by Susan Stevenot Sullivan

It is a commitment she perhaps could not have imagined in childhood. Like the majority of adults learning about the Catholic faith through the Order of Christian Initiation (OCI) program, Meg Helmer’s choice of a spouse has led to her choice of a church.

After more than a year of preparation, she has found a new faith and a new family of worship at St. Lawrence Church in Lawrenceville. During the Easter Vigil liturgy Mrs. Helmer will receive the sacraments of First Eucharist and Confirmation.

Her husband George, a Catholic and her lifetime sponsor, will be with her on Holy Saturday, as will Mary Boyle, her parish sponsor for the OCI process.

The evening she is welcomed to full communion in the church she will be surrounded by her new parish friends, her 10 OCI classmates, those with whom she does parish volunteer work and others whose Scripture study she plans to join.

The 28-year-old expects to be overwhelmed with emotion on this solemn occasion. Most of those feelings will be happy, but a few will be touched with sorrow.

“My family is still Protestant,” she said, fingering the large wooden cross on a ribbon around her neck. “I’ve had some difficult conversations with family members. They don’t understand what I’m doing.”

“I used to go to church with my sister all the time,” she added. “I’ll miss that, I know this is the right decision, but it does feel weird not to have the same religion as your parents and brothers and sisters.”

Mrs. Helmer, who was baptized at Southwest Christian, said other family considerations played a large part in her decision to become a Catholic.

“When my husband and I were dating we visited each other’s churches so we could worship together. He was going to Corpus Christi at the time. We were married in 1991,” she said.

“I decided I wanted us to be in the same faith,” Mrs. Helmer continued. “Like most ‘cradle Catholics,’ he wouldn’t consider leaving the Catholic Church. I thought we could share more and be more active in the same church.”

“We definitely wanted to sort out the issue of practicing faith as a family before we started a family, so from the beginning we can raise our children in a certain faith and stay with it,” she said.

After she and her husband moved to Lawrenceville, Mrs. Helmer said she decided to learn firsthand what the church was about. She had grown more comfortable with the Sunday liturgy and one day dialed the phone number given in the parish bulletin for the inquiry class.

“I felt that was the way I was being led,” she said. “A lot of my questions were answered in the inquiry stage. I had been worried about leaving the faith I’d had behind. I was invited to bring my faith with me.”

She was surprised her instruction about the Catholic Church did not include criticism of Protestant traditions.

“In my experience the Protestant church can come down hard on the Catholic Church and be very critical. Here, Catholics didn’t do that to the Protestant church. They explain why Catholics do what they do and where it comes from. They never criticized places you’ve come from or different ways you’d been taught.”

Mrs. Helmer said she finds the biggest difference between the churches to be the importance of sacraments, such as matrimony. She and her husband were married with no preparation in a Protestant church. Their marriage has since been blessed, or convalidated, by the Catholic Church.

Certain events seem much more holy, much more important in the Catholic Church. In Protestant churches I’ve been to the main focus is to hear the sermon. In the Catholic Church the homily is not the only emphasis.”

Although she has been an active participant in the initiation program, Mrs. Helmer said she has much more to learn.

“One calendar year just isn’t enough to fully understand everything, particularly some of the rituals. Maybe in the next year things will have more meaning because you’ve learned a lot on the way,” she said, leafing through a large binder stuffed with handouts and notes devoted to her preparation process.

Her husband is an important part of that process.

We talk about what I’ve learned after class,” Mrs. Helmer said. “I’ve discovered things about his feelings on different subjects that we might never have discussed.”

By the end of the year Mrs. Helmer will have a new religion, a new degree (computer science) and, she hopes, a new job. Yet, there is no question which of these milestones will have the biggest impact.

“This has become a way of life,” she said of her new faith. “I think I’m much more enriched. I’m much more active. It’s an exciting time. It’s hard to believe it’s happening so fast.”

“I feel very welcomed by the people of the parish,” she said with a smile. “I’m looking forward to every step along the way.”