By Gretchen Keiser

New Catholics who joined the church at Easter were welcomed at the Cathedral of Christ the King Sunday in a Mass celebrated by the archbishop which expressed their full membership in the church family.

On the first Sunday of Lent, 294 people came to a Liturgy of the Word at the archdiocese’s cathedral church as part of their movement toward receiving the sacraments of initiation at Easter. This Sunday, the Mass of Welcome and Thanksgiving drew back more than 150 of those received into the church at Easter, traveling to the Cathedral with their pastors, families and sponsors.

While those joining the church were received during the Easter Vigil in their parishes and missions, the May 15 celebrated their full participation in the Word and the Eucharist with the archdiocesan family. Following the homily, parish groups were invited to come up to the altar where they were introduced by their pastors to Archbishop Donnellan. Each new Catholic received a photograph of the archbishop with Pope John Paul II, symbolic of the local church and the universal church.

On the first Sunday of Lent, “you were kind of visiting… it wasn’t yet yours,” observed homilist Father Bob Poandl, the Glenmary pastor of St. Francis of Assisi church in Blairsville. Now, he continued, there is no doubt “this is ours.”

He urged those new to the church to call the older members to a renewed and fresh faithfulness to the Gospel of Jesus, particularly to the call to offer “an alternative to a world that’s so lonely” and to the prayer of Jesus “that we may be one the way the Father and His Son are one.”

He asked the new Catholics “to help us live this Gospel in such a way that we will be the Eucharist we receive… that we will be the body of Christ.”

Among those participating was the Hagan family, parishioners of St. Lawrence Church in Lawrenceville, who brought six members into the church at Easter. Karen Lee Hagan said she and her husband, Jim, a Catholic, has spent many years seeking proper documentation to have the annulment process completed on her first marriage before she was able to join the church. This year their marriage was blessed by the church and Mrs. Hagan and all five of their children from 13-year-old Angela Marie to the baby, James David, were baptized.

Mrs. Hagan said that while the non-Catholic partner in a marriage may feel like an outsider to the church, she believes, as St. Paul expressed it in Scripture, that the marriage itself to one who believes can change the spouse.

Twenty-one parishes were represented at the Cathedral on Sunday, including many from the metropolitan area and others from St. Luke’s in Dahlonega, St. Francis in Blairsville and St. Paul in Cleveland, St. Mary’s in Toccoa, and St. Mark’s in Clarkesville and St. Helena’s in Clayton.