Jared was searching. He was a soldier in the U.S. Army, stationed in Italy, and he felt like his faith was slipping. It was not something that a man who’d spent years of discernment in the seminary was going to take lightly and when the local military parish took a trip to Padova to see the tomb of St. Anthony, the 29-year-old knew an opportunity when he saw it.
“St. Anthony is my confirmation saint,” he told CatholicMatch. “It (the trip) was just what I needed to get my faith back in order and do some heavy praying.” One of the things Jared prayed for was that the long-lost woman who was meant for him, be brought in his direction.
When he returned the barracks that night, he logged into his CatholicMatch account and saw he’d been contacted. Alyssa, the same age as he and living in West Virginia, sent him an emotigram and thanked him for his service to their country.
The subsequent exchange of messages established enough common ground that when Jared returned to his home in Corpus Christi for Thanksgiving, Alyssa got on the plane and flew to Texas to see him.
Jared & Alyssa both prayed to St. Anthony for their spouse on the day they connected on CatholicMatch.
