Hundreds in the archdiocese move closer to becoming Catholic

At just 7 years old, Colette Magiera decided she wanted to be Catholic.

No one in her immediate family is a practicing Catholic. But when she told her parents that she wanted to go to Church, they obliged.

Her father, David Magiera, first took her to Sunday Mass at St. Cecilia Cathedral in Omaha. Now they are going closer to home at St. Pius X in Omaha, where Colette is being formed in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults (OCIA).

At 7, she is one of the youngest converts in the OCIA process in the archdiocese.

Most recently, Colette joined hundreds of other OCIA participants at the Rite of Election and Call to Continuing Conversion.

Two separate ceremonies were held Sunday, Feb. 22, at St. Cecilia – at 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. – to accommodate the crowd of the incoming Catholics, along with their sponsors, parish OCIA directors and others.

About 700 people are expected to become full members of the Church at the Easter Vigil. That number is up nearly 17% over last year, when the archdiocese received about 600 new Catholics.

At the Feb. 22 ceremonies, on the first Sunday of Lent, Archbishop Michael G. McGovern welcomed the OCIA participants, greeting each one personally as they were called to the altar.

During the Rite of Election, catechumens, such as Colette, publicly expressed their desire to be baptized and to receive other sacraments of the Church, while the archbishop publicly accepted them as suitable for admission.

During the Call to Continuing Conversion, the candidates, who are already baptized, requested permission to receive the sacraments of Confirmation and the Eucharist.

Colette has been taking her preparation seriously. So have her father and her mother, Tiffany Magiera, who has been helping with catechesis. They were on hand at the 2 p.m. Rite of Election with another daughter, Anne, to support Colette.

The Magiera family, from left: Tiffany, Anne, Colette and David.

David Magiera said his grandmother, who was a faithful Catholic, would be enjoying a good laugh at seeing her great-granddaughter take charge of her own faith.

Both Magiera and his wife were baptized in the Catholic Church but stopped practicing at some point. Now, in an unusual twist, their young daughter is leading them to go to church.

“The Holy Spirit is strange,” the father said after Sunday’s ceremony.