Lenten Campaign 2025
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“I baptize you in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” These are the words that thousands of catechumens around the world are preparing to hear on Easter night when they are baptized. Throughout Lent, Aleteia is sharing with you the stories of some of these men and women, who are happy to become children of God. Today’s catechumen was baptized a little earlier this year, during Lent. Read all of the testimonies here.
“If I had been baptized from the beginning, maybe I wouldn’t be as close [to God] as I am now,” says Karla, who was baptized this Lent, after a long wait. Now she is preparing to experience her first Easter as a child of God.
Karla Hernández experienced one of the happiest moments of her life when she accepted Jesus. At the age of thirty, she uttered the words, “Yes, I renounce Satan” on a Sunday in Lent, in front of her family and friends.
Her parents, despite being baptized Catholics, weren’t practicing the faith when Karla was growing up, so they had never talked to her about religion.
In search of Christ
Karla had always felt the need to connect spiritually. She delved into the world of meditation and yoga in search of that connection.
Everything began to change when, at the age of 28, she met her fiancé, Omar. He told her that he’d previously distanced himself from the Catholic Church. However, as a result of a powerful experience he had in Morocco in the midst of the COVID pandemic, he had needed to turn to the Creator.
“He told me that at that moment he forgot everything: spirituality, meditation, and everything. He simply started to talk to God and believe in God again.” She was so impressed by his testimony and his life as a Catholic that she began to accompany him to Eucharistic hours and apostolates.
When they’d been dating for two years, Omar proposed to her, but he told her that he’d like to get married in the Catholic Church. She, knowing that she hadn’t been baptized, promised to receive the sacraments. She asked her friend Iliana to help her with the process.
“The first day after we got engaged we went to a holy hour. They prayed for us, for our marriage. It felt so beautiful that I started to cry. Tears were streaming down my face. That day I told my boyfriend that I felt welcomed.”
Not an easy process
It wasn’t an easy process for Karla. Although she was beginning to feel God in her life, there also came a time when she didn’t know if she was doing the right thing by embracing the faith. She wasn’t yet completely convinced that she should be baptized. Omar encouraged her to keep moving forward, and they continued to go to Masses, adoration, and meetings.
Little by little she built up a life of prayer, motivated by the spontaneous gestures of her boyfriend and the Eucharistic services she attended. She says that she even watched the series The Chosen, moved by the desire to know more about Jesus.
Her friend Iliana, who is now her godmother, took her to talks with different priests to prepare her to receive the sacraments. However, for reasons beyond her control, the date of her baptism had to be delayed.
“I said to my boyfriend, ‘You know what? There have been a lot of obstacles. I was supposed to be baptized last year.’ Another friend said to me, ‘It’s the devil who doesn’t want you to be baptized, and he’s putting obstacles in the way.’ By that point I really wanted to be baptized.”
She had to visit several Catholic churches until she found a priest who agreed to administer the sacraments to her in March. When she finally found one and they set a date for the celebration, she felt great joy.
Her welcome as a child of God
Karla happily describes the day of her baptism. She arrived at the church and realized that she was going to be the only one to be baptized. It made her feel a little embarrassed, but also proud, knowing that she was doing it out of love. “At my baptism, I felt the same emotion as when I went to the Blessed Sacrament for the first time. I felt like I was going to cry.”
Then she renounced Satan to welcome God into her heart and, as she approached the baptismal font and the water was poured on her forehead, she thanked the Lord for having given her the opportunity to meet him.
During that celebration she also made her First Communion and Confirmation. Receiving the body of Christ filled her with joy. She felt welcomed, belonging to a home.
At the end of the celebration, her mother told her how proud she was and how surprised she was to see the change in her life and her commitment to the church; now she could embrace her not only as her daughter, but as a daughter of God.
Her sister, who has two young, unbaptized daughters, also approached and gave her some great news: “I feel like baptizing them and having you be their godmother.”
A new life as a Catholic
She wants to take this great love that she now knows and receives from God, and give it to her future marriage and her children. Now she lives in the truth and would like others to be encouraged to do so, as she has done.
“Now that I look back on it, I feel like I took a long time. It makes me say, ‘How could I not have done it before?’”
And today we celebrate...