Faith has always been a part of Carol Bada’s life, and on March 30 at St. Jude the Apostle Church in Lewes, she will bring it to the fore. That night, at the Easter Vigil, she will join the Catholic Church.
Bada, originally from the Annapolis, Md., area, was raised Lutheran and attended church every Sunday. She met her husband, Freddy, at the University of Maryland, and they moved around a lot, living for a time in Hawaii. They’ve been in Delaware, where her husband had grown up, since 1995.
“I kind of drifted away from my faith in a formal manner, like going to church,” said Bada, 59.
“I never thought it was not for me. I always had a deep faith. At the time, life took over and I lost sight of that part, but I always had faith.”
Bada’s daughter, Madi, helped bring her mother back formally to religion. When Madi was in elementary school, a fire did significant damage to the family’s home. Madi, who had never been baptized, approached her mother.
“She said, ‘Mom, I want to be baptized.’ We started to have these discussions, and she insisted. So we started to go to church. She was baptized as a fifth-grader. That was something she wanted to do for herself. It was very special,” Bada said. “She went through her confirmation classes in the Lutheran religion. That was kind of what brought me back to it.”
Bada, however, said something was missing. She drifted away from the Lutheran faith again.
Madi left Delaware to go to college at East Carolina University, where she started attending a Catholic church with a friend. After she graduated, she attended St. Louis University, a Jesuit school, to study nursing. That helped lead Bada to decide to become Catholic.
“When I would go to visit her, she would take me to the Basilica of Saint Louis,” she said. “There was something about that. Sometimes, I would just go in there and sit there and be in awe. There’s something powerful about it. I’m sitting ßnext to my daughter, looking at Jesus on the cross. I was in awe.”
This was a few years ago. After one of those visits, Bada walked into St. Jude’s.
“As soon as I walked in there, I felt like I was at home even though I wasn’t Catholic. I thought, ‘This is where I need to be,’” she recalled.
She spoke to the pastor, Father Brian Lewis, and said God was calling her to be Catholic.
“At the top of his lungs, he just said, ‘Praise the Lord!’” she said.
Bada said she had a dream shortly after that exchange in which she and her daughter also was going to convert to Catholicism. The two were having a discussion about it in the dream, “and then I woke up.”
Bada called Madi, who said it sounded like a good idea. Her daughter then revealed that she was already in RCIA classes in St. Louis. Madi was received into the church last year at the basilica, which Bada was able to watch online.
Since starting classes in the Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults program last September, Bada said she has felt welcomed by Deacon Joe Cilia and others from St. Jude’s, as well as by the other candidates and catechumens. She said their conversations have been very clear and have convinced her that she has made the correct decision.
“What drew me to the Catholic faith … it just makes pure sense. I truly believe the Catholic Church is the true church. That is the church that Jesus gave us,” she said.
“The church has given us so many tools to express our relationship with Jesus. I couldn’t ask for more. I got way more than I expected. It’s really changed my life.”
Bada’s husband grew up Catholic but is not practicing. She said she wants all the ammunition she can get before she approaches him about coming back to the church. Their son, Timothy, lives in Hawaii. He is not Catholic, but Mom is always hopeful.
Bada enjoys gardening and works with her husband at their business, Moonlight Architecture. She can’t wait to get started on what she is confident will be the final stop in her faith journey.
“I am just excited,” she said. “Everybody asks me, are you nervous. I’m not nervous. I feel like I’m home. I’m where I need to be.”
