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On Saturday evening, April 19, 2025, at the Easter Vigil Mass at St. Ann Catholic Church here in Washington, D.C., I received the three Holy Sacraments necessary to be initiated into the Catholic Church.I stood lost in thought, waiting patiently along with my OCIA classmates, resolute and relaxed as we were initiated into the Catholic Church by receiving the Sacraments of Baptism, Communion and Confirmation. It was a solemn occasion of introspection reverence and silent celebration which I had never before experienced in my life.
I didn’t grow up in Church. As a union tradesman and fire safety engineer, I’ve spent my life fixing pipes and pumps, systems and safety codes, with my hands and my head. But nothing prepared me for the weight of watching my parents slip away. The Holy Church became my new bedrock foundation and this is how I found Her.
I’m a working man, not a saint. I spent years on job sites, building, testing and inspecting fire safety systems, ensuring public safety from fire hazards, working with my union brothers to protect lives and property.
Faith wasn’t ever part of my toolbox. I could always handle anything with enough hard work, mixing hands on Big Apple blue collar trade experience with formal education as a fire safety systems engineer.
But then in the spring of 2024, a new danger nearly burned my entire life down. My stepmom was diagnosed with a rare hyper-aggressive glioblastoma, a brain cancer attacked her out of nowhere, she never drank or smoked, ate healthy stayed active, but that cancer left her blind in one eye, completely dizzy, disoriented depressed, and just plain terrified. It tore through her despite an almost immediate radical emergency surgery. Now that’s bad enough.
But worse, my dad had been diagnosed back in 2021 with incurable, but treatable, multiple myeloma and my stepmom had always taken care of him. Now, within a month, that became totally impossible. One afternoon, she called me, crying and begging me to help her and dad, so I rushed right over and literally overnight became their primary caregiver, learning on the fly, managing chemo, radiation, surgeries, appointments, consultations, prescriptions, insurance and their emotional pain as they watched each other fading fast.
I watched helplessly, too, as their happiness died, fears came alive, and depression deepened; their worst fear, losing their beloved spouse was coming true. Now all my experience and education was worth nothing.
Worse, I was alone. Our extended family quickly, quietly and viciously turned on each other, fighting over estate planning and delusions of inheritance with ugly, naked greed before my parents had even passed on. I was losing them, and I had no one to lean on. Nothing to trust. Dad and mom were my foundation, and my foundation was shattered, sinking, and so was I.
I felt like I was drowning. I prided myself on being a guy who fixed things and helped people, but I couldn’t fix this for the people who needed me most. I needed help fast, but all the online cancer research and oncology support groups did nothing for the heartache my parents and I were feeling.
Then, just to make the difficult but manageable, laughingly impossible, I got tasked at work to head down to the mid-Atlantic office in D.C. Our numbers were trending down, so I began helping them increase market share in a non-union, friendly region, nothing like New York City.
Tragically, my stepmom passed that summer despite all surgery and all the desperate painful attempts at treatment. Dad and I were devastated. Dad was completely inconsolable, he didn’t want to eat, shower, get dressed, go to doctor’s appointments or his weekly chemo.
With dead eyes, in a soft monotone voice, my dad told me he thought about jumping off the balcony. We lived on the 27th floor. That hit me like a hammer. I yelled at him and tried not to cry. I knew I couldn’t leave him alone to go to D.C. for work.
So, naively, I decided, I’d just take dad with me. Smart, right? I rented an Airbnb for that first weekend and drove 4 hours south on I-95 to D.C., so dad could be with me as I started helping the Mid-Atlantic office.
On a Saturday afternoon, during a ride along in a service van with one of our journeymen, we were driving past St. Ann Catholic Church on Wisconsin Avenue in Tenleytown, and stopped at the light. He crossed himself absentmindedly as we drove past and I looked over. The sun was glistening just right, and the well manicured lawn looked inviting for some reason. I asked him if he believed in God and he said maybe…and trailed off lost in his own thoughts, then he said, “maybe God becomes real when you’ve got nobody else.” His words echoed in my mind the rest of the ride up to Rockville and long past that. But I never saw him again.
That Sunday morning, I impulsively decided to go to that pretty church. I Googled it: St. Ann DC. Mass at 11:00am. I begged and bullied dad through morning pills and soft boiled eggs and getting dressed and into the truck. Dad got angry when I pulled into the St. Ann parking lot. He hated Church and especially the Catholic Church, although he grew up Catholic. I promised to take him to the diner, if he’d be good and he begrudgingly walked in on my arm, but only after pinching my cheek harder than normal and scolding me for tricking him into church.
The greeters, ushers and parishioners of St. Ann were universally welcoming. I was blown away. It was beautiful. The service: I didn’t understand what was happening. But it was heavenly. The priest spoke caringly and candidly about a passage from the Bible and then pragmatically about church affairs and events. I liked him immediately. He spoke with an easy manner earnest and honest, with seasoned wisdom and good humor. I could see he was a man comfortable with leadership and who was deeply caring about the people in his care. He shook everyone’s hand after the service at the big doors and welcomed me and Dad. As we slowly walked back to the parking lot, I couldn’t stop thinking about those echoing words: “Maybe God becomes real when you’ve got nobody else.”
At the diner, I ordered for dad who was still sulking about being tricked, and the Mass at St. Ann kept replaying in my mind. It felt authentic, real. It felt authoritative, strong and true. It felt honest, comfortable and beautiful. Dad pushed his food around the plate for a while and drank two cups of coffee, not saying whatever he was thinking. Poor dad. He needed help. We needed help. I felt something different at St. Ann, sitting quietly, respectfully listening that morning. Maybe me and dad didn’t have anyone else. I closed my eyes and thought of mom, almost a prayer, except I didn’t know how to pray, and I made a decision. Fortune favors the brave. “Have the courage to be honest, son,” I felt she’d say. I’d roll the dice and see what happens.
I inquired about how to join the Church, admitted I wasn’t even Catholic and simple as that started the ball rolling.
I started the Order of Christian Initiation for Adults (OCIA) class that fall, which is the Church’s initiation for converts and catechumens like me—not because I was sold, but because I was feeling something solemn, spiritual and real during each Sunday Mass that last summer that God granted me with my dad.
Over the next six months, I learned a lot about the Catholic faith, traditions about myself, and my OCIA classmates. My sponsor was crucial to my development in faith and understanding: quietly, gently, guiding me forward, toward a growing sense of knowledge purpose and peace.
I approached the class like a job: ask questions, test the system, look at the foundation. The Catholic faith wasn’t fluffy or fake, it was solid, built on 2,000 years of hard work and sacrifice for the love of one another. The Eucharist humbled me: Christ, truly present, not just a symbol. Confession was tougher. I had to face my failures, anger at my family’s infighting, pride in thinking I could do everything alone, my cowardice in facing the inevitable. Kneeling in that booth, speaking my failures out loud, I heard “You are forgiven. Go in peace.” It was like a weight lifted, not because I was weak, but because I had the courage to be honest, and to trust in Christ.
The Easter Vigil was the turning point. The church glowed with candlelight, a symbol of Christ’s victory over darkness. As the priest baptized me, saying, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” I felt a quiet, peaceful strength settle in. Confirmation came next, with the Cardinal’s oil marking me as a part of something beautiful and true with a Patron Saint to guide me. Then, receiving the Eucharist, Christ Himself, gave me a peace I hadn’t known since before my parents’ diagnoses. I wasn’t just me, the guy trying to hold everything together; I was a Catholic, rebuilt by Christ and the grace of the Holy Spirit.
Life hasn’t been easy since. My parents’ illness and passing still weigh on me, the family drama hasn’t stopped. Work is tougher than ever. But the Church gives me tools: The Mass, where I am greeted with Christ’s peace and freely given Christ’s strength; confession, where I unburden myself of my mistakes and reset my faith; prayer, where I can reveal my intentions and listen to hear God’s reply. I’m not alone, even though my mom and dad are gone. Saints and angels, clergy and laity: I’ve found a solid foundation, the Holy Catholic Church. The welcoming parishioners of St. Ann, and a faith that holds me up.
I’m learning to forgive others, to find the strength to give peace, to focus on others with love, and mercy.
To anyone out there carrying a load too heavy to bear: I see you, I hear you, I was you and I know how you feel. You don’t have to do it all alone. The Catholic Church isn’t just rules or rituals; She is the foundation of faith and fellowship for people who work hard, love deep, and recognize something trustworthy, authentic and beneficial. The Holy Catholic Church is real and is really good for you. She is the best place, the only place to heal your heart and save your soul.
Easter Vigil 2025 changed me. It showed me that strength isn’t just muscling through; it’s knowing how to trust in Christ when life surrounds you with the impossible. Step into a Church, attend a Mass, ask your questions, and let faith rebuild you. It did for me, and it can for you.
May the love of the Lord and the Peace of Christ
lead you home to heaven.
Your humble brother, in Christ,
Scott Torrellas