FARGO – Meeting the successor of St. Peter after receiving a papal blessing in her wedding attire, with her groom at her side, is something Elizabeth “Liz” Jones might hold to her heart into eternity.
“How incredible to start our wedded life with a blessing from the vicar of Christ on earth, to see Pope Francis smile as he’s looking us in the eyes, and to shake his hand and have that moment of encounter,” Liz says.
The moments leading up to that were also memorable, with people gathered at the Vatican singing and chanting in different languages. “Then he came out, and everyone was chanting in Spanish, because he’s our Argentinian pope!” she says. “People get so excited about sports, but this was that on steroids. It was so full of hope—and so beautiful!”
They both agreed “surreal” is the right word to describe that day.
The possibility wasn’t on Ryan’s radar when he began mapping out details for their honeymoon in Italy, set for a few days after their August 5th wedding at Sts. Anne & Joachim Catholic Church. His focus was on hiking opportunities and the area’s rich Catholic heritage, he says.
But Liz was aware of Wednesday papal audiences that sometimes include a special blessing of newlyweds. It was after Ryan had booked their flights that she contacted the Fargo Diocese to see what might be possible.
She learned the pope isn’t always available for papal visits in August due to the heat, but a follow-up email noted that he could appear in St. Peter’s Square on August 9, a day after they’d be flying into Rome. “It was totally the Holy Spirit providing,” Liz says, “and Jesus saying, ‘I love you.’”
They’d rolled their wedding attire tightly into their backpacks just in case, and on Wednesday morning, decked out in clothes worn just three days before in Fargo, they arrived at St. Peter’s.
“They said there was no guarantee, since he’d just gotten back from World Youth Day,” Liz says. Additionally, it would be “first come, first served.”
The couple left their hotel at 7 a.m., but “were kind of lollygagging,” Liz says, and soon realized they were on the wrong side. Scurrying now to find the right entrance, they caught sight of a long line, and the Swiss Guards, noting their wedding clothing, ushered them to the front with other brides and grooms.
Although that moment or two with Pope Francis didn’t last long, Liz says, the length wasn’t important. “It was an encounter. It doesn’t have to be extensive or a long period of time to have depth. An encounter pierces the heart, and that’s what it was.”
Just a few months later, the two still seem to sparkle recalling that special day, and while glancing at each other as they answer questions, as if truly one flesh.
Kayla Jones, a “co-conspirator” in introducing the couple, along with another sister-in-law, Regina Bitzan, says that connection was evident early on. “We had dinner at our house, and they were sitting next to each other, and they kept turning to look at each other. So that was there from the very beginning. There’s just a deep connection there, and an authentic caring for one another.”
Kayla says her husband, Keith, from Kansas, had grown up with three brothers and missed his family after moving to North Dakota. When Kayla met Regina, wife of Liz’s brother Dan, at a Bible study, they started talking and realized Dan’s sister and Keith’s brother might be a match. “(Regina) said, ‘I want to find a good guy for Liz,’ and I said, ‘Well I know a good guy!’”
They’d both studied math in college—Liz teaches high-school math at Fargo North High School—and share a love of sports, the outdoors and traveling. “Normally, I don’t meddle in situations,” Kayla says, “but I felt the Holy Spirit nudging.”
The two connected by phone and “hit it off.” “It’s been nothing but joy for us, such a blessing to have them near,” Kayla says, noting her gratitude in having summoned the courage to “go out on a limb” to help introduce them. “God can do so much when we are open to his plan and guidance.”
Now nearly a decade into her own marriage, Kayla says she and Keith have a better understanding of what love requires, borrowing St. Thomas Aquinas’s definition, that love means “willing the good of the other.”
“Our goal is to get each other to heaven,” she says. “Through all our ups and downs that has to be at the forefront of our minds.”
From the beginning, Ryan and Liz knew this too, having grown up in faith-filled homes with three siblings each and parents who modeled married life well. They also took time in discerning a spouse; Liz is 29, and Ryan, 32.
Ryan says he looks up to Keith, his older brother, and when Keith mentioned that Liz was “one in a million,” he didn’t dismiss those words. “I started thinking, ‘Maybe I should send this person a text and see where it leads.’”
After a Zoom meeting, they arranged an in-person visit—which involved Ryan driving from Kansas to North Dakota. “Ryan had torn his Achilles right before we met, so he had a boot on,” Liz says. “He drove to Fargo, left-footed, to take me on a date.”
She knew what she wanted in a husband. “I was looking for a man who would uphold my dignity, and help me pursue what is good, true and beautiful.” Seeing Ryan’s heart drew her in further, Liz adds. “I remember talking to one of my girlfriends, wondering if he was real.”
Her own father, John Bitzan, had set the bar high. “There are a lot of virtues my dad exemplifies that I see in Ryan,” she says. “It’s beautiful to be raised well by a man who is so virtuous and authentically who he is, and then marrying a man who is that same way is a tremendous gift.”
“Ryan always draws the good out of others, and mirrors the good to the other,” both at home and at work, Liz says. Currently, he’s pursuing a doctorate in transportation logistics, and works for the Upper Great Plains Transportation Institute as a research specialist.
Certainly, married life is filled with challenges, and the Jones’ lives together will be no exception. But the couple is approaching the future with hope and excitement.
Ryan says it doesn’t hurt that they met the pope just days into entering a sacred union. “With all of the graces you receive from the sacrament of matrimony, and then to receive this blessing from Pope Francis, it all just reinforces the grace of what marriage is, and can be, when you’re fully together and united.”
Liz says she’s still processing their wedding and honeymoon. “We’re not even quite six months into it yet,” she says, smiling. But she knows it’s special.
Rare as the chance was to have received a papal blessing, her own grandparents had their own encounter with a pope, John Paul II, in 2000.
“I’ve been thinking about how my grandparents met John Paul II, how they were blessed by that pope, and how I grew up looking at pictures of that visit,” she says. “And now our kids, God willing, will be able to see a picture of their mom and dad with the pope. I don’t think I’ve even realized the gift we’ve received in its fullness yet.”
[For the sake of having a repository for my newspaper columns and articles, I reprint them here, with permission, a week after their run date. The preceding ran in The Forum newspaper on Feb. 9, 2024.]
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