Emily DeLaCruz and her fiancé, Raul Barragan, made a resolution one year ago to find a church community where they could worship.

The two grew up in the Baptist church but fell away by the time they were young adults. Several years ago, Emily, 22, visited a Catholic church with her grandmother for a cousin’s quinceañera rehearsal. “As soon as I entered the church, I felt the presence of God,” she recalled. “I knew I would love to go back.”

Just before Christmas of 2022, Emily told Raul she wanted to visit a Catholic church. As they considered nearby churches, Raul remembered the large steeple of All Saints in St. Peters, prominently perched on a hill overlooking I-70 in St. Charles County. They attended their first mass at All Saints on Jan. 1, 2023.

“That was the first time I felt a connection with anything in my faith,” said Raul, 20. “When we first met, the first thing she told me was, ‘I love Jesus, and you have to get on board with that.’ I respected that.”

Emily and Raul were received into the Church last November. Two months later, in January, they found themselves attending the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis with other members of All Saints Parish.

Hosted by the Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), the Jan. 1-5 conference drew college students and adults from across the country and internationally for talks, prayer and fellowship to equip them with the tools to become effective witnesses to the Gospel. The conference also was held in St. Louis last year.

Peak attendance at SEEK24 was 24,000, which included about 5,000 additional people from the Archdiocese of St. Louis who registered to attend the evening keynote speakers and eucharistic adoration on Jan. 3 at The Dome.

Emily and Raul were part of the collegiate track sessions, where they learned about discipleship and sharing the good news of their faith with others.

New Catholics, new eyes on faith

Joining Raul and Emily at SEEK was Promise Williams, who also was received into the Church in November at All Saints. The three were invited to attend by All Saints’ youth minister Caitlyn Ulery, who was Promise’s RCIA sponsor.

Like Raul and Emily, Promise was drawn to the Catholic Church. During her senior year in high school, she felt a calling to become a religious sister. There was just one thing — she wasn’t Catholic, and she had never interacted with a sister. Her only experience was through watching the movie “Sister Act.”

“I did a lot of research and one day at work I looked up Catholic churches near me,” said the 18-year-old. “All Saints was the first one that popped up. I decided to call the parish and ask how I can get involved. That’s how I started my journey.”

Outside of the comedy of “Sister Act,” Promise was interested in the lifestyle of the sisters. “I thought, there are women in our society who truly are that much of a believer and dedicate themselves to this,” she said. During SEEK, she had a chance to connect with several religious communities as she continues discerning while a college student at Murray State University in Kentucky.

Her biggest takeaway from SEEK was that “even though we aren’t deserving of it, God loves us no matter what,” she said. “I think one of the things all my life I have struggled with is guilt, like I don’t feel worthy enough to ask for forgiveness. I’ve met a lot of great people who are understanding.”

The Gospel in all its fullness

The first time Collin Scheffler experienced eucharistic adoration was with 24,000 other people on Wednesday night of the SEEK conference.

“Praying for two hours next to the people you love, in the presence of Christ, in an auditorium full of 24,000, is obviously going to be quite a massive experience,” Collin said. “And what that allowed me to do, for the first time, was truly sit down, and not even necessarily talk or sing, but truly allow Christ to talk to me, venture into my mind. My first Mass was almost a brief introduction, while adoration was truly getting to know Christ.”

Collin is a catechumen at Sacred Heart Parish in Valley Park, preparing to be received into the Church at Easter. Raised without any religion, he became curious about the faith while studying the history of the Roman Empire. He asked Kirk Ucinski, a friend since middle school, to take him to Mass for the first time.

“When I experienced the Mass for the first time, and I experienced the presence of Christ before me, there was an undeniable sense of belonging and presence that really drew me into the faith,” he said.

Collin attended the SEEK conference with Kirk — now his RCIA sponsor — at the invitation of Father Ryan Truss, associate pastor at Sacred Heart. Through RCIA, Collin has learned a lot about what the Church teaches and why, “but the actual activity of translating that into practice is still something I’m getting the hang of and learning every day,” he said.

Kirk attended the SEEK23 conference last year with several other members of the Ablaze Young Adult Ministry at Sacred Heart. “It’s immersion by fire,” he said. “You can’t attend this conference and go back and be the same person you were before — you have so much that sets you on fire that you will always carry with you.”

This year, a talk by Jeff Cavins inspired Kirk to have a renewed focus on making God the priority in his life. “The root of the word is ‘prior,’ meaning ‘first.’ And if you think about the word ‘priorities,’ it’s almost a contradiction — you can only have one priority. It’s what comes first, and everything else has to fall in place around it.”

Last year, about 15 Sacred Heart parishioners — both young adults and older — attended the SEEK conference. This year, it was about double that, with a couple dozen more joining for Wednesday night adoration, Father Truss said.

In the year since SEEK23, “I’ve seen a greater focus on evangelization in different ministries,” Father Truss said. “A question that’s often asked is, ‘How is this event or thing going to evangelize?’”

For example, at parish fish fries, each table included cards with conversation starters written by school students: What is your favorite prayer? What is a time you saw God’s love?

Father Truss was personally very moved by the grace poured out while hearing confessions during the SEEK conference. After Mass the following Sunday, he invited anyone looking for reconciliation to stick around after Mass. “I ended up hearing confessions for two hours,” he said.

“One thing that was clear from this week is that the faith is alive and well among so many of our young people,” Father Truss said. “These young people want the Gospel in all of its fullness.”

Seminarians on mission

At SEEK23 last year, Samuel Gerbic felt the Lord “recommission me as someone who is sent as an apostle,” he said. As a former FOCUS missionary, “Being able to attend the SEEK conference while being a seminarian forced me to ask the question: How is what I’m doing in seminary directly applicable to mission at the moment?”

Samuel and fellow seminarian Mark Koenemann, who also attended SEEK23, were both assigned to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Parish in south St. Louis County at the time. “I felt more called, pulled by the Holy Spirit, to be intentional about the way that I pursued relationships with people in the parish — Things like, stop people after Mass on their way out the door and ask them about their week, and follow up the next week about the thing that they shared,” said Samuel, a Configuration I (first-year theology) seminarian.

Mark, in his Configuration II year, found at SEEK a renewed call to trust in the power of the Gospel he’s called to preach. “The Gospel still has the same efficacy, the same grace, attached to it as it did 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire. And I get to see that at work in people’s lives. It’s just a matter of going out and being with people and showing them the truth,” he said.

At SEEK23 and SEEK24, Gerbic saw “hunger stirred up” in the hearts of those attending. “To see them return hungrier and ready to receive more deeply tells me that the people of God want a high call,” he said. “It encourages me to say, what else is the Lord encouraging me to feed to His sheep?”