These past few months I was blessed to help lead OCIA at St John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Bath. It was my first time volunteering in this capacity, and as a cradle Catholic I had never been through the OCIA process myself.

The whole experience was a wonderful learning curve, and seeing our 10 catechumens and an additional 10 candidates received into the Church at the Easter Vigil felt like a little slice of heaven. Here are five things I learnt along the way.

Lesson 1: RCIA is OCIA. After some initial research, our group made the decision to follow the US bishops in describing ourselves as an OCIA (Order of Christian Initiation of Adults) group. This is an attempt to more accurately reflect the Latin name that the Church gives to this time of formation: Ordo initiationis christianae adultorum.

Whereas RCIA (Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) makes it sound like the process of formation is limited to a single event, OCIA correctly recognises that the formation actually encompasses three major rites and four distinct periods. For people who have not yet been baptised, the first period is one of inquiry, where they express interest in becoming Catholic. This ends with the rite of acceptance, when they become part of the order of catechumens.

The second period is one of catechesis, and it ends at the rite of election, which is celebrated by the bishop at the diocesan cathedral on the Saturday following Ash Wednesday. This period usually takes months or even a couple of years.

The third period is shorter: it runs from the rite of election until the celebration of Easter, when the catechumens receive the sacraments of initiation (the third major rite). This period is one of purification and enlightenment, and it includes the more minor scrutiny rites which take place on the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent.

Finally, I discovered to my surprise that there is a fourth period which also forms part of the OCIA process. This is the 50-day period from Easter to Pentecost, and it is a time for post-baptismal catechesis, or mystagogy.

Lesson 2: Our culture is hurting. Something repeatedly brought home to me in one-on-one conversations with members of our group is the fact that modern British society is well and truly broken. So many people’s lives have been damaged by the disastrous cultural trends that we see all around us.

For some of the candidates, their lives have been turned upside down by the experience of their parents going through a divorce, or in some cases they have been through this ordeal themselves and so found themselves needing to come to a resolution with the diocesan marriage tribunal.

For other candidates, their story has been one of painful addiction, whether it be alcohol, drugs or pornography. Often it was their experience of hitting rock bottom that finally led them to inquire into the Catholic Church. Still others reported struggling with family members who were openly hostile to religion in general, and to Catholicism in particular.

Surely this last point says something about the sorry spiritual state of our nation. Millions of our fellow citizens find themselves miserable, lonely and depressed because they have been taught to believe that their lives are meaningless. Yet when a young person takes the brave step of embracing the Good News that the Church offers the world, he or she will frequently face shrill complaints – and in some cases open antagonism – from family members and friends.

Lesson 3: Christianity is strange. Those of us who are cradle Catholics must constantly re-learn just how unusual the Christian religion is. In the television series The Chosen there is a moment when Simon Peter complains about Jesus’s different way of doing things, to which the Master responds: ‘Get used to different.’ It is a good reminder that our faith is totally unique when compared with all the other religious traditions in the world.

Something I quickly discovered through conversations with candidates is that there are few things that make Christianity more distinctive than its doctrine of the Trinity (the Incarnation and the Eucharist would be the only other doctrines that can compare in terms of sheer strangeness). The sincerity and zeal of these candidates often left me pondering and praying through questions which, to my embarrassment, I had never really taken the time to reflect on before.

Is it only God the Father who forgives my sins in Confession, or is it the Son and the Spirit as well? Should my prayer be directed to all three Persons of the Trinity, or only to the Father? What does the Holy Spirit do exactly, and why do we spend so little time talking about Him?

These questions and a dozen others like them have helped me to delve more deeply into the mysteries of our faith, and to attempt to rediscover them through the eyes of a child. Speaking of which, our group found the Baltimore Catechism (written for children) to be an invaluable resource, with its helpful question-and-answer format.

Lesson 4: Catholicism is attractive. Christianity is strange, but it is also beautiful. Yes, the Trinity is baffling on one level, but does it not also make sense that the true God would not be Someone we can easily comprehend with our finite minds?

Surely there is also something rather breathtaking about a religion which insists that the most basic unity of reality is not the atom or even the soul, but simply love. For our faith assures us that at the foundation of all being there rests the Triune God who is not simply personal, but interpersonal.

Nowhere is the beauty of the Christian faith more keenly felt than in its fullest expression, which is the Catholic Church. This was one of the common threads among the candidates: their desire for, and appreciation of, the sense of the transcendent that one finds in Catholic Christianity. Through her tradition, her liturgy and her worldwide community, the Church offers an oasis of peace to souls who feel increasingly unmoored amidst the chaotic currents of our secular culture.

Interestingly, the question of devotion to Our Lady – so often the subject of heated disagreement between Catholics and Protestants – provoked hardly any controversy among our group of candidates. This suggests that the Catholic understanding is much more intuitive than we give ourselves credit for. It is true that Protestant converts often struggle with Mary, but that is because of their theological presuppositions. By contrast, converts from atheism or other faiths rarely have a problem with Mary. On the contrary, devotion to her is often one of the elements of Catholicism that they find most appealing.

Lesson 5: Do not water down the faith. Last but not least, I learnt that by and large what people are looking for today is a presentation of the faith that is rigorous, orthodox and true. My co-leaders and I were unapologetic in explaining the Catholic faith in all its parts, including the ones that led even many of Christ’s disciples to say: ‘This is a hard saying.’

The indissolubility of marriage. The grave immorality of masturbation, sodomy and IVF. The necessity of sacramental Confession. The mystery of Christ’s substantial presence in the Eucharist. The reality of an eternal hell. These are not easy teachings for our modern world to hear, and yet whenever we taught them we found our audience to be respectful and receptive.

Perhaps this is one fruit to come out of our society’s spiritual desolation: people who search out Christianity today are no longer satisfied with some half-hearted, semi-skimmed version of the faith. They desire the full faith, the true faith, and it is that desire that is leading increasing numbers of them to find their way home in the Catholic Church.