Notre Dame Sees Record-Breaking Number Join Church

‘I Truly Believe Now’

Perhaps better known as a former reserve kicker for the Fighting Irish football team, senior Zachary Yoakam was one of those newly received into the Catholic Church. Baptized Presbyterian but not raised religious, Yoakam said he had a “come to Jesus” moment in November of 2023 that changed everything.

“It was more in the sense I had this absolute desire to pray,” Yoakam remembered. “I was biking home – I’d never prayed before, just to be honest. I had this desire … and the only place I knew where to pray was the Grotto.”

Yoakam said when he reached the Grotto, he broke down in tears. Afterward, he began searching for meaning in Christianity in earnest and was attracted by “the beauty of the Church.” One of the places he encountered the Catholic Church was as a football player, as the team attends regular Masses together. Yoakam said he chose the great theologian St. Augustine for his patron saint because he “wants to be a learner” about the faith. He has attended Masses and Catholic rites at, in his estimation, 30 different churches around Michiana to see what Catholicism looks like in different contexts outside of Notre Dame’s campus.

“I truly believe now,” Yoakam said. “I’m not just saying this – I’m trying to live this.”

‘Wake Up and Push Back’

Brett Perkins, Notre Dame’s assistant director of evangelization and religious education, told Today’s Catholic that he himself went through OCIA at the university as an undergrad. He said the number of students in the yearlong OCIA process has been growing since the COVID-19 pandemic, though he called the jump from last year’s 33 students to this year’s 52 “substantial.”

“I think that there’s something about it that speaks
to responding to the restlessness that we all feel inside,” Perkins said, adding that he has begun the first classes of OCIA with two quotations that really “resonated” with participants: St. Augustine’s “Our hearts are restless until they rest in You,” and Blaise Pascal’s “There is a God-shaped hole in the heart of every person.”

Participants then spend the first session discussing the experiences that led them to OCIA, whether being invited by friends to Mass or becoming disenchanted with their lifestyle, social media, or lack of authentic community.

“Whatever it is, it’s when they’ve started to feel that restlessness and started to name it for themselves,” Perkins said, adding that “it’s beautiful to see people start to wake up and push back at [today’s secular culture].”

‘Something More’

This matches up with the experience of Notre Dame junior Charlie Mason, who first encountered Christianity while feeling “very isolated and alone” in high school during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“There has to be something more,” she remembered thinking then.

After encountering Catholics on social media praying the Rosary, Mason looked up the prayer and began praying it every single day for several months. In college, influenced in part by her required theology classes and her study-abroad experiences in Ireland, Mason made the jump to join OCIA and get baptized at the Easter Vigil.

“I feel like this was the missing piece,” she said.

Doctoral student Demetrius Hernandez, who was confirmed on April 27, called the OCIA process at Notre Dame “transformative.”

“I’m not the same person I was when I started, because
I’ve gained a deeper understanding of my faith, a strong sense of community, and the tools to keep growing – spiritually and personally,” Hernandez said.

Peer-to-Peer Ministry

Additionally, Perkins said he is “always just so inspired by [the] witness” of the student leadership team he works with. Catholic student helpers play a large part in the university’s OCIA program, leading sessions and small groups every Sunday. Even when providing sponsors for students who need them, the program does its best to match up each confirmand with a sponsor of the same gender, college year, and sometimes even dorm.

“Better if they hear from their peers than from me why they ought to be committed Catholics,” Perkins said. “It hits a lot closer to home when it’s a fellow peer.”

Mason was one of the students who had a positive sponsor matching experience. While she was initially nervous to be matched up with a stranger, she said she and her chosen sponsor “immediately became best friends.”

“She really makes participating in the Church something approachable and something I can share with someone else,” Mason said.

Senior Sabrina Searl and third-year law student Abraham Arun are two members of the student leadership team in OCIA. Both came to the team through serving first as sponsors, and both said helping with OCIA was one of the best things they’d done while at the university, with Searl calling it “the most impactful” thing she has done there and Arun calling it “the most fruitful.”

Arun likened the emotional experience of watching his small group members receive the sacraments to “walking your kid down the aisle on their wedding day.”

As Searl said, “There’s nothing more humbling and rewarding than serving with your friends you didn’t know were your friends.”

In fact, sophomore William Wheeler, who was baptized at the Easter Vigil this year, added that he has met some of his best friends in OCIA, and that he was struck by the “intentionality” and “community” behind it, especially in his small group.