Dan Capistrant, 56, turned away from God when he was 10 and his father died.
“It shook me and kept me away from church,” said Capistrant, who was raised Catholic along with his six siblings. “To me, it was like God was taking him away from me. And I couldn’t understand why. My mom was great; she talked to me. But I was a boy, what could I talk about?”
As years passed, Capistrant tried several times at various churches to return to Mass. “I just never connected; nothing really clicked.”
Then in 2021, he and his wife, Viviana, moved near Guardian Angels in Oakdale, where Father Joe Connelly is pastor. They tried Mass again.
“It was amazing,” Capistrant said. “My first day at Guardian Angels, Father Connelly explained the Mass. He went through part of it, the crucifix in front of us, walking toward it, the four steps up to the altar.”
Capistrant committed with his wife to attending the next three Masses. “We decided we’d see –– and we stayed.”
Ever since, “my life has changed tremendously,” Capistrant said.
“I’ve since joined the Men’s Club. I volunteer at the church” selling Christmas trees and with events including wedding receptions and quinceañeras, he said. During Lent in 2022 he was excited to be among those chosen to have their feet washed as part of Holy Thursday Mass.
In July 2022, Father Connelly asked the Capistrants if they would like to join the parish’s efforts to implement the Archdiocesan Synod. After praying about it, they agreed.
“We learned a lot about our relationship with God,” Capistrant said. “How to evangelize, (we) learned about the Bible, the Holy Spirit. I have learned through the Synod.”
They also joined a small group at the parish that follows the parish evangelization cells system (PECS) model, which includes praise and worship, sharing ways Christ has been present to them and ways they have responded, as well as a teaching moment, discussion and prayers of intercession.
“I like the personal sharing,” Capistrant said. “You get to know the people better. A lot of times, when they are sharing, it’s from the heart.”
They’ve explored parts of the archdiocese as a group, in part through a tour of seven churches for prayer during Holy Thursday night before Good Friday. The eight-member small group has talked about traveling together, perhaps to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in La Crosse, Wisconsin, he said.
“It’s been a wonderful experience and a great way to meet other people who have faith in common,” Capistrant said. “It’s kept my faith going. I might have attended church. I would have been the lukewarm person” not extending himself much further than listening to the readings, he said. “It’s brought me closer and closer in my relationship with God; I don’t know that I had one. I don’t believe I did. I feel like I have (had) a returning to God. I feel he’s the one in control. I reach out to God for everything.”
The Synod process and PECS small groups encouraged by Archbishop Hebda as a new way to be parish has provided faithful friends he can turn to, Capistrant said. And he has turned to them.
A colonoscopy last May led to removal of polyps, with infection and sepsis setting in, Capistrant said. Extensive testing followed and by chance doctors discovered a small cancerous spot in his kidney, Capistrant said. It was found early, so it had not spread, was readily removed and he is free of cancer, Capistrant said.
“I had so many people praying for me, my family, my friends, all praying for me. And without sepsis, they would not have found the cancer,” he said.
Members from Capistrant’s small group and another small group visited him in the hospital, Capistrant said. “At the end of their visit they prayed over me and sang a healing prayer over me, and I feel that had a direct impact on my recovery. I felt that God was present with us that night,” he said.
“The silver lining of it is, I am cancer free,” Capistrant said. Before 2021, “I would not have attributed this to God and the miracle of prayer,” he said. “I would not have had the same support group and folks praying for me.”
A recent Synod-related retreat at Guardian Angels reflected on Jesus in the Gospel of John talking with a Samaritan woman at a well, who runs back to her community, explains that Jesus told her all she had done, asks them if he could be the Messiah and invites them to see Jesus. The story struck him deeply, Capistrant said.
“I know what God has done for me,” he said.
SMALL GROUPS AT GUARDIAN ANGELS
Dan Capistrant and his wife, Viviana, are among dozens of people at Guardian Angels in Oakdale who are part of about eight small groups based on a model encouraged by the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis: the parish evangelization cells system (PECS), said pastor Father Joe Connelly. One recent development: the formation of a young adult small group, he said.
“The small groups have been very, very beneficial for parishioners,” he said. “People find friends they can pray with.”
PECS offers enough avenues for people to enter the conversation –– such as general discussion about teaching moments and individual sharing about faith experiences –– that extroverts and introverts alike find ways to participate, Father Connelly said.
A Lenten parish retreat March 22 offered another way into small groups, Father Connelly said. People were invited to share one-on-one as they discussed ways faith begins with a personal relationship with God, develops through an understanding that everyone is a child of God and impacts others through the mission of bringing Christ’s love, truth and mercy to the world, he said. The event was designed to help parishioners test the waters for what meeting in a small group might be like, Father Connelly said.
“We’re really proud of our small groups and the growth of small groups” in the parish, he said.
