Every conversion story has a turning point, the moment at which a person experiences a personal encounter with God and makes a dynamic change. For catechumen Nate Epps, 26, his turning point came during a long season of unemployment last year.
“It was really tough for a while,” Epps said. But it was this experience that turned him back to God. “I started praying about it, and Jesus really made his presence in my life felt again,” he said. He felt the Lord’s presence in more ways than one. “You know, soon after I started praying, I got a job,” he said. “The Lord works in mysterious ways, right?”
But Epps knew he needed to dig deeper into his relationship with God. He grew up attending a Protestant church, Princeton Alliance Church in Plainsboro, N.J. But he was never baptized and didn’t feel a strong connection with his faith. In college, he stopped attending church.
But as he became more interested in Christianity last year, “I was praying again, and I was starting to read my Bible again, and I was starting to think, ‘I would like to go back to church, but what kind of church would I like to go to?’ ” His childhood church was “very flashy, (with) electric guitars and light shows,” he remembered. “I don’t think that’s what I’m looking for.” He attended a few Protestant churches in Fredericksburg with a roommate, but nothing stuck.
So, like any Gen-Zer, Epps took to the internet, researching different Christian denominations and beliefs. Then, he learned about Catholicism and felt a spark of curiosity.
A family connection helped Epps take a deeper dive into the faith. His cousin Gabriel Epps, a student at The Catholic University of America in Washington, had recently entered the Catholic Church, and Epps reached out to him with questions. Gabriel encouraged him to join a local parish’s Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (formerly RCIA) to further explore the faith.
So, Epps looked up a parish near him, St. Thomas à Becket Church in Reston. He started OCIA in November, and hasn’t looked back since. “The more I learned about it, the more it made sense,” he said. He said the parish’s young adult ministry also gave him a sense of belonging, and the young adults also helped guide his faith formation.
The one aspect of the Catholic faith that surprised him the most was Catholic teaching on the Eucharist. Growing up in a Protestant denomination, the concept of communion wasn’t taught as a sacrament, he said. “Maybe you grab a few extra crackers on the way out.” But he was captivated by church teaching on the Eucharist as a direct encounter with Christ.
When it comes to his confirmation saint, Epps went back and forth between several saints, but always came back to the parish’s namesake. The more he dug into the life story of St. Thomas à Becket and his martyrdom, the more he became assured of his choice.
Father Richard Dyer, pastor of St. Thomas, said it has been heartening to see the parish young adults walk side by side with Epps through his conversion. “It has truly been a joy to walk with Nate on his journey into the church through the baptismal waters of grace,” he said. “Nate has been part of our thriving young adult ministry. It seems that we are at the beginning of a ‘renaissance’ of sorts, led by so many young adults seeking the truth, beauty and goodness of our faith.”
Epps said that the Easter Vigil “went by in the blink of an eye.” Reflecting on his lifelong spiritual journey, he said that “God has been pulling me slowly but steadily” toward the Catholic Church. “This is where I’m meant to be.”
Donofrio can be reached at [email protected].
