For Jonas’s family, who are Muslims, turning away from Islam is a grave betrayal of their culture and roots. Despite this, after a long journey of discovery and formation, the young man received the sacrament of baptism during the Easter Vigil in the Cathedral of Getafe, the Spanish city where he has lived since he was barely a year old.
His decision came after a personal encounter with Jesus Christ, when he realized that there was no turning back: he firmly believed that the Catholic faith was the true one.
The 25-year-old, who did not share his last name, first became interested in Catholicism while studying authors such as St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine of Hippo during his school years.
For more than five years, until starting his Catechumenate in 2025, the young man contemplated and researched various religious traditions in depth. In an interview with ACI Prensa, EWTN News’ Spanish-language affiliate service, Jonas recalled that during the process of researching Islam “I became a Christian.”
changed life
For Jonas, it was the person and sacraments of Christ that changed his life. He said, “If Jesus Christ does not enter your heart, Jesus Christ, the man made by God, who sacrificed himself for us on the cross, then ultimately you are not a Christian, but only a person who knows a lot about Christianity.” In his case, what made the greatest impact on him was Christ’s passion and self-sacrifice on the cross as well as Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount.
Like Jonas, Lourdes Angel also received the sacrament of baptism. Like Jonas, she grew up in a Muslim family. However, she explained to ACI Prensa that she always felt it was quite clear that “Jesus Christ was present in my life; even though no one had ever talked to me about him, I already felt his presence very deeply.”
The 21-year-old recalled, “My mother always tried to instill the Muslim faith in me, but I was always attracted to Christianity. It was as if my heart was already in another place, without any formation.”
She shared that God helped her escape a toxic relationship at the age of 19 and that’s when she met her current boyfriend, who is affiliated with the Neocatechumenal Way. “I realized that God was calling me, and I wasn’t going to close the door to him or turn my back on him,” she said.
What struck her most about the Catholics she knew was that “people were so happy. They follow God and are happy even when things are bad for them, even when they have problems from time to time. It’s like they see something good in the suffering and know that Christ has a better plan for them. That’s what I wanted; I wanted to understand how they could be so happy.”
breaking the parameters of their world
The journey both of them took to convert to Catholicism was not easy. Jonas explained, “It is quite difficult to give up your initial belief, because ultimately it structures your life and (change) involves breaking the established structure of your world.”
What she found hardest was explaining this decision to her family: “I don’t think they’ll ever understand it… They just can’t wrap around the idea that one can change this kind of thing. For them, it’s more like a kind of identity or culture than a path that one must seek and discover.”
Still, Jonas said that Jesus Christ is the one who helps him move forward, the one who consoles him and gives him the strength he needs to persevere. “Even Jesus himself warns us that the world will not especially love us… If they did it to him, they will do it to us.”
For Lourdes, the hardest part was leaving behind her former way of life and attempting to “fit God in without changing anything about herself.” He particularly recalled a lesson taught to him by his preacher: “You can’t bring God into your life without doing something for Him; you have to make room for Him, and then you can worry about everything else.”
Group of new catechumens during the Easter Vigil in Getafe, Spain. | Credit: Diocese of Getafe
a new rebirth
Jonas has a fond memory of the Easter Vigil, when he received the sacrament of Christian initiation with 47 other adults. He recalled, “It was a very pleasant experience. The next day I felt complete.”
He said that, before being baptized, “I felt a great void in my life, which I tried to fill with various ideologies… The truth is that I was living in a state of considerable internal disorder within my soul, within my soul.”
“After accepting Jesus into my heart,” Jonas continued, “I believe I am a much more settled person in the moral aspect. I now see others not just as instruments but as truly God’s creations made in God’s image and it makes me feel complete; it’s like being reborn.”
He also shared that he tries to go to Mass every day. “For me, the Eucharist is like a spiritual treasure, filling me with spiritual power. The body of Christ gives us grace and the ability to see the world in a supernatural way, not only through human eyes, but to see it somewhat like Jesus did,” he said.
Cooperation and trust in the community
On this journey of conversion, he said he was especially grateful for the guidance of his catechist as well as the parish priest and his fellow parishioners. He also highlighted the importance of living out your faith with the support of others and within a community, as he explained, “In isolation, people give up; they become weak.”
Along these same lines, Lourdes emphasized that “making yourself alone” is not the same as seeking the help of a catechist: “You are more conscious of what you are getting at Easter and what you are going to do,” she emphasized.
Lourdes also remembered her baptism “with great joy”. Ultimately, she said, “you find Christ yourself, which is really amazing,” as is the realization “that God loved me in spite of everything I did. He was there waiting for me, and I’m so happy to have him.”
Jonas encouraged people going through a similar situation not to give up, explaining that the transformation process “doesn’t happen in a single weekend.”
“Don’t give up,” he said. “After all, as Jesus said, a Christian is accepted neither in his own home, nor in his own family. I would tell them to persevere, take strength from the words of Jesus in the gospel, get to know them, continue to inquire and discern, and seek out people who share their beliefs and can help them.”
this story was first published By ACI Prensa, the Spanish-language affiliate of EWTN News. It has been translated and adapted by EWTN News English.
