Whiteland family has ‘amazing experience’ in journey to Catholic faith

The McClain family members pose with Father Stephen Giannini, pastor of SS. Francis and Clare of Assisi Parish in Greenwood, and extended family members after the Easter Vigil Mass at SS. Francis and Clare of Assisi Church on March 31. At far left is John’s grandmother Phyllis Long, his mother Deborah Woodard, Jessie McClain, John McClain, Jewel McClain, Father Giannini, Steven McClain and John’s stepfather Mike Woodard. (Submitted photo)

By Natalie Hoefer

WHITELAND—When the McClains experienced Mass for the first time together on Jan. 8, 2023, it was the feast of the Epiphany of the Lord.

That Mass at SS. Francis and Clare of Assisi Church in Greenwood marked a series of life-changing epiphanies for the four family members:

For Jessie, who had “always been on a search for religious truth”—and found the truth of God’s mercy in the Church.

For John, a baptized Catholic who had been away from the Church for decades and realized, “I’m just coming home.”

For their son Steven, 17, whose depression was lifted “like a huge weight off my shoulders.”

And for their daughter Jewel, 15, who says that first Mass “just felt right.”

Between January—when Jessie and Steven received the sacraments of Communion and confirmation—and the Easter Vigil Mass on March 29—when Jewel was baptized and received her first Communion and was confirmed along with her dad—the four McClains were each welcomed into the full communion of the Church at SS. Francis and Clare.

“This is home, the destination,” Jessie says of the family’s Catholic faith. (Related: See a list of all the new Catholics welcomed into the Church this past Easter)

Fear ‘that I was going to hell’

John and Jessie met in February of 2005 under sad circumstances. His younger brother, a friend of Jessie’s, was killed in a car accident.

“I met her in the hospital, and she had given me her phone number to give to my mom,” John recalls. “I didn’t think anything of it.”

Two weeks after the funeral, Jessie and a friend stopped by John’s apartment “to make sure I was OK. And it was just talk, talk, talk, talk,” he says of his connection with Jessie.

The two were married less than four months later on June 3, just after Jessie’s 18th birthday.

At the time, John was not going to church.

“I was baptized Catholic as an infant, then my mom moved away from the Church,” he says. “We went to a bunch

of different churches,” including a now non-existent one in Bargersville that was “set up like a Catholic church with priests and altar boys, but it wasn’t really Catholic.”

Jessie was “kind of in a church, kind of not” when the two wed.

“After we got married, we went [to that church] once, and then we never went again,” she says.

Jessie was raised attending a few non-denominational Christian churches that shared the same doctrine: fear.

“It literally destroyed my entire mindset, mentality, emotionally, everything,” she says. “I’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming and crying with anxiety and panic attacks that I was going to hell.”

John recalls her state in the early years of their marriage.

“She’d always ask me if she could be forgiven,” he says. “That was her big thing. She’d say, ‘I don’t think I can be forgiven of my sins.’ And it weighed on her a lot of years.”

For eight years, the couple did not go to church. But at home, “They still taught us about Jesus on their own,” Jewel says. “So, we always believed that he was our Savior.”

The family eventually joined a Christian mega-church in Greenwood. But it never felt like home, says John. “They had greeters, but they never recognized you. They’d say, ‘Are you new here? Is this your first time?’ And we’d be like, ‘We’ve gone here for 10 years.’ ”

‘Like God was talking directly to me’

Two things happened in late 2022 that led the McClains out of the mega-church and toward Catholicism.

First was an incident with a fellow churchgoer that “deeply affected” Jessie and caused John to leave the faith community entirely.

Second was Jessie’s “search for religious truth.”

“She had this big collection of rosaries that she loved to have around,” John recalls, a remnant of her great-grandmother’s Catholic faith, even though she didn’t know the prayers. “And she started wearing a head cover to church. And I was like, ‘You know what? You’re very Catholic in your approach to religion.’ She said, ‘What do you mean?’ and I told her she just had to go to a Mass to see.”

He was surprised when she agreed, because “her family history is very anti-Catholic.”

John didn’t know that Catholicism was already on Jessie’s radar, beyond her collection of rosaries. For several years, she had been following the late Jessica Hannah on Instagram, a Catholic whose posts addressed faith through her journey with cancer.

“She talked a lot about pain and suffering, and how it’s not a punishment,” says Jessie. “With the doctrine I grew up with, pain and suffering were punishments from God, and it was your fault.

“So, when John mentioned the Catholic Church, I kind of just jumped in.”

So it was that the family went to Mass at SS. Francis and Clare of Assisi on Jan. 8, 2023.

“I was really surprised by the kids’ reactions” after the Mass, says John. “They were super-excited. I thought they wouldn’t like the kneeling and repetition, but they loved it.”

As for his wife, John says she left the Mass “in tears.”

Jessie tears up even as she recalls the experience.

“For the past few years I had prayed all the time, ‘God, just please show me the truth,’ ” she says.

“The homily was like God was talking directly to me. It addressed everything that I went through since childhood. It just shattered all those decades of nightmares and fear and anxiety. I’ve been completely free of that ever since.”

Jessie says she left that Mass with no doubt: “I finally found the truth. I’m never looking back—I’m Catholic.”

‘Nothing but a positive experience’

Through the parish’s Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA) program, Jessie became “so impressed” with the Church’s history and apostolic succession.

“It was amazing to me that all of the bishops have hands laid on them going all the way back to the Jesus,” she says. “He imposed his hands on Peter, who imposed his hands on others, and that just keeps going on and on until now.”

And from the start, Jessie appreciated the Catholic approach to the Eucharist.

Communion at their Christian church “was just a little cup of grape juice and a little cracker,” says Jessie. “And it would turn into a social time, and people would stand around talking. It didn’t mean anything.”

Receiving her first Communion “was everything I’d been waiting for,” she says. “To think—Jesus’ body and blood. There is something so beautiful and intimate about it.”

In RCIA, Jewel was drawn in by the stories of the saints.

“I’d never heard anything about them before,” she says, choosing St. Cecelia as her confirmation saint “because I like music and the arts.”

John, who chose St. Joseph, calls returning to the Church “freeing.”

“I just felt like I’d been out wandering around,” he says. “And when I finally came back home and was welcomed, it was really nice.”

Jessie says perhaps the greatest impact of the journey was on their son.

Like Jessie, he struggled with fear and anxiety of condemnation by God, and that struggle led to depression.

“I was on my knees praying for him daily because I knew what he was feeling,” she recalls. “God leading us to the Church was a lot for his sake, too. I’ve seen the biggest change in him this past year. There’s so much hope and so much cheer.”

The impact was almost instant for Steven.

“As soon as I walked in that first Mass, I felt every time I breathed, there was more and more weight lifted off my shoulders until it was just gone,” he says.

His first sacrament of reconciliation had the same effect, leaving him feeling “really happy and joyful the whole day.”

That journey from depression to joy made Steven’s decision on a confirmation saint an easy one: St. Jude, a patron saint of hope.

“It’s been an amazing experience for the whole family,” says John. “Every one of us has had nothing but a positive experience.” †

 

Related: After Easter Vigil, Richmond teen wants to ‘tell everyone I’m Catholic’