News

He's growing into the faith

By Patricia Kasten
Compass Associate Editor

	Related articles this week: • Easter Vigil marks new life for Howard man     Brennenstuhl completes RCIA, set     to join church • For Sarah Zoch, the wait is finally over     After years of searching, Zoch has found     a church she's come to love • Iraq experience proved pivotal moment     Coulliard's faith journey intensified while     stationed in Iraq

APPLETON -- They had a little trouble finding a baptismal robe large enough for 13-year-old Nick Wunderli. The six feet and two inch, 220-pound eighth grader was on the wrestling team this year at St. Joseph Middle School. But even though he's a little nervous about climbing into the baptismal font at St. Thomas More Parish to get water poured over him at the Easter Vigil, Nick is looking forward to becoming a full-sized member of the church.

E a s t e r

"I think it would be cool to learn how to be an altar server and learn to do that," he said, adding that he's already helped with set up for the parish's bingo nights.

Nick is in the RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults) process and is his parish's only catechumen this year. He will be baptized and confirmed at the vigil, and receive first Eucharist. His uncle, Brian Wunderli, will be his godfather and a family friend, John Petrash, will be his confirmation sponsor. Since both live out of the area, his father, Greg, has been his "practical sponsor" and attended all the RCIA meetings with him.

"I think (the RCIA process) was a pretty cool way because there were other people you could relate to and talk to - not only do you get your own insight, but the insight of people who are also going through the same thing or something similar to it and also becoming Catholic," Nick said about his fellow RCIA participants, Chris Guay, Craig Mickelson, Chad Oeftgen.

Nick's parents were divorced a year ago. He remembers attending Sunday school at his mother's Baptist church as a child. After the divorce, he became curious about Greg's Catholic faith and began coming to church with him at St. Thomas More.

"I let it kind of lie there," Greg said, "like a lure out in the water. It wasn't all that coincidental, but it was Nick coming to the decisions. I wanted him to have the desire to be baptized, to want to find out, to want to move along. ... He started asking more and more questions and seeking more answers."

Nick was also nudged by not being able to go to Communion, like his classmates, when he went to Seton Catholic Middle School in seventh grade. Before that, he had been home schooled.

"They found out I wasn't baptized," he said. "And the guidance counselor talked to me about it and said that I probably shouldn't receive Communion. That kind of made me want to get baptized so I could."

However, Nick waited until late last summer to ask his dad about enrolling him in the RCIA.

Now he says that the biggest insight he's learned since is "that I found out that if you do something wrong it's not written in blood that you're going to hell. If you repent and say you're sorry and talk to God, that he will forgive you. And if you turn your back on him, he's still there. Even if it's for 50 years, you can still turn around and you can find God."

He's also learned that prayer is more than saying formal prayers. "I've learned how to talk to God better," he said, "to pray better, to talk to him more often. To talk to him all the time because if you do that he'll help you go down the right path in life."

His dad calls it "a spiritual evolution" that he's been proud to witness. "When you see that," he said about his son's faith, "you know this is not just ringing bells or chanting; that you can actually talk to God and he can help you and show you a way out. I'm seeing my son peek over the fence and say, 'Wow. Look what I found!'"

"Yeah," Nick said, nodding. "It's greener."

One other event that Nick is looking forward to is at school.

"My homeroom teacher (Jan Cook)," he said, "being the nice person that she is, is actually throwing a Communion lunch party for me, so we're ordering Subway. She said, 'Everybody has already had first Communion party and you should have one.'"

His dad, a professional in pyrotechnics, intends to light a few fireworks Easter weekend.