"...Adele and I both experienced the Dark Night of the Soul before God brought us together."
I am writing to tell you of a success story. I had been using both this service and www.catholicsingles.com for almost two years by April 2002. This was after years of trying other ways to meet a Catholic woman who agreed with the teachings of the Church. Even on www.catholicmatch.com, as elsewhere and previously, I experienced great frustration--so many women never write back or write back once and then stop, the latter seeming especially rude.
Then, almost at the point of quitting, I tried again. Adele (8300) from Alberta, Canada, wrote back to me in Maryland, USA. We corresponded every few days at first, but over the weeks our emails grew longer and more frequent to the point of of multipage daily letters. And phone calls, first once a week and then every few days when I was on a research trip in Australia. We talked about everything--daily life, deep spiritual issues, and everything in between. At the start, our planned first meeting was to be once she had ! moved to her new job as a nurse on Prince Edward Island, right after I was to attend a scientific conference in Toronto, but she invited me to meet her at World Youth Day in Toronto two weeks early--so I made the arrangements from 10,000 miles away in Bunbury, Western Australia.
I arrived in Toronto nervous but excited, and Adele was all I'd thought from her emails and phone calls. We were a little bit nervous for the first half hour or so, but we quickly warmed to each other. The first mass we attended together was the Pope's mass Sunday morning, after sleeping out in the rain with all of the other pilgrims. I've been visiting her about every two weeks since that first visit, and we've talked on the phone about an hour a day (there are some very cheap phone cards for sale on the internet). We talked much more about serious things and silly things, and the most amazing thing to me has been how easy it all has been once God brought us together. One Sunday morning in late September, five months after my first email to her, just before mass, I asked Adele to marry me, and she said yes. We've started on marriage preparation, and we can only thank God for His graces. And Saints Therese, Raphael, and Joseph, and of course Our Lady.
So anyone who's experiencing great frustration, even on catholicmatch.com--don't give up. Adele and I both experienced the Dark Night of the Soul before God brought us together. We hope and pray every day for peace and grace as we prepare for a life of service to one another, and God willing, a family.
Thank you for catholicmatch.com and God bless.
Douglas - Member #1527
Adele and Doug have since been married [read full story]