By: Jay Sorgi
Over at least seven decades, Mildred Lewis devoutly and faithfully attended Mass at parishes from her hometown of Kokomo, Indiana to the East Bay, including her current faith home, Divine Mercy Parish in Oakland. She and her late husband Willie were married in a Catholic church in 1960.
Yet she was never baptized, never received Holy Communion, was never confirmed. That changes the night of the Easter Vigil on April 4, when Lewis, 87, receives all the sacraments of initiation.
“My children were baptized, went to Catholic school, and he [her husband] was always Catholic, but I never was Catholic. I knew all the rituals and everything. He passed away in 2019, and I still kept going to the Catholic Church,” Lewis said.
After her husband’s death in 2019, she continued to sit in the back of church until a parishioner named Michelle Chapman gave her a gentle nudge.
“She said, ‘Ms. Mildred, you come up front and sit with us.’ I did that, and every time I’d be at church, she’d be there for me,” Lewis said.
For several years Chapman accompanied Lewis, occasionally gently inviting her to consider become Catholic. Then one day Chapman said she asked Lewis again.
“I asked Ms. Mildred in front of her daughter, Angie, and Angie said, ‘Yes, Mom wants to become Catholic. Absolutely.’ We had maybe two to four days to get her paperwork in so she could make the deadline.”
“My daughter Angela said, ‘Mother, you need to join and become a Catholic,’” Lewis recounted. “So then I started taking instructions to become a Catholic.”
Lewis’s advanced age belies her infectious wonder and curiosity of a young person as she has discovered so much more about her faith in the parish’s Order of Christian Initation of Adults (OCIA) program.
“I thought I knew everything about the Catholic Church, but I’ve learned a lot of different things by going to class every Sunday,” Lewis said.
“Before I started this journey, I always thought Catholics worshiped Mary, but that’s not true.”
“Once her class is over, she then comes to Mass at the St. Lawrence campus of Divine Mercy. She comes over and she’s so excited. I’m telling you she’s excited like a child on Christmas to tell me what she’s learned,” Chapman said.
“In the beginning, it was like, ‘They went over these prayers and stuff.’ Then they started to get into areas that she didn’t know. She said, ‘Did you know this?’ They explained to us about all the saints, and this saint did that, etc.’”
Lewis said this journey has not only led her to find God more present. She lives with more energy and is in prayerful conversation with the husband with whom she shared 59 years of life.
“I’ve always been very religious, but this makes me even closer, I would say. It makes me even closer to my husband,” Lewis said.
“Every morning when I wake up, I say, ‘This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad.’ And then after I say that, I say, ‘Good morning, Willie.’ He [used to] always say, ‘Good morning, dear.’ And after I do that, then I get up and move, and that keeps me going all day.”
Lewis’ journey also has helped her appreciate the gifts God has given her in life.
“Willie gave me a good life and beautiful children. I’m happy that I have lived this long,” said Lewis.
“Another thing is my health is so good. I have a lot of people that have health problems. When I go to the doctor, he says, ‘You’re in good shape.’ I said, ‘God is good. All the time.’”
Those words may never feel more true than the night of the Easter Vigil, when Lewis encounters the sacraments of initiation and experiences the Eucharist inside her after 66 years of attending Catholic Masses.
“Willie would be so happy to know that I’m doing this,” Lewis said. “He never forced me to become Catholic, but he would be so happy to know that I was taking my Communion.”
