Disenchanted as Protestants, Trent and Cynthia Palm, parishioners of St. Patrick in Oak Grove, said they began looking into the Catholic Church after an Ash Wednesday service touched their hearts.
“It’s been almost a year and a half journey. … It’s not like we just stepped into this,” Trent told Patrick Conley, host of the “Practicing Catholic” show, for an episode set to air at 9 p.m. April 25 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
Trent said that when he steps into a Catholic church he thinks, “This is the Church. This is what God intended. This is what he established.”
As he walked into the Easter Vigil Mass this year to be welcomed into the Catholic Church through baptism, Trent said he was focused on partaking in the Eucharist.
There is a tradition on Holy Thursday at St. Patrick during which the Eucharist is brought into a makeshift garden of Gethsemane. Cynthia said during the time of adoration and prayer in this tradition, she felt God speaking to her that this faith was good and beautiful.
It was a time of “surrender and trust and faith and full knowledge that this is what God has for our family. So, coming into the Vigil, it was peace and excitement,” Cynthia said.
At the Vigil Mass, not only were Cynthia and Trent baptized, but so were their three older children. Together, as a family, they all received Communion for the first time.
Trent explained that when Father Timothy Yanta, the pastor of St. Patrick, laid his hands on him, Trent felt the Holy Spirit moving.
“It’s just something that we’ve never … experienced on any level within even the Protestant world,” Trent said. “Truly the presence of Christ (was) working through the priests who went through the apostolic succession.”
Cynthia said there were plenty of nerves in the family, especially being welcomed into the Church with children. But once she accepted the Eucharist, she sensed the presence of Christ.
“When you long for something, you literally thirst and hunger for it,” Cynthia said.
To hear more from Cynthia and Trent about their recent baptism and first Communion in the Catholic Church, tune into “Practicing Catholic,” which repeats at 1 p.m. April 26 and 2 p.m. April 27.
Also on the program, Father Jim Livingston, pastor of St. Paul in Ham Lake, talks about the challenging call to love as Christ did. And Archbishop Bernard Hebda shares the impact the April 21 death of Pope Francis had on the local Church and those outside the Church.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, “Practicing Catholic” can be heard after it has aired at archspm.org/faith-and-discipleship/practicing-catholic or choose a streaming platform at Spotify for Podcasters.
