Our story and the Mass readings for today

When my mother dropped me off at college as I was entering as a freshman, her parting words to me were, "Now, just don't marry the first thing that walks by you with pants and a pulse." 

That was over 17 years ago. I was 18 years old and flying from a relatively sheltered nest throughout which time I had ne'er held a guy's hand let alone dated anyone.

But sure enough, I saw him walk by that very first orientation weekend as a brand new freshman. He claims he doesn't remember this, but when introductions were going around at the ice cream social on that warm August night in 1995, he smiled and winked at me with those beautiful blue-green-hazel eyes. And I knew then, that my mother's advice was moot.

We tried not to fall for each other right away. Really we did. After all, we were both so new at this. By October we were "official" and by November he kissed me for the first time. But we were still just freshman and knew we had no business falling so hard and so fast for one another. People simply don't meet the love of their lives that quickly or easily.

Do they?

We forged ahead and continued our studies--him in computer information science and me in nursing.

My first day of clinical--do I look petrified?

Our sophomore year we studied abroad for a semester in Austria and visited--as a couple--some of the most romantic places on earth.

Our home away from home:
the Kartause in Gaming, Austria

The Roman Forum

The Danube River Valley

Paris

One of the highlights of my life

Austrian formal dance 

St. Peter's basilica

By our junior year, we knew God was calling us to marriage, but still we hesitated to talk openly about it. I made a novena to St. Therese that year, asking for her help in guidance in our relationship and secretly asking for one of those roses she promised to shower down from heaven. And I got not one but two dozen of the very color I asked for. When he handed me the bouquet, I wept and wept until I had no more tears but only laughter. I'm sure he wondered what had come over me and when I had recovered, I told him why. Only to discover that he had been praying likewise for some sort of sign. We were engaged a few weeks later on Valentines' Day.

Valentines' Day 1998

We were only juniors at the time and (good Catholics that we were) with another year and a half of college left, it seemed like an eternity to wait until after graduation the following May.

Our Engagement Blessing

But with the blessing of both sets of parents, we decided upon a December wedding for that very year, planning it just two weeks after that semester's last final of our senior year:

December 19, 1998

December 19, 1998

We knew we were taking a risk. What if I got pregnant right away? What if morning sickness made me unable to complete my final clinical rotation? Regrettably though, I was perfectly fine and healthy to graduate the following May. By our first anniversary, we knew something was wrong. Each anniversary after that was met with the disappointment still being childless. We wondered if we had done something wrong. I worried that perhaps we had followed the wrong path somehow.

I tried in vain to give some sort of meaning to the meaningless.

And then, one year on our anniversary, he went off to work and I went off to daily Mass. This was a very dark time of our marriage. I wanted to throw in the towel. I wanted my heavenly Father to fix this problem but my prayers fell on deaf ears, or at least they seemed to. I was on the brink. I was figuratively beating my fists against His chest and begging him to take it all away or else...

Or else, what?

It was with these thoughts and feelings that I sank down into the pew that day and, seemingly for the first time, I heard the readings and the gospel that day: (emphasis mine)

First reading	Judges 13:2-7,24-25 ©

There was a man of Zorah of the tribe of Dan, called Manoah. His wife was barren, she had borne no children. The angel of the Lord appeared to this woman and said to her, ‘You are barren and have had no child. But from now on take great care. Take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For you will conceive and bear a son. No razor is to touch his head, for the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb. It is he who will begin to rescue Israel from the power of the Philistines.’ Then the woman went and told her husband, ‘A man of God has just come to me; his presence was like the presence of the angel of God, he was so majestic. I did not ask him where he came from, and he did not reveal his name to me. But he said to me, “You will conceive and bear a son. From now on, take no wine or strong drink, and eat nothing unclean. For the boy shall be God’s nazirite from his mother’s womb to his dying day.”’
  The woman gave birth to a son and called him Samson. The child grew, and the Lord blessed him; and the spirit of the Lord began to move him.

Gospel	Luke 1:5-25 ©

In the days of King Herod of Judaea there lived a priest called Zechariah who belonged to the Abijah section of the priesthood, and he had a wife, Elizabeth by name, who was a descendant of Aaron. Both were worthy in the sight of God, and scrupulously observed all the commandments and observances of the Lord. But they were childless: Elizabeth was barren and they were both getting on in years.
  Now it was the turn of Zechariah’s section to serve, and he was exercising his priestly office before God when it fell to him by lot, as the ritual custom was, to enter the Lord’s sanctuary and burn incense there. And at the hour of incense the whole congregation was outside, praying.
  Then there appeared to him the angel of the Lord, standing on the right of the altar of incense. The sight disturbed Zechariah and he was overcome with fear. But the angel said to him, ‘Zechariah, do not be afraid, your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth is to bear you a son and you must name him John. He will be your joy and delight and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord; he must drink no wine, no strong drink. Even from his mother’s womb he will be filled with the Holy Spirit, and he will bring back many of the sons of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah, he will go before him to turn the hearts of fathers towards their children and the disobedient back to the wisdom that the virtuous have, preparing for the Lord a people fit for him.’
  Zechariah said to the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is getting on in years.’ The angel replied, ‘I am Gabriel who stand in God’s presence, and I have been sent to speak to you and bring you this good news. Listen! Since you have not believed my words, which will come true at their appointed time, you will be silenced and have no power of speech until this has happened.’ Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and were surprised that he stayed in the sanctuary so long. When he came out he could not speak to them, and they realised that he had received a vision in the sanctuary. But he could only make signs to them, and remained dumb.
  When his time of service came to an end he returned home. Some time later his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she kept to herself. ‘The Lord has done this for me’ she said ‘now that it has pleased him to take away the humiliation I suffered among men.’

It was then that I knew that He wasn't done with us yet. The following year, we had that all important conversation and shortly after, we began the adoption process.

Now I should point out that ordinarily, daily Mass readings on a particular date change from year to year depending on which lectionary cycle the Church is using in a given year. But it just so happens that these Mass readings for December 19--our wedding anniversary--are always proclaimed on this calendar date, regardless of which lectionary cycle the Church is using that particular year. In fact, all of the Mass readings within the octave before Christmas are static and unchanging from year to year.

Fourteen years ago, we had no idea the journey that lay ahead of us. We had no way of knowing how our battle with infertility would first hobble then strengthen us as a couple. We had no indication that the particular date and time of year we decided to marry would recall scripture readings that would provide so much consolation in the years ahead.

Yes, the struggle still continues. I regret to say that the pain never really does go away. It lessens, but it never goes entirely away. The children do fill our lives to be sure, and most days I really am content with life as it is. But I'm only human. I've long come to the conclusion that I will probably carry this cross to my grave and must submit the desire to ever experience what it's like for a life grow under my heart...to witness the embodiment of our marital love. 

But we consider today's Mass readings--readings we hear every single year on our anniversary--no small coincidence. 

However today's readings are not just for us. They are not just for those struggling with a barren womb. They are a reminder that God plans are far above our own. He always has a plan, always yet to be revealed. As we are reminded by the prophet Isaiah:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, my thoughts higher than your thoughts. (Isaiah 55:8)