The road to baptism
has already been a long one for Joe Wofford. Now it will be a little longer.
“It’s not
easy,” said Wofford, a catechumen who has been praying and studying since fall
2018 with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) group at St. John
Neumann Church in Reston. “It’s all supposed to be culminating in the Easter
Vigil.”
Every year on
the evening before Easter Sunday, thousands of people in the United States are
baptized into the Catholic Church, confirmed and receive the Eucharist for the
first time. The dramatic Easter Vigil Mass begins with a dark church that
gradually fills with the light of hundreds of candles, all lit from a giant
Paschal candle, which symbolizes Jesus, the Light of the World.
Wofford has
been picturing what it will be like to be fully immersed in the water of the
church’s baptismal font. “What a powerful image it is,” he said. “When you are
raised out of the water by the priest, you are a completely new person and your
family and friends are there seeing you ‘reborn’ for the first time,” he said.
But this
year, the Vatican said there will be no baptisms at the Easter Vigil, because
public Masses in so many localities have been suspended to prevent the spread
of the coronavirus.
While the
norm is to celebrate adult baptisms at the Easter Vigil, the initiation rite
does allow variations for “unusual circumstances,” said Rose Bennett, director
of the RCIA program at St. John Neumann Church.
A global pandemic would surely qualify.
Bennett said
that when the pandemic dies down and public Masses resume, either the pope or
bishop will choose a new Sunday or feast day for this year’s baptisms — or the
bishop could leave it up to pastors to decide.
“Everybody’s
waiting, and I can understand why they’re waiting, too,” she said. “Nobody
knows how long this is going to last. It’s a time of patience, because we just
don’t know.”
Other
parishes also are trying to make contingency plans, and some have changed the
way they gather to prepare.
“We are still
sorting out how to proceed, with the ever-changing restrictions being placed on
public gatherings,” said Hilary Munger, director of religious education at the
Basilica of St. Mary in Alexandria, which has an unusually large group of 27
adults planning to enter the church this year — far more than the 10-person
limit on gatherings. They recently started meeting by videoconference on Zoom.
Aaron Szabo
of Alexandria is one of the catechumens preparing to be baptized at the
basilica, after a journey of almost 10 years — since Szabo met Pamela Callahan
and started attending church with her. They’ve been married since 2013, and he
said she’s “done a great job of being a great example for me.” Szabo, a
government consultant who used to work at the White House, was raised Jewish by a Jewish mom and
Catholic dad, and knows he’s taken “quite a long time and done a lot of praying
and thinking, to make sure this is something that I really believed and felt
comfortable with.”
While he was
looking forward to coming into the church at the Easter Vigil, the night before
his 35th birthday, he said, “I know God has a plan for me, and I believe I will
be able to join the Catholic Church as soon as possible. But I would rather
spend my prayers praying for others, especially those who are really
suffering,” including a good friend’s father, who is hospitalized with
COVID-19. “I don’t pray for this to be over so I can be baptized tomorrow, but
to end the suffering for other people.”
Jason
Schwendenmann was to enter the church on the Easter Vigil at St. Bernadette
Church in Springfield; his wife, Lisa, is his sponsor. “It is going to be
something I’ll miss, but I’m sure there’s going to be another experience that
will be meaningful,” said Schwendenmann, who grew up Methodist, though his
father was Catholic. Their daughter, C.J., a kindergartener at St. Bernadette
School, “is learning a lot more than I ever did. I wanted to get in sync with
her and be able to answer her questions” about the faith.
Wofford, a
software consultant who turns 24 April 17, said he is trying to see this
additional period of waiting as an opportunity to grow in his faith, and to
focus on the strides he has made already. “Keeping anchored to that is what
keeps me going,” he said.
He shared
that his parents were raised Catholic and Baptist but stopped going to church
and only his oldest sister was baptized. “They’re spiritual people, but just
not going to church,” he said.
Wofford added
that he “always thought there was something, someone else — the world seems too
grand for it just to be happenstance.” But his spiritual journey really took
off after he met his Catholic wife, Rachel, in high school, and she encouraged
him in his faith. After they got married in 2018, moved to Reston and started
attending St. John Neumann Church, Wofford said the atmosphere felt so
welcoming that “it all felt kind of right,” and he felt it was time to take the
next step in his journey.
Now, he said,
he’s just “trying to be as patient as possible,” and keep everything in
perspective. When he gets to feeling a little impatient, Wofford said he
reminds himself, “Am I really complaining that I have to wait a few more
months, when Jesus died on the cross for us? It makes you feel bad for
complaining.”
