Carolina Marrelli
Episode 317
24 FEB 2025
She started fencing in junior high, stopped during high school to pursue both track and field as well as competition squad cheerleading, then went back to fencing after graduating from college and competed for several years. After a 20-year hiatus she came back to the sport and is now working her way to getting on a national team. Along the way, on the faith side, she had been in full-time music ministry. Plus, she is a certified Health Coach and corporate wellness and women’s ministry speaker.
Notable guest quotes:
“I actually went to Mass growing up as well as the Protestant church and I went to a Protestant school from my fourth grade to my senior year. I didn’t have much Catholic faith formation except at CCD. I was baptized Catholic, and I received my first communion, but I stopped after that everything else, at least, the Catholic journey.”
“My dad was a fencer, and my grandfather was a fencer and you could not take a sword out of my hand as a little kid, like, fake swords. I’d take wrapping paper rolls, I was always trying to sword fight, and my dad was like, ‘You know, you really should try fencing. I think you’d really like it’.”
“Junior high is really rough on kids, and I was made fun of a lot and fencing is where I found peace of mind. I felt like I fit in. Fencing is a very neurodiverse sport. You have a lot of people with ADD and dyslexia and there’s a lot of autism and I have ADD and so for me … it was really, really great. It’s a great outlet physically and mentally and then just emotionally because I was with people that I, you know, a little bit more comfortable with. I fit right in and so it became my happy place. It was really a place of refuge for me.”
“Soon as I graduated college, I joined the Baltimore fencing center, and, fencing never left me. It was just waiting for me to come back to it. And so, I trained five days a week with a personal trainer and then in the evenings I would go train at the club, take classes, and then on the weekends I would compete.”
“I connected with the Lord on the music like that’s where I really fell in love with church was through music.”
“I had been on a 10-year journey back into my Catholic roots at this point and when I was working in full-time music ministry, I was not only on staff at a church called New Thing Fellowship … but I was on staff there. And then I would also go to Mass, and I was leading music for a Catholic Bible study, I’d fill in for drummers at a local Catholic church, I’d fill in for the cantor here and there. I was playing for Catholic retreats and little conferences, and Paulina’s bookstore had me in a few times to play for some events that they had and then I’m doing stuff for the Protestant world. So, I had one foot in the Catholic world and one foot in the Protestant world.”
“The Lord took me on this wild journey and just like, ‘I want you to start going back to Mass’ and then, ‘I want you to go to confession’.”
“I had such a radical encounter with the Lord during confession where … I was actually looking at the priest, who was super, super old … Monsignor Jude in Miami and I saw the Lord in his eyes and I just, when he said, ‘Daughter your sins are forgiven,’ … I’d never experienced anything like that.”
“In the Catholic faith Mary’s everything. She’s our spiritual mother.”
“We’re called to be a light in the darkness and so I’m there for a reason.”
“I am working on a different way of training. I’m actually working with a sport specific trainer once a week on mobility and agility. I’m strength training and then I’m fencing with the Charlotte Fencing Academy … And then I compete a lot in preparation just for my goals… I’ve been surrounded by some world champion fencers that are just super encouraging and really helping me to uplevel mentally and with my game.”
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