Chris and Maggie Baker

Chris Baker
 
I knew I wanted to be Catholic, but I wasn’t sure if Seton was going to be my parish. I had moved from Fort Worth to Plano. There were two parishes that were roughly the same distance from my place, but I didn’t know anyone in Plano who could give me advice. Once I found out that Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton’s feast day was the same as my birthday, it was settled. I went for an interview with the RCIA director, and she welcomed me to RCIA and Seton.
 
On the first night of RCIA, I stopped just outside the building and stood in front of the statue of a woman in a bonnet and a long dress. This was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton. I imagined her welcoming me and went into the parish hall where RCIA met.
 
There was a long table with food and several round tables, all of which were filled with chatting sponsors and inquirers to the Faith. Everybody already knew each other. I had hoped to sit with the RCIA director, for she was the only person I knew at Seton, but she was nowhere to be found. I grabbed some food and sat at the table marked “Visitors.” There were a few people already eating, and I introduced myself as I sat down. After we ate, members of the RCIA team gave presentations on the saints while dressed as each saint.
 
Saint Thomas More strode out dressed in his scholar’s robe and said “I die the king’s faithful servant, but God’s first,” and there was Saint Joan of Arc who looked like the actress from the 1928 silent film The Passion of Joan of Arc, and Saint Francis of Assisi in his brown habit told us that he was going to preach to the birds, and then the RCIA director came out dressed in a bonnet and a long dress. She processed to the front of the room and said, “I am Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.”
 
The only person I knew in the parish was Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.
 
That night showed me that there may be saints among us, and a saint (even a disguised one) may be the only person you know. In the years since I’ve been at Seton, I’ve made many more friends, become a godparent, and even married at Seton. I’ve met people in the choirs, in rosary groups, in Bible studies, and all around the parish. And in each person I’ve met, I recall that night when the saints processed in the parish hall. Everywhere I look I see Seton.
 
 
 
Maggie Baker
 
Although I grew up in a large family with deep Catholic roots, I married a non-Catholic in my twenties. He converted to Catholicism a few years into the marriage, and I was proud to continue my parents' legacy of raising a Catholic family together. I was happy in my vocation as a wife and a mother. Not long after his conversion, however, my then-husband moved out of our home, divorced me, and remarried outside the Church. I was devastated and had deep feelings of guilt and shame. I considered myself a failure. I was deeply committed to my vows and felt my chance at marriage was forever gone. I believed God wanted me to spend my life alone with my kids. It was a dark time of low self-esteem and uncertainty.

As my kids and I settled into a new normal, I lived my life in a constant state of sleep deprivation and worry over the kids, the house, the money situation, and finding full-time work after years of being a stay-at-home mother. Even amidst these hardships -- the stress, the worry, the pain -- I became closer to God. The struggles I was having made me feel alive in God. In bearing my cross, I knew that Jesus was with me. Although it was the worst time of my life, it brought me great joy. I marveled at this new happiness. I felt better about myself and about my relationship with the Lord than I did when I was married.

For ten years I lived my life fully content in all my roles as mother, daughter, sister, aunt, co-worker and friend. Then I met Chris, and for the first time since the divorce I began to have hopes of being a wife again.  We became slow and steady friends over the course of several years. I prayed constantly for God's will to be done regarding a relationship with him. I wanted to be able to enter into the sacrament of matrimony. After we were both granted annulments, Chris and I were married in 2013.   The Psalmist's words "at night there are tears, but with dawn comes rejoicing" resonate deeply with me. After the tears of my struggles, I rejoiced in marriage. God makes all things new!