened my understanding and love for Christ.”

Fr. Onyeihe baptized her this past September.

“I had been fasting and praying, asking Christ to heal the generational wounds in my family and to help me bring an end to painful patterns,” she said.

She’s convinced that the waters of Baptism took those stains away forever.

“I genuinely believe there were some from the other side who were there expressing love and gratitude,” she said.

“Because that moment was when everything was severed, and it literally felt like the chains of hell fell off me.”

“History doesn’t lie”

Grant Bishop marveled at seeing so many people at the Rite of Election who are preparing to become Catholic.

“It’s amazing to see what the Holy Spirit is doing inside the Church,” he said.

Likewise, seeing Bishop O’Donnell fully vested and seated in the bishop’s chair (cathedra), a symbol of his teaching authority, reminded them that he is truly a successor of one of the Apostles.

“That’s a unique aspect of the Church, and it’s incredible to me,” Mr. Bishop stated.

Mr. Bishop and his wife, Lillian, are preparing to be baptized, confirmed and receive their First Holy Communion at St. Peter Parish in Jefferson City.

Mr. Bishop described how he got “dragged into the Church, kicking and screaming.”

It started with him taking an interest in Church history.

“I started to wonder, what were the Christians in the Apostolic Age doing? How did they worship?” he recalled.

His reading led him to the Seven Epistles of St. Ignatius of Antioch.

Mr. Bishop had grown up among people who held the Catholic Church in low esteem.

“Realizing that the Apostolic Christians were Catholics was difficult for me because I knew what I had to do,” he said.

He and Mrs. Bishop got into energetic discussions on the subject.

“I would debate him, and everybody around us would get in on it,” she recalled.

“Eventually, what he was saying started to make sense,” she said. “History doesn’t lie. The Church that Jesus started is the Catholic Church.”

Mr. Bishop said that once he realized the truth that’s upheld by the Church, he quickly fell in love with it.

The Bishops decided that they needed to become Catholic.

Some of their friends still disagree with them, but others decided to join them.

“So, there are four of us total who are joining, including us two,” said Mr. Bishop.

They waited about a year before the next OCIA group formed.

“That gave me a whole year to develop my prayer life, learn all about Catholic theology, the history of the Church, the Communion of Saints,” he said.

He believes the calling to be Catholic is of divine origin, and he can’t wait to fulfill that calling.

What has struck him most is the understanding that Mary, conceived without sin, is the Ark of the New Covenant.

“If you look at all the parallels between 2 Samuel and Luke, it’s pretty mind-blowing,” he said.

Mrs. Bishop was struck by learning about Mary’s Immaculate Conception and about the Apostolic Succession — the doctrine that each Catholic bishop has a direct line of succession to the Apostles.

She received understanding of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist even before learning about it in the OCIA.

These things are now sources of serenity rather than strife.

“Because the Church that stands today is the undying apostolic Church of Jesus Christ,” said Mr. Bishop. “And her authority, given by Jesus Christ, is undying.”

“I submit fully to the Church, because I realize it’s being guided by his Holy Spirit,” he said.

The couple asked for prayers to be able to respond sufficiently to God’s grace, and for them to continue letting the Holy Spirit work through them.

“We’re only here because of Jesus Christ,” said Mr. Bishop. “We want to be thankful to him for his sacrifice.”

“Almost there”

Brandon Shanks met his wife in 2008, and they got married in 2010.

She was Catholic, he was not.

When they had children, she asked if they could be baptized into the Catholic Church.

“I said I’m fine with that,” he said. “I started going to Mass with her and the kids.”

Last fall, he picked up a bulletin at Holy Guardian Angels Church in Brinktown and saw a notice that the OCIA would be starting soon.

“Something just clicked,” he said. “I knew I needed to do this.”

He called the coordinator that evening, and the group began meeting a few weeks later.

He had grown up next door to the church of his upbringing and worshiped there every week with his parents.

They and other relatives support his decision to become Catholic.

“They’re of the mindset that we’re all trying to get to the same place,” he said. “The end goal is the same.”

He hasn’t found any surprises in his studies.

“I’ve been married into a Catholic family for going on two decades now,” he noted. “My wife and I were married in the Church. We went to the Pre-Cana classes. Our three children were baptized in the Catholic Church and attend Visitation Inter-Parish School in Vienna. I’d say I had a pretty good base understanding.”

He’s looking forward to being able to receive Holy Communion with his wife and children.

“Right now, I just get a blessing,” he said.

For anyone else considering becoming Catholic, Mr. Shanks advised “going into it with an open mind and an open heart.”

He asked for prayers to “stay the course” and never lose his sense of joy and wonder.

“We made it this far!” he said. “We’re almost there!”

“No empty seats”

Mr. Jensen said he and his family feel “blessed and heaped with undeserved graces.”

Their lives have changed dramatically over the past 12 months, but not one of them would go back.

Realizing that certain things cannot coexist in a home where Christ and Mary are welcome helped them make some important decisions.

“We kept doing more and more, taking it one step at a time, and these things all brought about change,” said Mr. Jensen. “But the biggest change was us.”

He said prayer and Scripture are the two most powerful tools for growing in relationship with God.

He has created a free, open-source online resource called “My Rosary Life” (myrosary.life).

“I want as many people as possible to pray the Rosary and promote Mary,” he said.

“I prefer being private and invisible,” he added. “However, I also want to do what I can to promote Mary and make heaven crowded.”

Ms. Camen is preparing to move to Dickinson, Texas, to help her daughter and son-in-law take care of their children, who have special needs, and to become a member of Shrine of the True Cross Parish (truecrosschurch.org).

“I pray for God to guide and direct me,” she said. “Because as I continue my Catholic journey, I will be continuing it alone.

“But I won’t be alone,” she added. “He’s sending me.”

Her fervent prayer is “for there to be no empty seat at that table in heaven. No empty seats!”