One day, Kendra, who is now 29, received a call from a priest friend, Father Feltes. It seemed he had been entrusted with a commission from her friend Susanna: to find Kendra a fiancé.
Kendra's friend, a priest, was serious about his mission to find her a fiancé.
Kendra was understandably nonplussed by this revelation, but Father Feltes explained his plan. He would purchase her a gift subscription to CatholicMatch and say ten masses for her intentions. Such an offer, of course, she could not refuse. After all, it might work.
However, for a while it seemed a bit of a dead end. Kendra spent a few months on the site, going through the usual routine of either not receiving replies or having prospects vanish after a single phone call or first date. The gift didn’t seem to be amounting to much, and as she approached the end of her subscription she didn’t think she’d try again. But, before her time ran out she decided to send out one last round of messages to potential prospects.
One of these was directed at a young man from the next state over who had a “goofy smile” and a love for the outdoors. His name was Bryce, now 30. His profile had made her laugh and she wrote to ask after his favorite cocoa toppings.
After a practical joke by his brothers, Bryce realized how powerful the internet can be...and decided to try online dating!
Bryce, for his part, had also been led to online dating as a gift, after a fashion. Not long previously his brothers had created a profile for him on another site as a gag (that profile stressed his abiding love for onions). Though amused, he found himself intrigued by the notion of meeting people online and, after finding CatholicMatch in an ad in the Church bulletin, created his own profile. This one failed to mention anything about onions, but did stress his love of adventure, skiing in wild weather, and hot cocoa.
“I had written my profile at 2 in the morning and had been unapologetically myself,” he explained later. “She picked up on my humor with the hot cocoa. She just got it!”
Less than a month later, they met for a hiking date complete with a thermos of cocoa. Trouble was that Bryce was so distracted talking with Kendra that he forgot the cocoa until it “turned into chocolate cheese.”
A man finding her more interesting than hot chocolate is certainly a promising sign for a young lady.
Even though their relationship was mostly long-distance, they still managed to see each other as often as possible.
A couple months later, Bryce took Kendra out to try to teach her to ski. It was then, as they tell it, that they officially became a couple. Apparently, there was a lot of falling going on in one way or another.
As often happens when a couple meets online, distance proved a bit challenge, though not quite as much as for some. They lived two hours away from each other across state lines, which precluded daily contact, but permitted regular visits.
“Thank God for video chats and Google docs,” Kendra commented. Technology kept them connected during the week, while weekends were spent trading day trips with each other.
When Bryce suspected that Kendra was "the one," he asked St. Therese for help.
During one of those weekends, Kendra took Bryce to the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadeloupe in LaCrosse, Wisconsin, where the first of Father Feltes’ Masses for her intentions had been held.
By this time, Bryce at least was beginning to think he had found the one, but wanted to make sure. So, while venerating the relics of St. Therese, he asked the saint to give him a sign: red roses for yes, white for no.
For a while, nothing happened. Then Kendra and Bryce took a day trip to Duluth Rose Garden. As they rounded a corner, Bryce suddenly saw Kendra surrounded by bushes and bushes filled with red roses and not a white one in sight.
Saints really do tend to be blunter than we give them credit for.
That was enough for Bryce, and he proposed in November 2017. The two planned their June wedding, with the Gospel reading taken from John Chapter 2: the wedding at Cana. As it happens, the final of the ten masses said for Kendra to find a fiancé was held on that very spot mentioned in the Gospel.
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