"CatholicMatch Is a Great Gift! Without It, We Wouldn't Be Here!"

Wayne, a widower from southwest New Hampshire who just celebrated his 65th birthday this year, downloaded CatholicMatch at the suggestion of his daughter. Later that same day, he began messaging Kathy, who was also a widow and lived in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada.

Wayne said, “My first impression was that she looked very different from everybody else. She looked very young for her age.” When he looked at her profile, Wayne saw that he and Kathy were aligned on the seven questions on core Church teachings, and he decided then to send her a message.

They messaged on CatholicMatch for a few weeks before moving over to the app telegram so that they could talk on the phone and video chat.

They logged hundreds of hours of phone and video chatting before they actually got to meet in person. By the end of May, they knew they wanted to meet in person. In order to visit Kathy, Wayne had to apply for a passport and vaccinate against COVID-19 in order to travel to Canada. However, the obstacles and delays they had to overcome were well worth it, as Wayne described the first time they met as “love at first sight.”

For their first date, Kathy took Wayne to Tim Horton’s.

Then they went for a stroll through the fog in a nearby park. Although they described their initial meeting as “awkward,” they quickly developed chemistry with each other. On the second day of Wayne’s stay in St. John, they drove down to Fundy National Park and visited a little fishing village on the Bay of Fundy called Alma.

“It was kind of cold, but we were happy,” Wayne said. “It was surreal, because we both knew we were in love with each other by then.”

While Wayne described their first meeting as his favorite memory with Kathy, Kathy’s said hers was going up to Mount Washington, the highest mountain in the northeast United States. They went on a cog railroad there which is the world's first mountain-climbing cog railway.

Wayne said that he felt connected to Kathy due to their similar experience of losing a spouse.

He also described how Kathy encouraged him to pray the rosary for his deceased wife, and the profound effect that prayer had on him and their relationship. “Kathy would always ask if I was praying for my wife. She urged me to pray for her soul and for my other deceased loved ones.” Wayne said that he began praying the rosary because of her. As a Protestant convert to Catholicism, Wayne said that it was wonderful to be influenced by Kathy, who is “culturally Catholic” as well as a practicing faithful.

“I pray the rosary and I believe in prayer,” said Kathy. Her mother had a devotion to the rosary that Kathy picked up on. “I have prayed about a relationship. And Wayne came around at the right time, that is the strangest thing about it.”

After their first meeting, Wayne was convinced that he wanted to marry Kathy. He purchased a ring when he returned to America, and in the first week of July, went back up to Canada to pop the question.

Despite it being a foggy day, Wayne insisted that he and Kathy take a walk in the park...

They returned to a spot they had been to before, the Reservign Falls in St. John. He had a hard time getting the ring out of the car without her seeing it, but eventually, they managed to get to the riverside. There, Wayne and Kathy were sitting on a stone. Wayne was so overwhelmed that he forgot to kneel as he took out the ring and asked Kathy to marry him. Wayne laughed as he recollected how Kathy made him explain why he wanted to marry her before she happily agreed.

Wayne and Kathy are currently going through the process to get a K-1 Visa from the American government so that they can be married and remain close to Wayne’s daughters and 20 grandchildren.

It could be anywhere between 8 to 10 months before they are approved. Luckily, they have spoken to a priest at Wayne’s local parish, who says he is ready to marry them whenever their Visa is approved. In the meantime, they are splitting their time between Canada and America to make their long-distance relationship work.

“CatholicMatch is a really good site,” Kathy said. “Pray the rosary in conjunction with ‘putting out the fleece’ and don’t give up.”