This Easter Vigil, the Archdiocese of Chicago saw a 52% increase in the number of catechumens and candidates who were expected to enter the Catholic Church. That reflects a national trend of dioceses across the U.S. seeing more people join the church.
While there is speculation as to why the numbers are increasing — the election of Pope Leo XIV being one hypothesis — there seems to be no one reason. One thing is certain: God is always working in the lives of his children and the Spirit is moving.
Three people who entered the church this Easter and two who entered the church in previous years spoke with Chicago Catholic about their journeys to the faith.
We found their journeys inspiring and hope you do too.
Sara Martens
She is on ‘Team Jesus’
Holy Name Cathedral
As an attorney, Sara Martens is used to deeply researching subjects and talking through or debating what she has found.
It should be no surprise, then, that the 56-year-old applied that practice to her search for religion. She received the sacraments of Eucharist and confirmation at Holy Name Cathedral during the Easter Vigil on April 4.
While Martens and her siblings were baptized Catholic, they were not raised in the church. Her father was an atheist and her parents wanted her and her two siblings to choose a religion for themselves or no religion at all.
At age 7, Martens went to live with her grandmother.
“I shared a bedroom with an Irish Catholic grandmother who was saying the rosary constantly, all day long, in Gaelic,” Martens said.
Her grandmother gave her the book “The Greatest Story Ever Told,” taught her the Our Father and the rosary, but didn’t go to church herself.
Martens always believed in God, and she and her siblings attended Catholic schools so they were exposed to faith.
“I always thought of God as this larger governing presence that is everywhere and that we are all a part of that and that part is always speaking to us to sort of direct us to what is right or wrong,” Martens said, adding that she maintains that belief today.
She has always been curious about faith. Last year, Martens decided to read the Bible, which raised a lot questions and sent her researching answers.
“I spent a solid four to five hours every day, because each little section that I read led me into a bunch of rabbit-hole things that you could engage in,” Martins said. “I came to this conclusion, it was coincidentally around Palm Sunday, that, ‘You know what? I’m firmly on Team Jesus. This happened. This is a real thing.’”
Her Jewish friends thought she would join their faith and she has had many conversations about the relationship between Judaism and Catholicism and their entwined histories and beliefs.
“The one message I picked up from the Bible, which goes to what led me to pursuing a religion, whether you’re in the Old Testament or the New Testament, the big 30,000-foot perspective, is pray, pray a lot, pray often, pray alone, pray in community. That’s throughout Old and New Testament,” Martens said.
Martens believes the goal of all religions is to connect with God through prayer.
“That’s what I’m in pursuit of,” she said.
Last Palm Sunday, she reached out to a friend who is a parishioner and lector at Holy Name Cathedral and started attending Mass there. When she decided to join OCIA, she connected with the associate pastor, Father Andy Matijevic, to check things out.
“I’m not really into very rule-ly stuff and being controlled. I want to know the people I’m interacting with,” Martens said.
In the process of entering the Catholic Church, she has taken her family along for the ride, she said, because when she digs deep into something she processes it by talking it through with them.
This has prompted discussions about everything from the rules of the church to clergy sexual abuse. As a result, her mother has returned to Mass.
Even her sponsor’s faith has deepened because of Martens’ journey, and her sponsor now attends daily Mass.
She views Catholicism as a “toolbox” people can use to become closer to God and explore the meaning of life on earth.
“It’s a giant umbrella of people who have been thinking continuously for 2,000 years … about God and how we’re supposed to connect with the world outside this one,” she said. “I’m plugging into that world of people who considered that, because I think if you get a little glimmer of something outside of this world that exists it makes you go, ‘What is that?’ I think [Catholicism] has been a keeper of that. Catholicism has continued it from Judaism, which has that even longer history. That’s fascinating to plug in to.”
Felicia Owen
Pope Leo’s election tipped the scales
Holy Name Cathedral
While Felicia Owen, 37, was born to Catholic parents and baptized in a Christian church, she was not raised with a formal faith.
Her parents went to church on Christmas and Easter, but they wanted her and her brother to discern their own beliefs when they got older. She received the sacraments of Eucharist and Confirmation at Holy Name Cathedral during the Easter Vigil on April 4.
“I’ve always been drawn to religion,” said Owen. “I studied different traditions growing up including Islam and nondenominational Christian churches.”
She even taught Sunday school at the church where she was baptized.
“Faith has always been something I’ve explored, but didn’t really have a solid direction in growing up and how I wanted that to play out,” she said. “But I’ve found as I’ve gotten older I’ve been more drawn to the Catholic Church.”
There is a trend among people her age looking for spirituality outside organized religion, she said, and she received some pushback from friends for her decision to pursue organized religion.
Her interest in the Catholic Church intensified when she moved to Chicago a few years ago and took a job at a law firm that works with Catholic religious communities.
“That was really the turning point for me, because through work I’ve had the opportunity to learn more about the Catholic Church from the inside — the history, the values and faith and service,” the lawyer said.
Seeing the ministries and the work of men and women religious had a strong impact on her.
“The more I learned the more I felt pulled in,” Owen said. “What I think is really special about the Catholic Church is that you’re invited to ask questions. There is space to ask questions and to understand the why behind things and the history. There is even the acknowledgment that the Catholic Church is not an infallible church.”
When she decided she wanted to participate fully in Mass, she hesitated because she knew she would have to commit to months of classes through OCIA.
“The moment that pushed it over the edge for me was when the pope was elected,” Owen said. “It’s not just that he’s from Chicago, but he’s from a religious order that I’ve come to really respect through the work that we do,”
She asked her boss to be her sponsor because he had taught her so much about the church already through their work.
Owen described her journey to the church as “calm and aligned.”
“It just feels right,” she said.
Jake Pechukas
Eucharist, Mother Mary, apostolic succession
St. George Parish, Tinley Park
Unlike some people who find faith in adulthood, Jake Pechukas, 31, was raised in the Lutheran Church. For a brief time when he was young, his family attended Catholic Mass, so he knew a little about the faith.
But as he grew up, what he learned were common misconceptions or prejudices by some other Christians against Catholics.
As he got older, Pechukas, who received Eucharist and confirmation during the Easter Vigil at St. George Parish in Tinley Park, fell away from practicing his faith and questioned religion and God.
But in 2020, just before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, he began attending church again and exploring different churches across Chicago.
“Nothing really stuck with me. It always felt like I was missing something,” Pechukas said. “But that was the spark that started to get me to do some more research,”
His research led him to study the roots of Catholicism. Up until then, he had only heard negatives about the church.
“It had been from people my age who felt like they were forced to go to Catholic Church or whatever or from other media sources that were proclaiming that the Catholic Church was the root of all evil in the world,” he said.
Through his study and prayer, he realized that was not the case.
“I was especially moved by the belief that salvation is not found through faith alone, but through a life of faith expressed in deeds,” said Pechukas, who lives in Tinley Park with his wife. “I take particular inspiration from St. Moses the Black, because his life is a powerful witness to repentance, spiritual struggle and the mercy of God. His teaching that if a man’s deeds are not in harmony with his prayer, he labors in vain, reminds me that authentic faith must be lived out in action.”
He also studied the church’s teaching on the Eucharist. Even though Lutherans have communion, the teaching around it didn’t “sit right with me,” he said.
He also looked into the truth of Catholics’ relationship with Mary, which he had been told was idolatry.
“I started to sort of like debunk these things that I had heard about the Catholic Church,” he said. “That was always something that stuck with me about Mother Mary.”
He couldn’t reconcile “honor thy mother and father” with non-Catholics’ scorn for Catholic devotion to Jesus’ Mother.
“Even from a young age, that whole view of Mary didn’t connect with me,” he said. “Really to me, then, like the biggest thing, what drew me to the Catholic Church specifically was the apostolic nature of the church.”
His family supports his decision, even his mother, who is a lifelong Lutheran, he said.
“To her, she’s happy that I have found a place where I belong,” he said.
George Edens
It’s never too late to go back to church
St. Benedict Parish, 2215 W. Irving Park Road
When George Edens reached his 80s, he decided it was time to get closer to the Lord, since he was going to be seeing him sooner rather than later.
He received the Eucharist and confirmation during the Easter Vigil in 2024 at St. Benedict Parish, 2215 W. Irving Park Road. Now he’s an active member of the Knights of Columbus, attends Mass regularly and reads the Bible every day.
“I just feel a little bit more complete,” Edens said.
He was baptized Catholic, but his mother divorced and remarried when he was very young and they didn’t go to church.
After he married, he sent his children to St. Benedict School and started to go to church with them, but stopped after they graduated.
“When I was about 81, I started thinking about getting closer to God,” Edens said.
He always believed in God and prayed, but being in his 80s meant he was getting closer to death and wanted to get closer to God, he said. He returned to Mass and saw an advertisement for OCIA, which would lead to him receiving the rest of the sacraments of initiation.
“I go to church every Sunday. I joined the Knights of Columbus. I pray in the morning. I pray at night,” Edens said. “That was something that I never used to do that much. Even when the kids were in Catholic school I didn’t pray too much.”
He says he is happy he decided to work on his relationship with God.
“I think it’s never too late to get in touch with God and to go to church. You could be 90 years old and decide to go,” he said. “It turned out to be a good thing for me, that’s for sure.”
Suzanne McNamara
She knew at 9 years old that she wanted to be Catholic
Sts. Joseph and Francis Xavier Parish, Wilmette
In 2024, Suzanne McNamara lost her husband to early-onset dementia. Just months before, she lost her sister, who was her best friend. Her Catholic faith and love of God pulled her through.
“One aspect of my survival was my deep faith. My faith life really saved me during those difficult times,” she said.
While McNamara joined the Catholic church in college at age 20, her desire to become Catholic began in her childhood.
She born into a Jewish family, but her father was a “devout atheist” who was very vocal about not believing in God or organized religion.
“He was the ruler of the roost so we were very much an atheist household growing up,” she said.
Her family traveled a lot when she was younger and a visit to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome would change her life.
When she was just 9 years old, she remembers seeing Michelangelo’s Pietà on display in the basilica for the first time.
“I was just immediately drawn in by the vision of Mary cradling the broken body of Jesus. I just remember this acute feeling of wanting to be with her, with Mary. I was sort of transfixed,” McNamara said. “I don’t think that I realized I was searching for something more until I found it.”
In junior high, her best friend’s family was Catholic and she would go to Mass with them when she stayed over.
“I just remember the first time walking into church with them and feeling this joy that I had never felt before. Once again, looking at the statue of Mary and so badly wanting to be with her,” she said.
By the time she was 14, she knew she wanted to join the Catholic Church, but she hesitated to tell her family because she feared their response. She loved them so much and feared hurting them or losing them, McNamara said.
So she waited until she went away to college at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor then enrolled in RCIA and entered the church.
Eventually, McNamara shared the news with her family.
“It did not go over well, to put it mildly,” she said. “Looking back, I’m deeply ashamed that I was so cowardly.”
But her close-knit family didn’t allow it to come between them, she said.
“I was young and I so badly wanted to become Catholic that I was just so afraid of anything happening that would interfere with that,” she said.
After being a practicing Catholic for 40 years, she still has the same love for her faith.
“I still have this immediate spark of joy every time I walk into a church,” McNamara said. “I’m so grateful and I’m lucky to have that.”