Jeffersonville girl ‘a lot happy’ after call to Catholicism culminates at Easter Vigil
Eisley Smith, right, smiles with joy as she prepares to be baptized during the Easter Vigil Mass at Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Jeffersonville on April 4. The 8-year-old girl felt called to become Catholic after learning about the faith at Sacred Heart School in Jeffersonville. (Submitted photo)
By Natalie Hoefer
JEFFERSONVILLE—On March 12, 8-year-old Eisley Smith was clearly excited to share with visitors her portion of a Stations of the Eucharist exhibit put on by the second-graders of Sacred Heart School in Jeffersonville.
But she paused briefly to speak with The Criterion on a related topic—her upcoming first Communion.
In the Communion line at Mass, “I’ve always done this,” Eisley said, crossing her arms over her chest as for a blessing. “But I’ve wanted to do this,” she added, holding up her reverently cupped hands as if to receive the Eucharist. “I feel a little bit nervous [about receiving her first Communion] but a lot happy, because I’ve been waiting and waiting!”
With the school’s second-graders set to receive the sacrament for the first time on May 3, several of Eisley’s classmates expressed the same excitement.
But when that day came, Eisley did not join them—at least, not as a first communicant.
As she explained after uncapping her hands, “I’m actually going to be confirmed and baptized on the same day I get to receive Jesus. It’s going to be on April 4th, and I’m super happy!” she added, her eyes lit with joy.
On that day, Eisley was welcomed into the full communion of the Church during the Easter Vigil Mass at Most Sacred Heart of Jesus Church in Jeffersonville. (Related: Welcome, new Catholics)
What makes her situation unique is that Eisley’s parents are not Catholic—she chose the faith on her own.
She ‘understood everything’
While both of Eisley parents, Michael Smith and Anjelika Ciaravino, were familiar with Catholicism, they had not raised their children in the faith.
So, when the couple switched her from a public school to Sacred Heart in first grade, Eisley had some questions.
“At first I was like, ‘Why does this [school] look weird? What is that thing hanging up on the wall?’ ” she recalls during an April 17 interview with The Criterion.
Answers started to come during her religion classes. “That thing” was a crucifix, and on it was the figure of Jesus, the Son of God. With each class, she learned about more aspects of the Catholic faith.
Eisley also had help from her adopted sister Amara, who was raised Catholic by her mother—a close friend of Michael and Anjelika—and adopted by them after her mother died.
“She’s the one that first taught me about God,” Eisley says of Amara. “She told me about my prayers and stuff.”
One day while Eisley was still in first grade, baptism was discussed during religion class—and what Eisley learned changed her world.
She recalls thinking, “Wait a minute. So, if I get baptized, I will be with God, and I will be a daughter of God? That sounds amazing!”
Then, with the sincerity—and words—of a child, she adds, “That’s when my Catholic journey beginned!”
Anjelika recalls Eisley asking about getting baptized.
“One of the things that’s always been really important to me is that [the children] make choices not because of others around them, but because they want to make that choice, that they truly understand what it means,” she says.
“So, at that time I was like, ‘Alright, I love that. Let’s keep talking about it. We’ll keep coming back around to it.’ ”
Through conversations with Eisley, Anjelika gently prompted her daughter to consider why she wanted to receive the sacrament and what baptism meant to her.
“Once she was able to fully and clearly articulate what it meant to her and that it wasn’t just because all of her friends in school were Catholic—not that that was ever a big part of it for her—she made the choice completely on her own and understood everything.
“And that was it. I was like, ‘Alright, let’s get it done.’ ”
‘I just felt like I was with God’
When asked how it felt to finally be baptized during the Easter Vigil Mass, Eisley’s gives a simple, heartfelt answer: “I felt free from sin.”
But, just as she crossed her arms and cupped her hands in her March interview, Eisley offers an additional, demonstrative explanation.
As parish pastor Father Adam Ahern poured water over her head three times, “I felt like I was falling,” says Eisley. She lifts her right hand high then slowly lowers it, describing a sensation of “falling, falling, falling for a while until I reached the ground—and there was God.”
For Eisley, being baptized not only means she is a “daughter of God”—it also means she is never alone “because God is always with me.
“I feel like I’m just stuck together with him, like, we’re just close together,” she says, her arms straining with the effort of pressing her hands together tightly.
The sensation during the Rite of Confirmation was a bit more tangible.
“After I was confirmed, I got lots of [chrism] oil on my ears,” Eisley shares—although she didn’t mind because “it smells super good!”
She chose St. Frances of Rome as her confirmation saint. She recalls “Mr. Naugle, the Catholic teacher guy” (Kyle Naugle, the parish’s director of youth and sacramental ministry) speaking about the late 14th- early 15th-century saint during a sacramental preparation class.
“He said St. Frances of Rome [saw] her guardian angel, and I was like, ‘Ooh, that sounds cool!’ ” says Eisley, eyes wide with wonder.
“And she helped the poor with her guardian angel. I feel bad for the poor people because they can’t afford things that, like, the regular and rich people have.”
Helping the less fortunate is “something that Eisley has always been very fond of and interested in,” says Anjelika.
By way of example, the young girl shares about a time she and her mom saw a man in need standing outside of a store, “so we went inside of the shop, bought some things for him and gave them to him.”
Then, making sure she recalled the incident correctly, Eisley leans toward Anjelika and whispers, “Mom, did I say that we should help out that poor man over there?” With a smile, Anjelika assures, “Yes, you did.”
As for receiving Christ in the Eucharist for the first time after so long “waiting and waiting,” Eisley again captures the moment with pure and simple truth: “I just felt like I was with God.”
With each reception of Communion since, says Eisley, she has sensed a spiritual, internal movement, one she again uses her hands to describe.
Placing her hands at chest level in front of her, she starts slowly lifting her right hand toward the ceiling, saying, “I feel like I’m getting closer and closer and closer and closer, like rising up” toward God.
Then she starts to lower her left hand.
“And this other half [of me] is going down,” she explains. “And that part is the bad part, the sin, getting lower, like going away from me.”
The joy, imagery and explanations of the sacraments of initiation Eisley offers prove the trueness of the
8-year-old’s decision and call to become Catholic.
And they prove Anjelika’s words true: Given Eisley’s experience of the sacraments as she describes them, it does indeed seem she “understood everything.” †
Related: Welcome, new Catholics!
