Lewey was one of 60 adults and teenagers from 16 parishes who received the sacrament of confirmation, and in some cases first Eucharist, this spring. The sacraments were conferred by Bishop Robert Deeley at Holy Martyrs of North America Church in Falmouth and Holy Rosary Church in Caribou and by Bishop James Ruggieri at St. Teresa Church in Brewer.

“I’m praying for you in this Mass that you have that intimate relationship with God. Confirmation will draw you closer to Him as you receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The seven gifts of the Spirit will bear wonderful fruit in your life: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness — incredible fruits,” Bishop Ruggieri said.

All of those receiving the sacraments were baptized in the Catholic Church, but for various reasons, they did not receive one or both of the other initiation sacraments.

Lewey says she walked away from the church at age 12 but reconnected with it at age 21 after suffering a stroke.

“Praying the Our Father and the Hail Mary prayers saved my life at age 21,” she says.

Unfortunately, she says she was pulled away from the faith again but returned to it after suffering a second stroke at age 42.

“The stroke impacted my right side, and I started doing the rosary beads. I have a family that prays the Rosary a lot, including my mom, so I started doing the Rosary for my children. I did the Rosary for a couple of years, and it brought my son home. Then, my daughter asked about starting to go to church because she heard me doing the Rosary,” says Lewey.

Now, she says Jesus is at the center of her life.

“My faith is my life,” she says. “I feel like I’m honoring God for my life after everything that happened. I feel like I am here now, and I could spread His love and His joy even more.”

That desire is shared by Justin Samuel Taylor of St. Paul the Apostle Parish in Bangor. He says he wants others to experience what he has found through his faith and the sacrament of confirmation.

“To have the Holy Spirit come upon me just as He did the apostles at Pentecost, I am just feeling bolder and strengthened to be a witness to Christ,” he says. “Being Catholic is amazing.”

Taylor says that his parents stopped practicing the faith when he was a child, so he was never confirmed. He says, however, he returned to the Church during the pandemic.

“I felt there had to be a reason for things that happen in the universe, but I didn’t have much hope to lean on because I had not really been fully taught about God,” he says. “I had a friend who came to me and first opened my mind to God, and then God just started working from there.”

Chris Archambault, a member of Good Shepherd Parish in Saco, also credits a friend with leading him back to the Catholic faith. Archambault says his friend joined the Armed Forces and went into combat overseas as an atheist but came home a Christian. Archambault, who had embraced pagan beliefs, says it led to a lot of debates between them.

“It was just slow questions here and there, and then, one day, I got upset, and I said, ‘You know what? I’m going to read the Bible cover to cover to prove you’re wrong,’” Archambault recalls.

He says just the opposite happened.

“I read it, and I wept. Then, I read it again, and we started to have a very positive dialogue around religion. The Bible answered 90% of my questions and what most of my arguments were against the Church,” he says. “I blamed God for every bad thing that ever happened to me, but reading the Bible, [I came to] an understanding that we have freewill and what that means.”

Archambault says he started to attend Mass and continued to research and learn.

“It opened up a whole world for me, and then I realized I had to come back to the Catholic Church,” he says.

He describes receiving the sacrament of confirmation as one of the best things that ever happened to him.

“If you were to ask me four years ago if I would be standing here, I would say no. To me, it is the great thing of God touching me and giving me the ability to find Him.”

He says his goal now is to share what he found with others.

“Maybe if I can talk to them the way I was spoken to, I might be able to bring someone, even if it’s just one person, to the Church. It’s one more person that needs to be here, one more person that needs to be saved,” he says.

Bob Grinnell, also a member of Good Shepherd Parish, uses the word “awesome” to describe his journey to Catholicism. He says he didn’t have a religious upbringing, and then challenges in his life kept him away from the faith. When he was 25 years old, his father died, followed by his mother 10 years later, and then two siblings.

“There was a lot of death, and I kind of got inside myself just to be able to survive,” he says.

Grinnell says his wife, a cradle Catholic, would gently suggest attending Mass, and eventually they started praying the Rosary and the Divine Mercy Chaplet together.

“I just felt something divine, I guess,” he says. “It was like, ‘Hey, don’t be mad anymore about what happened.’”

While driving one day, he says that something just hit him, and he felt that it was time for him to attend Mass. When he did, he says that he immediately felt welcomed.

“Deacon [Kevin] Jacques has been awesome. Father [Tim] Nadeau, I love him. It’s weird. I was never a big one for community. I was kind of a loner, but they both made me feel welcomed,” he says. “The first Mass I went to, Father Nadeau just kind of tapped me on the shoulder, kind of gave me a hug. He really was instrumental, along with my wife, in getting me to embrace it. They just made me feel welcomed, and that hard rock shell that was around my heart just kind of melted away.”

While Grinnell’s wife helped guide him to the faith, for Ina Anne Hunt of St. Paul the Apostle Parish, it was her husband.

“He had a sort of spiritual awakening about two years ago now and has become the spiritual leader of our family,” she says.

Both Hunt and her husband, James, had been away from the faith for a quarter century, but James, who was confirmed last year, says he began praying the Our Father and the Hail Mary because he was feeling overwhelmed by the responsibilities of being the parent of young children.

“I just kept doing that at nighttime, and one day I woke up and said, ‘It’s time to go back to church.’ After that, it just built and built even more,” he says.

Now he says that faith is his life.

“It’s the most important thing that I have that I can give to my kids,” says James.

Malissa Norfolk of St. Michael Parish in Augusta, also newly confirmed, says that is what she is trying to do with her 21-month-old son, Theodore. To grow in understanding about the faith, she says she spent the last year listening to “The Bible in a Year” and “The Catechism in a Year” every day and got Theodore a book of Bible stories.

“He loves it. He loves reading. So, we flip through and read it,” she says.

Norfolk says she feels like the journey has already changed her.

“I feel like I’m trying to be more patient and calmer. Whenever I pray to God, which is every day, I ask Him, ‘Can you give me more patience? Can you help me be a better mother?’ It's that kind of thing,” she says.

Others who received the sacrament say they feel they have already benefited as well.

“I have God in my life now. I have met many nice people in the Church, and I’m excited for the future,” says Tanika Roy of Good Shepherd Parish, who was confirmed alongside her sister, Alicia.

“I took the [Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults] class, which was amazing, and I want to just stay in and stay connected,” says Andrea Lorraine Jordan of St. John Paul II Parish in Scarborough. “I feel like I belong, like I’m part of something so much bigger than me.”