Ana had tried to make peace with the single life as her vocation, but it wasn’t easy.
Her soul was still restless. She had been on and off CatholicMatch for over ten years and had met many guys during that time, but at 36, the right person had not yet come along.
“It was like something was missing. I kept telling myself that if I didn’t find the person I was praying for, then I wouldn’t marry,” Ana says. Were the qualities she was searching for in a man too unrealistic? But she decided to give it one more chance, thanks to her mother’s encouragement. “And one day, there he was, my Maxi!” So what drew her to this particular person?
“Every word of his profile was very interesting, but what really got my attention the most was his devotion to Saint Josemaria Escriva, because I’ve been involved with the Opus Dei all my life and it was important to me to meet someone who understands that spirituality,” Ana reports. “He seemed perfect!” Except for one detail. Maximiliano was Italian, and Ana was not looking for someone so far from Mexico. So, she figured she would say a quick hello and leave it be.
At 40 years old, Maximiliano had long been searching for a devoted, friendly woman with a sense of humor.
Two friends suggested CatholicMatch, and though he was very skeptical about meeting a woman online, he decided to give it a try. One thing he was pleasantly surprised by were the deep and important questions included in the profile. A few months later, in June of 2017, “I received an emoji from this Mexican woman named Ana. She was very pretty and the emoji made me laugh, so I replied.”
After only a week, Maxi started calling Ana daily. “We prayed the rosary, and we laughed a lot!” Maxi recalls. “On my birthday, she prepared a cake for me and showed it to me on video,” he laughs. But by the second week, Maxi told her about his concerns with a long-distance relationship and felt he had to let her go. “Somehow, I still don’t know why, instead of walking away, I told him I was all in. You can never know if you don’t try. He told me he would get in touch and let me know,” Ana recalls.
Ana proceeded to pray hard to Saint Josemaria, asking him to advise Maxi to give their relationship a chance.
The very next day, Maxi called with his answer. He had spoken with his spiritual director, who told him that when you are on the right path, you feel all the joys of the Holy Spirit. Maxi then told Ana that she made him feel like that every time they spoke. “I was astonished!” Ana gushes. They then agreed they had to meet as soon as possible. Maxi couldn’t make it to Mexico because of work, so after just two months of knowing each other, Ana took a plane and flew to Italy in September for two weeks. Maxi was happy to pay for her hotel and everything else.
“The first time we met, he was so sweet and he gave the most amazing flowers! Every day of my stay, he gave me a surprise! A trip, a dinner, a tour,” Ana reports. She got to meet his friends and experience much of his lifestyle. They also prayed together and went to daily Mass. “It was a joy to find this spiritual being, so good, so sweet, so smart, so handsome. We knew we wanted to go on,” Ana comments.
Maxi felt much the same. “She attracted me with everything. Funny, good-looking, same faith, living without compromise, family-oriented.” They also agreed on the importance of living in chastity before marriage. Maxi asked her to be his girlfriend before she left Italy, and they agreed it was his turn to come to Mexico next. He came in November to meet Ana’s family and to make things more serious.
On his last day in Mexico, they went to Our Lady of Guadalupe Shrine, and after Mass Maxi knelt down and asked Ana to marry him. He didn’t yet have a ring, but Ana quickly said yes!
Ana was also aware of the big changes this meant for her.
“Since the beginning, I knew it was not possible for him to move to Mexico, so I always knew the biggest sacrifice belonged to me. But I was okay with that, and my family was very supportive,” Ana says. “We knew that we had to spend more time together,” Maxi says. Thus, he encouraged Ana to move to Italy to see if she liked living there. “She left everything and came for a class of six months of Italian. I gave her my house and went to live with my mother,” Maxi recalls. “We had breakfast and lunch every day!”
The first months were not easy, but Ana studied Italian and started to help Maxi in his business. Getting along with his family was not easy either, “but we thrived, with patience and love and prayers, and we made it,” Ana reports. Maxi adds, “It’s always difficult to merge two souls and two different worlds. It hasn’t been dramatic, but of course, we had difficulties. We always had good priests to help us!”
At the end of July 2018, Ana was supposed to soon return to Mexico, but on August 15, Maxi again asked Ana to stay in Italy forever by marrying him.
They were wed in a beautiful ceremony on December 1st, 2018. Though Ana could not have most of her family and friends with her, she was thrilled to marry the man of her dreams!
Ana adds, “To us, one of the most beautiful things is that when we asked God for the right person to marry, we both were very detailed about it. Most of all, for someone we could take to Heaven and go to Heaven together. We are so thankful to CatholicMatch!”
Continue Reading
