Ave Maria, gratia plena

About 13 years ago, I was sitting on the front stoop of my house on Capitol Hill in Washington, talking with my neighbor about how much I hoped to get married someday, but how it didn't seem to be working out. She worked on the Hill for a pro-life lobby, and said that the other young women in her office were once saying the same thing. An older Italian lady overheard them, and told them that back in the day, she longed for a husband, and began praying a 54-day cycle of rosary novenas to Our Lady, asking for a husband. She met a nice fellow at the beginning, fell madly in love, and on the 54th day, he proposed. They married, had a big family, and were happy as could be.

My neighbor said all the unmarried young women in the office had asked the Italian lady for a copy of the novena -- all of them, that is, except her.

"So what happened?" I asked.

"They all got married," she said.

"I need a copy of that novena."

She got one for me, and I prayed it faithfully. A rosary a day for 54 days straight. I didn't get married right away -- or for a long time. But the most amazing thing -- I could see serious progress in spiritual and emotional maturity in myself. It wasn't that this was any sort of magic incantation. It was the devotion to daily prayer, and trust that God would provide, through the intercession of the Blessed Mother.

How many of those 54-day novena cycles I prayed over the years I couldn't tell you. I moved down to south Florida and continued to pray them. There was a Fatima chapel in my Catholic parish, and I'd stop there every Sunday after mass and offer a prayer to Our Lady of Fatima, asking her intercession for either a wife for me, or for peace in my heart if God didn't have that in mind for me. I was terribly lonely, but I persevered in prayer.

(Fatima, for those who don't know, is a famous Marian pilgrimage site in Portugal. It's a little country village where Mary appeared to three peasant children -- Francisco, Jacinto and Lucia -- and gave them a message of repentance for mankind. She gave them "secrets" that predicted the Bolshevik Revolution, the Satanic persecution of Christians by communism, and World War II, among other things. The three children were terribly persecuted for claiming these visions, but they persevered. They claimed that Mary told them she would make one final appearance, and work a miracle so people would believe. A crowd of 70,000 gathered in the fields outside of Fatima on the appointed day, and they bore witness to an astonishing miracle that even atheists attested to. Today, there is a basilica shrine there. Pope John Paul II made a pilgrimage there to thank Our Lady of Fatima for saving him from the assassin's bullet. You can read a lot more about Fatima here.

Anyway.

One day, I got an e-mail from my Baltimore friend Frederica Mathewes-Green. She was headed to Austin, Texas, to speak at a pro-life banquet and to do a signing for her (then) new book, "Facing East." I told her I loved Austin, and would love the opportunity to meet her there, take her to my favorite places to eat, and so forth. I flew from Florida to Austin, and turned up at the Logos Bookstore there in Austin to hear her speak. Before Frederica began, a friend introduced me to this undergraduate journalism student from UT, who wanted to meet a real practicing journalist. I took one look at her and stood stark still. I thought, "This might be her." I had been praying for years that I would know the one I was to marry when I met her. This was the first time I ever had that kind of feeling. Julie shook my hand, and we sat next to each other for Frederica's talk.

I have no idea what Frederica said. All I could think about was this young woman sitting next to me. I invited her to go with Frederica and me and some others to an Orthodox monastery the next day. It was our first date. That day, praying before an icon of the Virgin, I said, "Blessed Mother, if this Julie is the one, please pray that nothing gets in the way of it happening." The next day, a Sunday, Julie and I met after church, and spent the afternoon together. In the parking lot of Waterloo Records, I kissed her. I was totally gone in love. Nothing like that had ever happened to me. I caught the plane back to Florida that night, delirious.

She felt it too. Three or four days after we met, we were already e-mailing each other, saying that this might be forever (we still have the e-mails). We had to court long-distance, but we pulled it off. Four months after we met, I flew to Austin. We went back to the monastery, and as we prayed on our knees in thanksgiving to God for having brought us together, I pulled a ring out of my pocket and asked her to marry me. She said yes.

We chose to marry in New Orleans. A month or two later, we met each other there and searched for a Catholic parish in which to marry. None we visited seemed right. Dejected, we headed by car out of town, but stopped at one last parish, just in case. It was perfect. We knew as soon as we walked in that this was going to be the place. We booked it for December (we'd decided to marry when she finished college later that year). We were set.

She and her mom in Dallas were in charge of planning the wedding. One night Julie called me at home in Fort Lauderdale, and asked me, "What do you think about going to Portugal for our honeymoon?"

"Portugal?!" I said, stunned. "Why do you say that?" Julie wasn't yet Catholic, and I had told her nothing of Fatima.

"My dad's got a business associate who has a cottage there," she said. "And Dad's boss says he'll buy our plane tickets."

I told her I thought Portugal was a great idea. And I told her that we'd have to make a pilgrimage of thanksgiving to a town in the middle of nowhere there called Fatima. And I told her why. I don't think she knew what to make of that.

When we finished our conversation, I was still reeling from the fact that we were going to Portugal on our honeymoon -- for free! This couldn't be a coincidence. I went online to learn more about the Fatima apparitions. What I learned sent me to my knees in prayer.

The day of the final apparition in Fatima, and the miracle of the sun, was October 13, 1917; the day Julie and I fell in love was October 13, 1996. As if that weren't enough, I learned that on that date in Fatima, Mary identified herself to the children as "Our Lady of the Rosary." The parish that Julie and I had chosen in New Orleans because something about it felt right was ... Our Lady of the Rosary! (I even remember mentioning to Julie at the time we picked that church that it sure was appropriate that we get married in a church named for Mary and the rosary, given all the rosaries I prayed to find her.)

I was sure, absolutely sure, that we were brought together by the intercession of Our Lady of Fatima. When we finally did marry, we made a pilgrimage to Fatima to thank God for blessing us with true love, and Mary for bringing us together.

Today Julie and I celebrate what is, in a way, our 10th anniversary -- the anniversary of the day we fell in love. And God gave us another gift today. This afternoon, at 1:16 p.m. in Dallas, Nora Lucia Dreher came into the world. Her father was sitting at her mother's side in the delivery room, holding the icon of Mary and Baby Jesus that has been with us in the delivery room as all our children have been born, and praying the rosary throughout the blessed event. In fact, Nora Lucia came into this world as her father prayed the fifth glorious mystery -- the Crowning of the Mother of God in Heaven. God gave us today another star for Mary's crown. Mother and child are doing fine, and would appreciate your prayers.