Warren — Kitty Moore remembers camping out with her friends on Saturday night when she was a child, and on Sunday morning they’d hop on their bikes and ride up to St. Martin de Porres, Warren, for Mass.

Kitty’s family was Catholic, but apart from baptism she had never received her first Communion or been confirmed. She learned early on that the Eucharist was only for Catholics who had made their first Communion, and often wanted to be able to participate.

Fast-forward to Easter Vigil 2015, when she and her teenage daughter, Ciara Moore, will be fully initiated into the Catholic Church at none other than St. Martin de Porres.

“It’s almost like coming home to me, finally being where I’m supposed to be after all these years,” said Kitty.

Ciara started as a freshman at the International Academy of Macomb this past fall. Because many of her friends were not attending the same high school, she wanted a way to keep in touch.

Her friends suggested joining them at St. Martin de Porres’ youth group, called F.A.M. (short for “Family, Friends And the Messiah”) during the summer before freshman year.

“At first it was kind of for the fun of it; I got to hang out with my friends during the summer,” said Ciara. Then the youth group leader, Joanne Mizak, encouraged Ciara to attend F.A.M’s fall retreat.

“And I was really moved,” said Ciara, and described feeling different, inspired and wanting to learn more.

She told her mother about the experience and called Joanne to ask if there was any way she could be baptized, receive her first Communion and be confirmed.

Kitty explained, “She comes to me and says, ‘I want to be a Catholic.’ I was glad and more than willing to do what we needed to do to make it happen.”

But Kitty, who had previously considered full initiation into the Catholic Church when Ciara was younger, joined her daughter at the RCIA classes, “and here we are,” she said.

Both Kitty and Ciara define themselves as never having been “a stranger to God.”

“I was raised with Catholic values, and I’ve been seeking and reading the Bible, and trying to teach Ciara,” said Kitty. “But we didn’t have the structure of going to church every Sunday, we didn’t have the guidelines of being Catholic.”

Kitty added that her daughter was born in Ireland, “a Catholic country; that’s her heritage.”

Ciara agreed: “I was never a stranger to the Catholic Church or their beliefs, but there were some things I didn’t know.”

Kitty said she had been envious of her childhood friends who attended catechism classes: “My family didn’t go to church every Sunday, but I always had an interest even as a kid and later in my adult life.”

Ciara said she and her mom attended a local Unity church for a while. Ciara was even christened there, though it was not a valid Catholic baptism and she’ll be validly baptized at the Easter Vigil.

Kitty explained that despite it being a non-Catholic baptism, “I dedicated my daughter to God with them” and Ciara’s godparents from that ceremony — her uncle and cousin — will attend the Easter Vigil.

Ciara’s confirmation sponsor is a fellow teen from F.A.M., and Kitty’s sponsor is her sister-in-law.

“Our whole family is very supportive,” Ciara said. “My whole youth group keeps talking about it, keeps asking about it, so they’re definitely going to be (at the Easter Vigil).”

Ciara said that starting at the parish youth group “was kind of like a fluke to hang out with friends, but it ended up being something more.”