Growing up attending a Lutheran church, Kenzie Buchholz always felt like something was missing.
Although she was baptized Catholic, Kenzie began attending the Lutheran church with her mother and sisters after her parents divorced. She was nearing the end of her confirmation preparation when she realized the Lutheran church didn’t feel like home.
“I didn’t know where I really belonged,” she said. “I didn’t know where to go or what church to attend or why the Lutheran church felt so weird to me — because I had been going there my whole life.”
After high school, Kenzie and her husband, Mark, were married in a civil ceremony in 2021 and didn’t attend any church for a while, she said. But things changed when they moved in with Mark’s grandparents to save money for a home of their own.
She remembers his grandma convincing her to attend Mass with her at St. Mary Parish in Holdingford.
“I was reluctant, and then Mark’s grandma kind of just linked arms with me and dragged me into the church. I am so grateful that she did that.”
She felt at home there and started attending Mass regularly. Eventually, she reached out to Deacon Dan Dullinger, who was serving the Two Rivers Area Catholic Community at the time. She began meeting weekly with Deacon Dan in September 2024.
“It isn’t every day that people in their early 20s come in and tell you they want to start living an authentic Catholic life of faith,” he said. “I saw the Holy Spirit at work immediately in these two. I was seriously amazed to see how God was working in their young lives and how they responded.”
Mark grew up Catholic and was confirmed but says he fell away from the Church during the pandemic.
“I just kind of pushed it to the wayside in my life,” he said.
But Kenzie’s decision to formally join the Church reignited his own faith.
“When she decided that she would like to get our marriage blessed and she wanted to go through the RCIA (now known as the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults or OCIA) program and be confirmed, that really brought me back into the faith,” Mark said. “Since then, I feel like I’ve grown stronger in my faith than I ever have been.”
Deacon Dan said that OCIA or marriage prep might be a process, but taking someone through it is a journey — their journey. Joining Kenzie for most of her meetings with Deacon Dan, Mark said he was able to get answers to some of the questions he had about the faith and address some of the things that challenged him. “I think it was just great for both of us — she got an introduction, and I got to round off some areas that I wasn’t so comfortable or confident in,” he said.
“It’s truly been life-changing,” Mark said. “I struggled with depression and anxiety for a long time. One night, I prayed to Jesus and said, ‘I’m ready to accept you into my heart. If this is real, I’m ready. I’ll devote my life to being a good Christian man and living the faith.’”
Mark described that moment as deeply spiritual. “I felt the Holy Spirit come over me — it was powerful. From that night on, everything changed. I felt like a missing piece had been filled. The depression and anxiety I had been battling were suddenly gone. The next day, I felt like a new man.”
He added, “That experience brought me back into the faith. It wasn’t just a personal moment — it felt like a divine pull, a calling.”
Kenzie was confirmed in June, and the couple had their marriage convalidated in July of this year with a Mass celebrated by Father Gregory Mastey, who also accompanied the young couple on their faith journey.
“My relationship with Mark was like a seed planted years ago when pastorally I walked with him after the loss of his father,” Father Mastey recalled. “James 5:7 reminds us that if we are patient like a farmer, we will see spiritual fruit.The nudging of the Holy Spirit brought them back to me so that the Church community and I could walk with them through the process of becoming one in communion with the Church.”
Father Mastey added that this was particularly special during the Jubilee Year of Hope.
“During this jubilee year, special graces are given to pilgrims on a journey of conversion,” he said. “As Catholics, our mission is to walk this life together with God and each other. It is not to be done alone. God is our hope in that conversion and he does not disappoint.”
Deacon Dan said that Mark and Kenzie’s faith encouraged and inspired him.
“God puts people like Mark and Kenzie in our lives and hopefully we, who are ‘teachers of the faith’, don’t just teach them but we accompany them,” Deacon Dan said.
He recalled that during one of their first sessions, Kenzie pulled out a Bible and rosary. She said she had learned how to pray the rosary on her own and started reading the Bible.
“Her Bible was well marked up with pages tabbed. I was amazed!” he said.
After her first confession, Deacon Dan saw Kenzie kneeling in the front row. Her head bowed down, praying in the silence and solitude of the empty Church.
“I was thinking, what a privilege it is to be a part of someone’s journey back to the sacramental life,” he said.
“I think people today — who see a lot of falsehoods in the world — are hungry for something real … they are hungry for truth,” Deacon Dan said. “Kenzie and Mark discovered just where to find that something that was missing, that truth they longed for, and it was this, their pilgrimage of hope, that led them back to the Church.”
The Jubilee Prayer
By Nicole O’LearyFather in heaven, may the faith you have given us in your Son, Jesus Christ, our brother, and the flame of charity enkindled in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, reawaken in us the blessed hope for the coming of your Kingdom.
May your grace transform us into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel. May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos in the sure expectation of a new heaven and a new earth, when, with the powers of Evil vanquished, your glory will shine eternally.
May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven. May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth. To you our God, eternally blessed,
be glory and praise for ever. Amen.