The numbers are still rolling in, but reports suggest that dozens of dioceses nationwide noted a marked increase in the number of people entering the Catholic Church last year at the Easter vigil.

For Catholics young and old who are completing Year One in the Church, it’s been a year of continued learning and maturation in the faith — combined with new experiences and new blessings, including the opportunity to lead others closer to the Catholic faith. Combined with 2025 being one of major transition in the Church, with the death of Pope Francis and the election of Pope Leo XIV, these new Catholics have had a big year.

Here are some stories from a few U.S. Catholics about how their “freshman year” went.

‘A Continuous Learning Experience’

That the prayers and readings at Mass don’t vary from place to place is one of the many discoveries Jane Tomaszewski has made during her first year as a Catholic.

Whether on family trips or at travel gymnastics meets for her 10-year-old daughter, the liturgy is exactly what her home parish, St. Robert of Newminster in Ada, Michigan, has that day — which has surprised some of her Protestant friends when she told them.

“The fact that you can go anywhere in the world and the Mass is the same is a really cool, cool thing, and it’s a testament to how well thought out and vetted this Church is. It’s been great to be on the road and not miss a beat,” Tomaszewski said.

“That speaks to the universality of the Catholic Church,” she said. “It makes sense.”

Tomaszewski, 49, entered the Catholic Church at the 2025 Easter vigil with baptism, confirmation and Eucharist, in the presence of her husband, Dan, and their two daughters. She had attended Presbyterian and Methodist churches as a child but hadn’t been baptized.

During the past year, Tomaszewski has gotten into a rhythm in practicing her new faith, including a Bible timeline study and a study of the Catechism of the Catholic Church at her parish, occasional weekday confession at a nearby church, and family prayer at bedtime.

Among the helpful things she has learned from the Catechism is its description of the various schisms in history, including with the Orthodox churches; and the Catholic Church’s teachings on Mary and the saints.

“It’s been a continuous learning experience,” she said.

She receives the daily Mass readings by email from the website of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. She also finds the Lenten companion published by Magnificat helpful. She is helping her 7-year-old daughter prepare for first Communion in May.

Tomaszewski, who has a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering and a master’s in business administration, grew up in Cincinnati. She met her husband Dan while both were working in the oil industry. Today, she manages mental-health clinics.

Her journey to the Catholic Church was helped along by an unusual discovery: She is the direct descendant of a canonized saint, as the Register reported in April 2025.

A family tree compiled by her uncle shows that Tomaszewski, whose maiden name is Kim, is the great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Nam Chong-sam (c. 1816-1866), a Catholic government official caught up in a persecution of Catholics in Korea 160 years ago. Nam is one of the 103 Korean martyrs St. John Paul II canonized in 1984 in Seoul, commemorated in the Church’s calendar on Sept. 20 as “St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions.”

In June, Tomaszewski’s husband, daughters and parents are planning to visit Korea, including Jeoldusan Martyrs’ Shrine in Seoul.

‘A Life Without God Is Scary’

Aidan Brynjelsen, 19, a sophomore at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign studying economics and philosophy, set out to chart his own path when it came to faith after arriving on campus — he had grown up in a nominally Christian household in suburban Chicago but didn’t have any particular affinity for Catholicism.

After joining a fraternity as a freshman, he was invited to take part in a Bible study at the frat house led by an upperclassman who was to become a friend and mentor. His friend introduced Brynjelsen to the community at St. John’s Catholic Newman Center in Champaign, where he started attending Mass and ultimately entered the Church in 2025.

Brynjelsen said he felt as though his OCIA experience was in some ways a “race,” with simply entering the Church as the end goal. But now, as a Catholic, Brynjelsen says he realizes that becoming Catholic was actually the start of a whole new journey — especially when it comes to managing the temptations inherent to college life, like drinking and partying.

Leaning on his Catholic community and going out of his way to “check on people” have been the most helpful in dealing with temptation and discouragement, Brynjelsen said. When troubles do arise, Brynjelsen said he is grateful for close Catholic friends he can “call up and be vulnerable with.”

Brynjelsen’s first Christmas as a Catholic, meditating on Christ’s birth and his personal love, was a joyful experience — especially since Brynjelsen managed to convince his entire family to accompany him to Mass.

“It’s so awesome seeing somebody experience something you love. It's like a movie … you like a movie a lot, and you want to show somebody the movie you like and make sure that they like it just as much,” he said.

For his first official Lent as a Catholic, Brynjelsen gave up social media and is leading the Bible study for his fraternity. He has also been volunteering at a local assisted-living facility, and his newfound faith frequently comes up in his conversations with the elderly residents.

Looking ahead, Brynjelsen says his goals are straightforward: Stay connected with other Catholics, make room for God, and eventually — God willing — find a Catholic wife. He hopes to give back to his hometown parish, which skews older, by helping to bring young people back to Mass.

Above all, Brynjelsen said he finds it difficult to imagine navigating life’s challenges without faith as a foundation.

“I find it so hard to believe that people try and tackle their own grievances and challenges without God,” he said. “A life without God is scary to me.”

‘I Know This Is the Truth’

Kaitlyn Golyski, 21, grew up in a loosely Christian household but was never baptized and rarely found herself in church. Long convinced of God’s existence and his fatherly love, the University of South Carolina senior realized her desire to learn more about God. Midway through her sophomore year of college, she began an earnest search for a faith community that suited her.

Golyski hadn’t grown up around Catholics — the most exposure she’d ever gotten to anything Catholic, she admitted, was watching horror movies. But the idea of Catholicism came to fascinate her, especially the Church’s teaching on saints. Searching the internet for answers to her questions about Catholicism led her “down a rabbit hole” that culminated in her watching an entire online Mass.

She resolved to visit the St. Thomas More Catholic student center on campus to check out a daily Mass in person. Within a week, she had joined OCIA — having never even attended a Sunday Mass.

Because of the timing of her decision, in February 2024, Golyski had to wait more than a year to officially enter the Church, receiving baptism, confirmation and Holy Communion at the Easter vigil in 2025. Golyski’s roommate and longtime friend, who had grown up Catholic but had never been confirmed, chose to be confirmed alongside her.

Looking back on the experience, Golyski said she is extremely grateful for the “gift of faith” she believes she was given that led her to such a radical conversion — a conversion that, in her words, made “no sense logically” but was simply a reflection of the depth of her newfound conviction that Catholicism is true.

“Going to Catholic Mass, I genuinely feel the Lord’s presence. I know this is the truth, so why would I even bother with anything else?” she said.

After her first full year as a Catholic, Golyski has made many friends at the Catholic student center and even works there part time. The richness of the Catholic tradition has been a joy to learn more about, she said. She recently consecrated herself to the Eucharist and has developed a particular devotion to St. Augustine.

Becoming Catholic hasn’t always been smooth sailing; confession, she said, was terrifying at first, especially knowing that her priest recognized her voice. But she said she has come to appreciate the sacrament and the certainty of forgiveness that it brings as a “beautiful grace.”

Soon to graduate, Golyski said she feels confident that her newfound faith will stay with her as she moves on from college.

“I am so convicted of the truth, and it does feel like such a comfort to me,” she said.

“It literally changed my entire life,” she added. “I am very happy to be Catholic.”