Now What?

Growing up, I loved that shortest season in the Church: the Triduum. In a sense, it reminded me of the super blooms we sometimes get here in the desert—intense rainfall drenching the scorched earth, and suddenly, as if by magic, thousands of wildflowers spring up overnight.

The Triduum is like this. In the bleak starkness of Lent, we are suddenly overcome with three straight days of liturgical splendor. The once drab furnishings give way to reds and whites that adorn the clergy for these sacred liturgies. The beauty of it all entranced me.

And when confronted with such beauty—who can’t help but want to enter into it?

This year has seen record numbers in the Church. For at least the past year, we’ve heard that younger generations are converting in droves—and now it appears this was more than wishful thinking. The numbers are beginning to come in.

In Australia, we are seeing an increase of roughly 3,000–5,000 new Christians. It might not sound like much for an entire continent, but in several major dioceses, these numbers have nearly doubled in just one year. That is not gradual growth—that is a sharp upward trend.

In the United Kingdom, we hear a similar story. London alone is seeing roughly 1,400 new Christians, with national numbers likely reaching three to five thousand across the country.

France is even more striking. Once called the Jewel of Christendom, it has seen a record-shattering 20,000 new Catholic Christians enter the Church this Easter. Nearly half of these—around 7,400—are teenagers between the ages of 11 and 17.

Here at home, the numbers are still coming in, but the trend is already clear. We can expect roughly a 38% increase in baptisms compared to last year, with the Archdiocese of Los Angeles alone reporting over 8,000 entering the Church. Nationally, it would not be surprising to see 90,000 or more adult baptisms and receptions this year.

So—what’s going on?

It would be easy to point to trends—social media, shifting cultural tides, even reactionary movements—as explanations for what we are seeing. And certainly, these play their part. But they do not go far enough. They do not explain why a young man with no religious upbringing walks into a cathedral and feels compelled to stay. They do not explain why a teenager, raised in a thoroughly secular home, asks to be baptized.

Something deeper is happening.

For years now, we have been told—explicitly or implicitly—that meaning is something we create. That truth is flexible. That identity is something we construct and reconstruct as needed. And yet, for all this freedom, something has gone missing. Beneath the surface, there is a quiet exhaustion. A sense that, despite all the options, nothing quite satisfies.

Into that void steps the Church—not with novelty, but with continuity. Not with endless reinvention, but with something ancient, stable, and unyielding. And perhaps most strikingly, not with mere arguments—but with beauty.

As Hans Urs von Balthasar once warned, “In a world without beauty, even the good loses its attractiveness… and man is left wondering why he should not prefer evil.” Perhaps that is exactly the world many young people feel they have inherited.

It is beauty that first arrests the soul. Before doctrine is understood, before moral teachings are accepted, there is often a moment—standing in the glow of candlelight, hearing chant echo off stone walls, watching the slow and deliberate movements of the liturgy—when something within a person stirs. Not excitement, not mere curiosity, but recognition.

As if to say: this is what you were made for.

This is not the beauty of entertainment, designed to distract and pass the time. This is not the beauty of aesthetics alone, curated and consumed. This is something deeper—something ordered, something purposeful. A beauty that does not point back to itself, but beyond itself.

And that is where the questions begin.

Why does this feel different? Why does this feel real? Why does this feel like home?

For many, that question is the beginning of everything.

They come for the beauty—but they do not stay for it alone. Because beauty, if it is real, demands an answer. It presses beyond itself toward truth. And truth, once encountered, asks something of us. It is no longer something we observe from a distance, but something we must either accept or reject.

And increasingly, young people are choosing to accept it.

Not because it is easy. Not because it is convenient. But because, in a world that has offered them everything except certainty, they have found something that does not move.

Something that does not change.

But now here comes the real question: now what? Now what do we do with all these new souls?

Because growth, by itself, is not victory.

A crowded Easter Vigil is not the end of the story—it is the beginning of one. These men and women are not statistics. They are not trends. They are souls—hungry, searching, and newly entrusted to the care of the Church.

And if we are honest, this is where things can falter.

It is one thing to attract through beauty. It is another to sustain through truth. It is one thing to welcome. It is another to form.

If what first drew them in was the radiance of the liturgy, then what must follow is depth—depth of teaching, depth of community, depth of prayer. Because the same world they came out of is still waiting for them outside those church doors. The same confusion, the same instability, the same emptiness remains. And if we do not offer something deeper than what they left, we should not be surprised if some drift back toward it.

This is not a moment for complacency. It is a moment for clarity.

To catechists: teach the faith in its fullness, and never stop being students yourselves. Do not reduce it, do not soften it, do not apologize for it. What drew them here was not a watered-down version of Christianity, but the conviction that something true still exists.

To liturgists: guard the beauty of the sacred. Do not strip it down in the name of accessibility. Do not replace reverence with familiarity. It was beauty that first opened their hearts—do not be the ones to close that door.  Seek music that uplifts the soul, and not just makes you feel warm.

To pastors: shepherd boldly. Preach clearly. Lead with conviction. Your people are not looking for ambiguity—they are looking for a father who will lead them to Christ without hesitation.

In short: we must preserve what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful.

Not as museum pieces.
Not as relics of the past.
But as living realities that form souls.

Because in the end, that is what they are looking for.

Not programs.
Not trends.
Not reinvention.

But something real.

Something rooted.

Something that will not move when everything else does.

The doors are opening. The question is whether we are ready to receive those who are walking through them.

The world has sent them searching.
The Church has drawn them in.
Now it must make them saints.

If beauty has drawn you in, let truth take you deeper. Join our Salt and Light Bible Study as we explore the Gospel of John and learn how to live what is true, good, and beautiful by clicking here.