Dialog reporter
Good Shepherd eighth-grader Gabrielle Kirk shares her entry into the Catholic Church with schoolmates
PERRYVILLE, Md. — Most Catholics do not remember their baptism, but for Gabrielle Kirk it will provide a lifetime of fond memories. That’s what Father Jay McKee told the Good Shepherd School eighth-grader Oct. 22, when Gabby was formally welcomed into the Catholic Church.
The 13-year-old has been a student at the school since kindergarten, but until that morning had never been a member of a formal religion.
“My mom didn’t have me baptized when I was born so I could decide what I wanted to be, what religion I wanted. Going through all the classes, I finally decided I wanted to get baptized,” she said.
“I love Jesus and I wanted to be closer to the church.”
Gabby said she had talked to her friends occasionally about becoming Catholic, and about four years ago she told her mother that is what she wanted. Her father, Eric, who is not Catholic, joked that they could baptize her in the bathtub. But Mary Kirk, who is Catholic and a parishioner at Good Shepherd, waited before giving her daughter the go-ahead. She wanted Gabby to be able to really understand the faith and to question those things that didn’t make sense.
“When you were young back in our day, you didn’t have a choice. You followed your parents’ religion whether you wanted to or not. I figured I would let her mature into a religion that she would really want,” Mary Kirk said.
In September, Gabby approached her parents and told them she believed the timing was right. The eighth-graders at Good Shepherd will be confirmed next spring, and she wanted to go through that sacrament with them.
Gabby said her mother “really helped me along. She was like, ‘You can be whatever you want to be, and I support you.’”
A good friend’s parents agreed to be her godparents, and the religious-education director at the parish affirmed that Gabby had a good understanding of the faith through her education at the school. Mary Kirk said Good Shepherd’s religion teacher, Sinead Boyd, does an outstanding job helping the students grasp Catholicism.
Father McKee met with Gabby in the weeks before the Mass to make sure she knew what baptism meant and what reconciliation is. It was decided to have her baptized and receive her First Communion at a regularly scheduled school Mass, where her friends who have accompanied her along her journey could witness the faith in action.
“I really wanted people to see it, my class, and then there was the whole school. I was nervous, but I wasn’t not going to do it. It was nice to have them all there,” said Gabby, who is involved in student council, band, theater and Girl Scouts, among other activities.
At the Mass, Father McKee asked the congregation to pray for St. John Paul II to intercede for Gabby. It was the late pope’s feast day. He called the day a beginning for her and noted that she wore all white to symbolize her new life in Jesus. He asked her to be joyful in the Lord and said that receiving Communion was one way to do that.
“Stay close to Jesus all the rest of your days,” Father McKee said.
He also read a letter of congratulations Bishop Malooly had written to Gabby. The bishop wrote that he looks forward to confirming her in the spring. Father McKee then gave the letter to Gabby.
After the Mass, Gabby and her family – including her father, Eric, and sister Krystyne – headed over to the school, where she shared cake with her classmates. She also received some presents, including a rosary and a short-story Bible. During Mass, she wore a bracelet with a cross on it. It was a gift she received from her mother that morning. It took her a while to reach the school because so many Good Shepherd students stopped to give her hugs.
Mary Kirk called her daughter “a very happy and joyful Christian. I think she is coming to her faith. She loves it and enjoys it.”
