Brian Piñon, a college senior, studied his way to the church.

Single mother Brynna Columb felt God take her hand.

Like McKinley, Piñon, and Columb, people of all ages and walks of life will receive the sacraments of initiation and be welcomed into the Catholic Church during the Easter Vigil on March 22 in parishes across the diocese.

The sacraments of initiation — baptism, confirmation and first Eucharist — are unchanging from parish to parish. But the paths that lead each candidate and catechumen to the church are as individual as each person’s heart.

Phil McKinley
Holy Family Parish, Weed

Phil McKinley’s parents chose not to have their son baptized when he was an infant. They felt it should be his choice.

His parents reared him in a good Baptist home, but McKinley had not yet chosen to be baptized when he joined the Navy at 17.

He spent a year on Guam in the Pacific at the end of World War II. He returned home to Los Angeles and married a Catholic woman in the Catholic Church. He and his wife Jean raised five children — Sherry, Cathy, Barry, Cory and Mabel — all brought up in the Catholic faith.

Still, he had not chosen to be baptized.

When the children were young, he went to Mass with them, though he got away from the practice as the children left home, he said in an interview. With Mabel born 18 years after Cory, however, McKinley had a young child at home for nearly 30 years. That’s a lot of Masses to attend.

Still, McKinley had not chosen to be baptized.

He retired in 1986 and moved to Weed, where he and his family attended Mass at Holy Family Church. The three middle children had grown up and moved out on their own, but Mabel was only 11 and his oldest daughter, Sherry, was still at home.

Then his second oldest daughter, Cathy, was diagnosed with Hodgkins lymphoma.

“She knew she was dying,” he said, “and she made me promise that I would get baptized before I died.” So he promised. Cathy died on Sept 11, 1995.

Sherry passed away five years later of leukemia.

Thirteen years after McKinley’s promise, Mabel is staying with her parents to assist them. Her mother Jean has a blood disorder and gets a transfusion very few weeks. Mabel brought her husband and her two-year-old daughter. There is a baby underfoot to take to Mass again.

This year, McKinley chose to be baptized.

He plays golf five days a week. He’s gracious in conversation, simultaneously humorous and reserved. When asked why he chose this year to be baptized, he replied, “There’s the promise, plus the time of turning 80.” He said that he is in fine health, but 80 is 80.

He attends Mass with his wife at Holy Family on Saturday evenings now, and Tuesday evenings with the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults group. He is surprised by how much he has learned. He’d thought he knew a lot about the church already, he said, but he relearns a lot, too. He’s faithful. He attends Mass and the RCIA talks every single week.

He recently learned that his sons are flying in from Spokane and Los Angeles to be with him at his baptism during the Easter Vigil.

“The whole family will be together then,” he said. “Sherry and Cathy, too.”

Brian Pinon
St. James Parish, Davis

Brian Piñon has been searching for the community that most closely follows Jesus.

At a coffee shop near UC Davis, where Piñon studies international business, he talked to The Herald about his faith journey.

Piñon was baptized Catholic as an infant, but almost immediately afterward his parents left the church, becoming active in a nondenominational Protestant congregation.

As Piñon entered high school, the family relocated to Roseville, where they visited several churches, looking for the community that felt right. The family eventually settled into another Protestant church, but Piñon wasn’t satisfied.

In his family’s church, the congregation prayed frequently for Christian unity, taking as their text John 17:20, Jesus’ prayer that his followers “may all be one.”

Jesus’ prayer stayed with Piñon. He wondered why there were so many splinter groups of Christians when Jesus so clearly wanted all Christians to be united.

Throughout high school, Piñon and his best friend tried different faith groups, from mega-churches to house churches. Each congregation tried to live as they thought Jesus wanted them to live, based on their interpretations of the Bible. But their interpretations differed. Piñon wondered which interpetation was most accurate.

In college, Piñon joined a campus Christian group. There were 10 or 12 such groups, he noticed. Within his own group, the students were divided into separate subgroups, often according to race. There were Hispanic, African-American and Filipino subgroups, among others. These groups met separately and developed their own worship styles and scriptural interpretations.

Piñon found the fragmentation disheartening. He respected the people and their commitment to Christ, but their insistence that everyone interpret Scripture individually led to splintering rather than to unity. And because they weren’t united, they couldn’t agree on basic moral issues.

“They couldn’t even agree that abortion was wrong,” he said.

Meanwhile, Piñon’s best friend had become Catholic. Piñon thought his friend was crazy. But during his part-time job giving out tickets, driving around in a campus truck, Piñon began listening to Catholic radio.

Father John Corapi’s show on Catholic teaching was broadcast during Piñon’s shifts. Piñon didn’t always agree with Father Corapi’s views, but the show debunked the stereotypes about Catholics that he had learned as a Protestant.

Home for the summer, Piñon continued discussing Catholicism with his Catholic friend and reading books about Catholicism. He attended Mass, but he was puzzled by the idea of Mass as a sacrifice. He liked Mass. Protestant services, he explained, focus on the congregation and what they are feeling. The Mass focuses on God.

Then one day, while reading about Catholic liturgy, he learned that the Mass is a continuation of the tradition of sacrifice in the Old Testament, only with the new covenant of Christ.

“That’s when I decided to become Catholic,” he said. “It was Aug. 17, 2007.”

He called St. James Parish in Davis. He was headed home.

Brynna Columb
St. Patrick Parish, Grass Valley

The path leading Brynna Columb to St. Patrick Parish in Grass Valley began in a hospital. After high school graduation, Columb traveled with her brother to Europe, where she met and became engaged to her future husband, Adrian. A transatlantic romance ensued. He visited the United States to meet her family. She flew back to Europe to meet his.

While she and her fiancé were in Scotland, she discovered that she was pregnant. She also became very ill — so ill that she had to be hospitalized.

Her condition was Hyperemesis gravidarum, a rare and life-threatening pregnancy complication that keeps the mother violently ill throughout the pregnancy. After three weeks in a Scottish hospital, Columb returned to the United States and was immediately hospitalized in California. Her fiancé, however, was not permitted to reenter the country. On his previous visit he had overstayed his visa by two days. He could not return.

Columb spent the entire pregnancy in the hospital, deeply sick and alone. Her mother visited often, but as the months passed Columb felt a profound sense of desolation. “I have nothing,” she remembers thinking. She had never felt so alone and uncentered.

Then one day, while lying in her hospital bed, Columb felt that “somebody was there holding my hand, even though nobody was there.”

She remembers realizing, “I have God. I don’t have nothing. I have God.” She knew that God was with her. She knew that she would be OK, that the baby would be OK, and that there was a reason for everything.

She began to pray.

Adrian was finally permitted to enter the country and meet his healthy daughter when Cecelia was five months old. Columb and her fiancé were married, but the marriage did not last. As Columb prepares to receive the sacraments this Easter, she reflects on her journey.

In an interview, Columb said that everything in her life has been leading her to the church. She loves the church’s tradition, its unity, its beauty and orderliness. She looks forward to becoming part of the community in her parish and part of the great Catholic community that has gone before her.

“Whenever I go into a Catholic church, I feel I’m at home,” she said firmly. “I’m meant to be here.”

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