“It was so special that I actually cried,” he said. “I’ve been trying to change my whole way of thinking and it’s a different concept now that I know I belong somewhere.”

Cumberbatch said he married a Catholic, and supported the Catholic Baptism of his children, but that he never officially joined the church himself. It wasn’t until the past year that he decided to change that.

“I was going to church also, but I didn’t feel like I was getting the whole thing,” he said.

Once he started taking courses through the Rite of Initiation of Christian Adults (RCIA) program at Epiphany of Our Lord in Scarborough, he knew he was on the right track.

“I remember I was in church one Sunday and I felt like someone had put their hands on my shoulder and said ‘you’re doing the right thing’,” he said.

Cumberbatch joined over 800 other neophytes, initiated or received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the archdiocese of Toronto this Easter, at the RCIA Eucharistic celebration at St. Michael’s Cathedral April 30. The Mass served as a big “thank you” to the neophytes, their parishes, RCIA directors, and everyone else who accompanied them in their formation or spiritual journey.

Cumberbatch said it was nice to celebrate his own initiation into the church with fellow converts, family and friends, while also seeing Archbishop Thomas Collins for the first time.

With so many new Catholics welcomed into the church yearly during Easter Vigil services across the archdiocese, the task of attending each Baptism and Confirmation is virtually impossible for the archbishop, who presides over the neophyte Mass for new church members every year. He centred his homily on the mystery of God’s Trinity.

“Who we are out there must be brought together with who Christ is in here,” he said to a packed cathedral. “And to live in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.”

With so many of this year’s neophytes at the cathedral, Collins took the opportunity to push their religious education a little further in a light-hearted presentation before Mass started, by explaining the meaning and symbolism behind all his vestments and accessories. Collins discussed everything from his ring to the colour of priestly vestments — suggesting humourously that God must be Irish since priests wear green on such a regular basis.

“The crosier is a reminder of our role as a shepherd,” Collins said, holding up his golden bishop’s staff for the congregation to see. “But we are responsible for each other, so when we see this symbol, we are all reminded of our responsibility.”

Responsibility is one of several factors which drew Leah Blazanin to the RCIA program at Holy Family parish in Whitby. The mother of three had been raising her children in the Catholic faith, and decided that, with her second daughter celebrating First Communion this year, she would take the journey too.

“With Jesus living in our family, I wanted to be a part of that with her and experience what she was going through,” she said.