Our Story

Question

2015

Answer

Our story begins in 2015, 6 years before we actually met for the first time. That year, Rose took a trip to Montclair, NJ with three friends to visit the relics of her confirmation saint, St. Therese, and Therese's parents, Sts. Louis and Zelie Martin. While there, she prayed for direction in her life. She wanted to know what to do in her work, whether to finish her PhD program, whether to pursue high school teaching, or whether to do something else. She also prayed that she would gain a deeper understanding of her vocation, either to marriage or to religious life. Meanwhile in Philadelphia, the World Meeting of Families took place. People (including Rose) traveled from all over the region for Pope Francis's visit. Two Catholic families in the Philadelphia area, inspired by the World Meeting of Families, began to make plans for founding a classical Catholic high school, choosing as their patrons the saints of the Martin family - Therese, Louis, Zelie, and soon Therese's sister Leonie as well. While Rose was praying for direction, Mickey was on the road with NET, National Evangelization Teams. He spent the year ministering to high school students across the US, and eventually continued on the following year to work for NET Canada. This was a time of deep growth in both faith and friendship for Mickey, who had converted to Catholicism in college and was now sharing a life in the Church with his teammates and the many young people and families he encountered on the road. He was moved by the immense hospitality shown to his team by the wonderful Catholic families they stayed with in different cities, and the desire to share this kind of hospitality with others carried over when he eventually left NET.

Question

2018

Answer

In 2018, Mickey was living in the Twin Cities. He had been working there for a few years, and praying about next steps in his life. Drawn to the priesthood, he reached out to the Vocations Director for the diocese. The Vocations Director pointed out that many young men from different parts of the country, living in the Twin Cities in part due to the vibrant Catholic community, applied for seminary there only to realize later that they would prefer to ultimately serve in their home dioceses. This conversation helped Mickey realize that he would rather move back to Maryland and apply to the Archdiocese of Baltimore. While Mickey considered seminary, Rose had decided to leave her PhD program, and started working at a high school in Brooklyn, NY. Over the summer, she and a friend of hers, who was soon to enter a Benedictine monastery in Kansas, packed their backpacks and flew to Spain to walk 300 km (about 190 miles) from Leon to Santiago de Compostela along the Camino. She prayed for guidance in this new stage of her life, and through many concrete signs of God's presence during this journey, Rose came to a place of deep inner peace regarding the major transitions in her life and the unknowns the future held.

Question

2020

Answer

Early in 2020, before anything crazy happened, Mickey began seminary at Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Emmitsburg Maryland. At about the same time, Rose finally posted a letter to the Abbey of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem, Connecticut. She set up a visit for Easter Week of 2020, with the hope of discerning while there whether or not she would apply for the Abbey's one year Monastic Internship program. Then COVID hit... A few months into Spring semester classes, Mickey and his fellow seminarians were sent to local parishes for the rest of the term. Rose's retreat at the Abbey was canceled, and the sisters told her to look in another direction for next steps because they did not know when they would be able to reopen. The high school where Rose was working in Brooklyn was already slated to close at the end of the school year, and the many quiet days at home offered her a great deal of time to reflect on what she wanted to do next. As Spring continued, Rose heard from friends in Philadelphia about a job at the school where they had been teaching the past few years. They were moving away and a position was opening up. This school was Martin Saints Classical High School, the very same school that had been in development back in 2015 when Rose was visiting the relics of the Martin family saints. By the end of the summer, Rose was living in Philadelphia and preparing to begin teaching at this school.

Question

2021

Answer

The fast track into parish life had been a blessing in disguise for Mickey, as it helped him see that in fact the priesthood was not the right path for him. By the middle of the Spring semester of 2021, he was in the process of leaving seminary. Looking forward to the future, he set up a Catholic Match account, hoping to meet a nice young woman in Frederick, Maryland. And who should happen to send him a message but Rose, who didn't live in Frederick at all, but rather 150 miles away in Philadelphia? Their first date was apparently on Zoom. Rose doesn't remember this date, but please give her some grace because Zoom first dates really blend together after a while (if you know, you know!). It must have gone pretty well, though, because they got together for a real date shortly afterward. Mickey traveled up to Philly, and they had lunch and a cocktail making competition at Rose's house. Before you judge them for the imprudence of meeting a near stranger off the internet at home, don't forget that due to the unpredictability of re-openings in the late-Covid-era it was RATHER challenging to go on dates back then. Thankfully they are both awesome people so the worst thing that happened that day was Rose serving Mickey one of his least favorite vegetables (broccoli) in his lunch and him politely eating it without saying a negative word. This was also the day when Rose and Mickey learned they had VERY different expectations for a cocktail - but suffice it to say that Mickey won the competition hands down. After spending a lovely day together on the first date, Rose and Mickey decided to get together again, this time in York, PA, about halfway between Philly and Frederick. They had a wonderful day once again! But they realized through their conversations that day and in the following week that neither of them were quite up for the pressures of a long distance relationship. They parted on good terms, each with a soft spot for the other.

Question

2022

Answer

Though they didn't see each other during 2022, Rose and Mickey didn't entirely forget each other either. Almost back to PA after a cross-country road trip, Rose saw the sign on the highway for Frederick, MD. She shot Mickey a text to say hi and see if he wanted to catch up over coffee. She didn't expect it to lead to anything romantic, but felt a twinge of rejection when he wasn't available. Instead she visited friends from NYC who had moved down to Frederick during the pandemic. They suggested that while she was in the area, she check out the Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton Shrine and the grotto at Mount St. Mary's, two places that she had no idea were special to Mickey. That Fall, Rose finally got around to visiting the Abbey of Regina Laudis, this time being frank with herself about her real reason for the visit. After ten years of mulling the idea in her head and heart, she wanted to give the possibility of a vocation to monastic life a real shot. Despite having finally reached a place of complete openness with this question, and despite the objective awesomeness of the Abbey, Rose was confused and frustrated to find herself longing for marriage and family while there!

Question

2023 (Part 1)

Answer

On January 7th, 2023, 30 minutes after having ended things with a very kind and thoughtful widower over significant religious differences, Rose's phone lit up with a message. As soon as she saw who it was from, she knew what it meant. Only 3 hours of texting later, Mickey asked if she might be willing to go on a date again. Soon after, they met up in York again, going to Mass at the same church they had visited on their second date. They had a beautiful day together, and it was the beginning of two months of dating. The long distance meant that they spent many hours on the phone together and that when they saw each other it was usually for one or two days, rather than shorter individual dates. It wasn't long before they made things official, and started to talk about how Mickey could move up to Philadelphia so they could keep developing their relationship in person. However, the pressure to accelerate things due to the distance proved too much for this young relationship, and in the middle of March they decided to stop dating. Both Rose and Mickey were sad about this decision, and both had a lingering question regarding whether they would have another chance with each other in the future. But they made a clean break and tried to focus their attention on other things for the time being.

Question

2023 (Part 2)

Answer

In September, Rose found a holy card in Holy Martyrs, the church co-located with Martin Saints. It had a picture of Louis and Zelie Martin, and included a scrap of fabric that had been touched to their relics, making it a third class relic. Finding this reminded her of her visit to the relics in 2015 and the prayers she had offered then. She decided to pray a novena to the Martin family saints, this time specifically asking for a spouse. As the novena progressed, she felt an increasing sense of trust in God's providence. The day after it ended, she was walking into a grocery co-op when she smelled an extremely fragrant rose. A beautiful rose plant was on sale, and she couldn't help putting it in her shopping cart to add to her growing garden. As she meandered around the store she suddenly made the connection between the rose and her novena. Over the decades since St. Therese's death, countless people have reported receiving roses in response to their prayers to her, fulfilling her promise before she died at the age of 24, “I will send down a shower of roses from the heavens; I will spend my heaven doing good upon earth." She brought the rose home, and found a place for it in her backyard that day. A couple of days later, her phone lit up with a familiar name. This time, things worked out. The next few weeks were an opportunity to pick up where they had left off, but with the benefit of 6 months to grow and reflect independently. Despite the difficulty of those months after breaking up, as Rose and Mickey rebuilt their relationship they both realized how much fruit this time had born for each of them. They continued to grow closer together through the fall and early winter, this time with a clear sense of the horizon ahead and a commitment to keep walking in that direction together. On December 31st, 2023 at Hoyt Arboretum in Portland, Oregon, in the middle of incredibly dense Pacific NW fog, Mickey asked Rose to marry him, and she said yes!