Faith, shared mission bring couple together

Part of a series about married couples who met through the Catholic Church or one of its institutions.

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Ever since his first Communion, Fredy Duran Lopez told himself that if he didn’t marry by the age of 30, he would consider a religious vocation. If he didn’t meet the perfect woman by then, he would devote his life entirely to the church.

“I wanted to be with someone who I could create a life with,” he said.

It wasn’t immediately clear that Ana Martinez was that woman – but it was the church that brought them together.

In the mid 2010s, Duran Lopez and Martinez were dating other people when they both started a shared leadership role in planning youth and young adult ministry events at their home parish, St. Joseph in Cockeysville. They appreciated each other’s creativity, and would talk and text at length about their many ideas to build a bigger community through their work.

The talking continued as normal until Martinez, one afternoon between her job cleaning houses, admitted to Duran Lopez via text message that she once had a crush on him. Most of the following night was spent together, chatting over the phone.

“The woman of my dreams has arrived, I thought,” Duran Lopez said.

“I saw their partnership, and then when I found out they were dating, I was just like, ‘Oh, yeah that makes sense,’ ” said Christopher Wesley, director of Youth and Young Adult Ministry at St. Joseph.

The young couple built their relationship on a solid foundation of faith. Early on, they would visit the sanctuary at St. Joseph to pray together and continued to stay involved in young adult ministry.

“We fell in love with God first,” Martinez said. “I think that’s what makes our marriage work.”

In the summer of 2018, the couple attended a spiritual retreat at the Instituto Fe y Vida (Faith and Life Institute) in Chicago, an organization focused on empowering young, Latino Catholic leaders. On the way back to Baltimore, they decided to get married.

They and their children reside on a Monkton horse farm where Duran Lopez works, a long way from their native El Salvador.

Martinez emigrated to the United States from San Miguel, an eastern department of the country, at age 10 with her older sister to reunite with their parents. Duran Lopez came from San Salvador, the capital city, where more than a third of the nation’s population resides, in 2010 after his father, who lives in Texas, petitioned for his residency.

They both dream of soon being able to visit each other’s hometowns to learn more about how the other grew up. For the time being, they are content to discover through one another the small cultural differences between the eastern and western parts of their homeland, such as the variations in accent and twists on pupusas, a Salvadoran culinary staple.

Duran Lopez’s petition for a visa for his mother to come to the United States for the wedding was denied. Without anyone else in mind to “give him away” to his bride, he asked his brother to stand in their mother’s place.

“He said to me, ‘But why me, if we still have Dad?’ ” Duran Lopez said. He had been estranged from his father ever since the elder left El Salvador for the United States – Duran Lopez only has a few memories of meeting his father as a boy.

With the help of pastoral counseling, Duran Lopez decided to forgive his father for his absence in his life. He invited his father to come from Texas to be a part of the wedding; he accepted without reservation.

Martinez and Duran Lopez’s marriage rites were celebrated by Father John Martinez at St. Joseph in Cockeysville Sept. 1, 2019 – the day before Duran Lopez turned 30.

Know of a Catholic couple that could be featured in the “It’s About Love” series? Send details to mail@CatholicReview.org

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