Carr and her son Malaki are catechumens, meaning they will be baptized for the first time, and Paas and Timothy are being received as candidates, meaning they have been baptized already in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
Carr was the first to enrol in Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults class (RCIA). She has been involved with the University of Calgary Catholic community for about three years now, and after a profound experience at a weekend retreat in central Alberta, questions about her faith began to surface. During adoration at the retreat, she began to feel something very real and present.
“I had no clue what (adoration) was about, but it was awesome,” she said.
But because she didn’t want to impose any beliefs on her son, as her Christian beliefs had been imposed upon her while growing up, Carr was reluctant to follow up on the experience.
She continued to be involved with the community, but after a friend approached her in October 2012 asking if she wanted to join RCIA, she decided to withdraw from the Catholic community. She didn’t feel ready.
Carr began to question her reasoning and realized she didn’t want to join based only on the happy, comfortable feeling she experienced being within an accepting community, that being Catholic would “not just make me feel good at church, but that I could be home… content at home with my duties as a mom and not just at one place with certain people.”
Carr wanted to become Catholic not based on solely positive feelings, but on faith that God was present no matter what. She went through a period of testing God, to see if the Catholic Church was the right fit. When Malaki became seriously ill in November, Carr found her answer. In the hospital, Malaki asked to pray using the sign of the cross, which they didn’t normally do at home. He had amassed a collection of rosaries, and asked for one from his mom’s purse.
“(Malaki) just wanted to hold onto it because he doesn’t know what to say,” Carr said.
While everything around her was chaotic, she felt calm and at peace, which she believed was God giving her the contentment she was looking for.
Before making her decision about Catholicism, Carr wanted to ask the opinion of someone who was not Catholic, so she talked to a Christian friend who affirmed her decision, saying that she should be sure her decision was for herself.
This January, Carr told Paas her decision, and immediately Paas wanted in on the action.
While she was attending public school in London, Ont., Paas was bullied because of her Tourette syndrome and ADD diagnoses.
“It’s been a real struggle, it’s why I don’t fit in, why people don’t get to know me,” she said.
As a result of the bullying, she transferred to a Catholic school and became very involved in LifeTeen, a parish-based Catholic movement for youth, and the Catholic parish close to her house.
When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, they moved to Calgary in 2006 to be closer to family. Paas tried to be involved with LifeTeen in Calgary, but was unable to because of lack of transportation, and her family wanted her to attend the Christian Reformed Church.
After becoming pregnant with her son, she went through a period of rebellion where she suppressed her faith, although it never completely faltered.
“It was more like ‘I don’t really care right now, whether He loves me, whether I love Him, I don’t really want to think about it,’ ” she said.
Although she has tried different Christian churches in the past, the Catholic Church is where she has felt the most accepted and the most at home.
Paas also says the structure, involvement and physicality of the Catholic Mass is very helpful to her with her Tourette syndrome and ADD.
“It’s what keeps me focused and what keeps me grounded (during the celebration),” she said.
Both Paas and Carr were surprised to find out that the Catholic Church talks openly about sex and the respect that it is given. Carr has found Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body very helpful in understanding not only sexuality, but also her femininity as well.
The community they have both found in the Church has been instrumental in their decisions to become Catholic.
“I was accepted as a single mom” said Carr, and Paas agrees, saying that in the community she has found a new response to her, “they’re like, ‘Oh, you’re different, this is cool!’ ”
Both women have noticed their relationships within the Catholic community are no longer just surface enjoyment, but deep, lasting relationships, not only with other people, but with God as well.
(Boston, 25, is a third-year fine arts and drama student at the University of Calgary.)