By Gretchen Keiser

This coming Saturday night at the Easter Vigil Liturgy, Pam Costello, who is 24 years old, will become a full member of the Catholic Church as she receives the sacraments of Holy Communion and Confirmation at St. John’s parish in Hapeville.

With the support of her husband, Tony, her high school sweetheart whom she married six years ago, Pam will be one of between 400 and 500 people coming into the church in the archdiocese at the Easter Vigil.

More than any numbers can reflect, there is a vitality to those who are coming into the church, which makes terms like “renewed life” and the “new beginning” of the Resurrection seem very real.

“I just wish that everybody could feel like a catechumen does all the time,” Pam said enthusiastically, “—feel the happiness, the joy of being special.”

“I do feel special. I do,” she underlined her words. Pam was talking over a cup of coffee at McDonalds, the morning of the day when she would be giving her first confession in preparation for the Easter Vigil Mass. The special quality which she mentioned comes, in part, from her sense that particular priests have helped her to take steps over the last year to find what was missing in her life and begin to change.

The process really began last September, Pam said, when she went with her husband’s parents, George and Mary Ann Costello, to a parish renewal weekend at St. Helena’s in Clayton. At that time she had been going to the Christian Church where she had been baptized and which she had attended as a young girl. Before the weekend began, Pam said, she already “knew I’d been missing something in my life,” but that weekend, there was a breakthrough in the family, as her mother-in-law got up and spoke of how proud she was to have Pam on the weekend. During group discussions, Pam said, she was touched by the great honesty of all the people who talked about how they had been hurt over the years by the church and how they were looking for a road back.

Outsiders might look at a renewal weekend, which lasts all day, and say, “No, I couldn’t get into that,” Pam said, “but you’d be surprised at how things come out that you really wanted to say down in your heart.”

Father Gerald Peterson, the Glenmary pastor of St. Mark’s in Clarkesville and St. Helena’s mission, was the one who helped her during that first renewal weekend when she decided that she wanted to join the Catholic Church. His role was so special to her that she was driving up to Clarkesville last weekend so that he could be the one to hear her first confession. “He’s changed so many people’s lives – not just mine – he’s changed all the Costellos,” Pam said. “He’s a one of a kind person.”

After she made her decision, she joined the inquiry class at St. John’s in Hapeville, taught by Father Stephen Naas and Sister Barbara Smiley, R.S.M. Over the last eight months she has learned about the church, about the sacraments and the “whys” behind the ways that things are done and found the teaching excellent. “I wish everybody could go hear Father Naas celebrate a Mass,” she said, emphasizing the care which he brings to celebrating the liturgy. In addition to weekly classes, which she has been faithfully attending, there have been special events during the year, including “scrutinies” in which those who are coming into the church at Easter join the rest of the parish for the Liturgy of the Word and the homily and then leave the congregation for separate Scripture study while the Eucharist is celebrated.

There has also been a one-day retreat for catechumens and candidates at St. John’s and one-on-one interviews prior to the Easter Vigil. Sister Barbara said working with the inquiry class was inspiring to her. “They’re enthused, they’re motivated, they want to be here,” she said. “And talking to them one on one, you hear a lot of their faith.”

Pam Costello said that in addition to the learning she has seen “changes in myself.”

“I can see myself being kinder, more patient, wanting to do more for others,” she said. That sense of wanting to give more to other people began with watching her husband, she said. “I learned that through Tony. He was always taught to ‘do unto others.’”

At the other extreme of ‘faith in action,’ Pam has refused to put a bumper sticker that says “We’re proud to be Catholic” on her brand new car – not because she’s not proud, but because the unblemished car is her prize possession. So she’s put the sticker up in her cubicle at the telephone company where she works. “That takes guts,” she said, laughing. “I confess to (being Catholic) every day.”

She is hoping to have both sides of her family present for the Easter Vigil serve – her parents and sisters and her in-laws and sister-in-law, Maria.

“I’m going to feel so happy, I’ll probably cry,” she said. “I’ll probably feel similar to when I was baptized and when I saw my sisters being baptized. I know it’s going to make my family thrilled to no end.”

Beyond that, she said, she is very eager to receive the Eucharist for the first time and she is expecting to be a changed person because of her decision. “I think it’s going to change life for me,” she said. “I’m expecting a change. If I don’t see me changing I’ll think something is wrong.”