I met my husband in graduate school at a Catholic university. He was a priest and I had been a nun for 11 years. I had left my order of nuns mostly because they were making decisions and altering our lifestyle and mission so markedly that the life we said we were leading was the life we were abandoning. I remember saying to one of the superiors, I feel like the kids I teach and their families are living the true Christian life more than we are in reality.

When we got married 44 year ago, my husband's parents were extremely upset. It was the 60's and nothing gave a Catholic mother more popularity than having a son who was a priest. After she had made some truly hateful phone calls to me, my husband sat down and wrote his parents a letter saying essentially that until they could love me as he loved me, they were not to contact me by any method. It was many months later when his father called my husband, apologized, and asked if they could make plans to come see us. They came, but they did not stay with us. It was a pleasant and polite visit. It took several years for us to build a relationship together. But I will ALWAYS remember how proud I was of my husband standing up for me and being a true man.

Jody