‘The Catholic Church is my home now’

Editor’s Note: This is the second in a series of articles the Catholic Star Herald is featuring about individuals who entered the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil on April 8. Look for previous and future stories at catholicstarherald.org.

The Easter Triduum was eventful for Ruth Tracy.

On Holy Thursday at Saint Agnes Church, Our Lady of Hope Parish, Blackwood, she brought up the sacred oils and later got her feet washed. Forty-eight hours later, in front of the same altar, Bishop Dennis Sullivan conferred upon her the Sacraments of Holy Eucharist and Confirmation, bringing her in contact once again with the holy oil that had been blessed earlier that week at the annual Chrism Mass.

Now, Ruth Tracy, 68, is in full communion with the Catholic Church.

“The Bishop and the church community have made me feel so comfortable and accepted; I had tears in my eyes that night,” she says.

The last 14 months leading up to the Easter Vigil have been emotional for Tracy, a Blackwood resident. Richard, her husband of 46 years, died in February 2022 after a long battle with multiple sclerosis. Wanting to help her mother through the grieving process, the couple’s daughter, Mandi, encouraged Tracy to meet new people. Tracy set up an online profile, where she came across Joseph Juhas, a 4th Degree Knight of Columbus at Our Lady of Hope Parish.

Meeting for the first time in August, the two grew closer. Eventually, Juhas asked Tracy to accompany him to a Saturday Mass.

Although raised in the Episcopal tradition, later becoming Baptist, and then non-denominational, Tracy was familiar with the Catholic Church. “My parents had close friends who were Catholic, so I knew what they believed,” she explains.

She had always loved the Lord and was searching for a faith community to be part of, she says. At Our Lady of Hope, she found what she had been looking for. Meeting Father Joseph Szolack for the first time, Tracy recalls him saying, “You may not be Catholic, but you are a part of our Church family.” The parish pastor’s welcoming words “meant so much to me,” she says.

She also experienced the parish’s ChristLife program – evenings of fellowship, education and witness that create missionary disciples in the community – and remembers being immediately “embraced by the ladies at my table.”

Such grace-filled moments led to Tracy feeling “so much at home. I’ve been in the presence of God. I know this is where I should be.” She immersed herself into the parish and began the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults process. Juhas fully supported her journey, which strengthened their relationship. He was her sponsor.

“Ruth has been doing this on her own,” Juhas says, adding that these past few months “have been very emotional, watching her grow in the faith. She’s strengthened my own.”

Tracy adds that since the Easter Vigil, “There’s been a peace in my spirit. The Catholic Church is my home now.”

Others in attendance to support Tracy’s faith journey have seen a transformation as well. “Mandi has remarked on how happy I look, and a friend of mine told me that there was a glow around me,” she states.

As for the next steps? “I’m still overwhelmed. I’m just going to continue my journey, and see where the Lord leads me. I’m thinking about becoming involved in a few ministries,” she says.

Asked for advice on what to tell others at her stage of life, unsure of whether God is calling them to something greater, she answers with an age-old piece of wisdom. “All things are possible with Our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Looking back, she expresses wonderment and thanks for the day last summer when “a gentleman asked me to go to Mass. It changed my life.”