A Lemon and a Little Help From St. Joseph Is What Got Them Married!

According to an old Italian tradition, if you steal a lemon from an altar dedicated to St. Joseph on his feast day, God will find you a husband within a year. Miriam read this for the first time standing in front of an altar dedicated to St. Joseph in New Orleans; at that moment, she decided to take a leap of faith and steal a lemon...six months later she met her own Joseph.

Miriam was serving as a FOCUS missionary when she met Joseph on CatholicMatch in September of 2022. She was looking for a very stable and mature relationship; Joseph did not disappoint. In fact, St. Joseph even played a factor in why Miriam answered Joseph’s request in the first place, “once I looked at his profile I could instantly tell his character was very similar to what I’ve always imagined St. Joseph to be: gentle, humble, and joyful.”

They started to get to know each other, and it was going very well very quickly. Joseph gave Miriam his number just as he was leaving for the Holy Land. They had their first call while he was still there; Joseph had to be up at 4:30am due to the time difference! 

After another month and a half of calling and texting they decided to meet in person. Joseph lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Miriam in Lubbock, Texas. Joseph flew three and half hours then drove five hours in a rental car all to get to, what he thought was, the middle of nowhere in Texas.

Both Miriam and Joseph confirmed that their first meeting was nothing but natural; after talking to each other for nearly two months, it just felt right. For their first date, Joseph set up a surprise special session with ‘Painting with a Twist’ where they would paint Miriam’s childhood dog, Cocoa. This meant so much to Miriam; not only did Joseph remember a mere mention of her dog, he went out of his way to make her first date with him extremely special. That first meeting couldn’t last forever as Miriam noticed, “the whole entire weekend felt so natural I was sad he had to leave.” They both were set on having a second date. Joseph explained, “Miriam was what I had been praying for all along but even more so than I could ever imagine.” 

One of their best experiences together was getting to travel to Italy! 

While there, Miriam accidentally stumbled into the city where the St. Joseph lemon tradition began! Miriam remembered her astonishment, “I was there kneeling next to Joseph in front of St. Joseph’s altar (with lots of lemons around) and the words that were told to me the day I took the lemon back in New Orleans became prophetic. . . I knew in that moment I would marry Joseph.”

What’s more, this happened on the feast day of St. Joseph; it was exactly a year prior that Miriam stole the lemon. 

Soon it was time for the next step in their journey together...

One day in May of 2023, while Joseph was helping Miriam move from Texas to Philadelphia, they stopped in New Orleans at the same Church where Miriam had stolen that infamous lemon. They approached the familiar altar, and Joseph proposed right there before the very same St. Joseph where Miriam had stood just over a year prior. 

Miriam and Joseph had their wedding on October 27th, 2023 at the St. Alphonsus National Shrine.

They had a traditional Latin Rite wedding Mass which was a dream of theirs.

Before the ceremony, they had a slight scare!

They both arrived at the church at nearly the same time and Joseph almost saw Miriam before the wedding...luckily, Miriam’s bridesmaids were quick to hide her away.

They both have very fond memories of that day. Joseph recalled some of the best moments, “driving around Baltimore in Miriam’s red Volkswagen Beetle with ‘just married’ painted on it. Seeing Miriam for the first time walking down the aisle in her stunning ‘princess-esque’ wedding dress with ‘Sing of Mary’ melody on the organ. Giving flowers to both Our Lady and St. Joseph after receiving Jesus.” Miriam added, “The highlight of that day will always be the moment Joseph and I got to pass through the altar rail onto the altar, only seconds after our vows. In that moment we were newly married and now had front row seats to Jesus coming to us in The Eucharist in The Mass.”

A further reflection on married life.

Joseph and Miriam have been enjoying their life as newlyweds; Miriam explained, “the highlights of married life are very hard to narrow down because every moment spent with the beloved is special. But honestly, probably the smallest things I get to do for Joseph like folding the laundry, because he is always doing so much for me!”

And Joseph added, “to live for someone else, to put your spouse before you to help them with their cross is a huge highlight of marriage.” They also both agreed that sometimes the hardest thing to do is watch each other go through something hard. They both truly work to give the fullest gift of themselves to each other.

Miriam even shared that she is pregnant with their first child, calling him or her, “the bundle of joy within my womb.”

“Our precious baby developing into a saint this very second is definitely a highlight for sure.”

Miriam and Joseph both had fairly negative connotations with online dating before CatholicMatch; they both didn’t think it would lead to a romantic story.

But now, they clearly see the beautiful and unique romance that God wrote for them, and it all began with a single lemon and St. Joseph.