Couple credits prayers made before they met for successful marriage

It all started with three Hail Marys a day
By Deborah Gyapong
OTTAWA (CCN)

Joe and Joan Pinto celebrated 50 years of marriage in 2016, and they credit prayers each made before they met as among the ingredients for its success.

When Joan was a teenager in Moosejaw, Sask., she began to say three Hail Marys a day: the first for purity or chastity; the second for her vocation, “whatever it was God wanted it to be”; and third, “that if my vocation is marriage that I would find the right man.”

Joe, who grew up in Karachi, then in India, now part of Pakistan, also recalled praying about his future spouse when he was in his teens. He knelt by his bed and said, “Lord, I do not want to get married, but if I do get married may it be to a good Catholic girl!”

He immigrated to Canada in 1964 at the age of 30 and began to work in accounting at Canadair in Montreal. Joan’s family had moved when she was 15 to Montreal, where she obtained a degree in nursing.

One evening, as she was returning home from the hospital where she worked, she saw Joe on the street where she lived. She found the tall, slender man attractive and hoped she would run into him again. She even found herself returning from the hospital to fix her hair and apply some makeup.

One hot day, at the grocery store, her arms full of shopping bags, a young man named Bill from her church stopped to talk. She was hot and her arms were getting tired. “I wished he would stop talking,” she said. But then Joe came towards them and Bill introduced them. Turns out they were roommates and they lived on the same street. Soon Joan and her roommates arranged a party for some of the single nurses and men in the Legion of Mary. She suggested they also invite Bill and Joe. At that party, Joe asked who would like to go for a walk and Joan was the only one who said, “Yes.”

“After about the third date, I said to Joan, if things go the way they are, I’d like to make you Mrs. Pinto some day,” Joe said. “That was pretty fast, eh?”

He then became concerned about their 10-year age difference. Meanwhile, Joan faced some concern from her father about the fact Joe came from a different culture and had a different skin colour, but after getting to know Joe, he told Joan, “It’s hard to find a man of integrity. Joe is that.”

“I didn’t even think of Joe as being different,” Joan said. “It didn’t even cross my mind.” But soon, the couple had their families’ blessing and were married May 28, 1966, about 10  and a half months after they met.

But almost right away, the Pintos faced challenges. Joan had three children in quick succession. Their fourth was born four years after the third. Joe was often not home because he was working hard to support the family. “Joe would say, ‘I’m working for you!’ and I would say, ‘I just want you to be here!'” Joan said.

From the beginning, however, Joe made a commitment to keep the romance in the relationship, so that meant regular date nights just for the two of them and a trip, even if only a long weekend, at least once a year. These times did help renew their marriage when times got difficult.

While both had strong Catholic upbringings, they discovered they experienced the faith very differently. “Whenever we talked about it, we argued,” Joan said. “Joe saw our faith as rules and regulations. Either you obey or you don’t. I saw it as love.”

Joan found the lack of sharing in their faith difficult; it felt “like a hole in my heart.”

She had made a Cursillo at age 17 and tried to persuade Joe to go. She eventually gave up. But then a man Joe admired invited him. “That was the beginning of a change in Joe not to see our faith as a bunch of rules.”

Joan had already been involved in the charismatic renewal for years when Joe became involved. He quickly became a leader, exhibiting a gift of prophecy and other manifestations. Joan was taken aback. “What the heck!” she thought. But this marked a turning point in their marriage. “It was really opening ourselves up to each other in a spiritual and emotional way,” she said. They were even able to communicate now about difficult and sensitive matters and begin to find resolution. “Before it was a stalemate,” Joe said.

“Though Cursillo, I discovered God is not as distant as I thought He was, not up in the clouds but He was real,” Joe said. Then, seven years after that, through the charismatic renewal, he turned his life over to Jesus. Prior to this he had thought, “I’m a pretty perfect guy,” but he began to see his life differently and discover many things he didn’t think were sins were sinful. “I saw so many sins, I wrote them out,” he said. When he brought the list into the confessional, he wept, but at the same time, “I felt the love of God Who loved me in spite of it.”

“I’ve always felt Joe was made to measure for me,” Joan said. “God knew exactly what and who I needed.” An uncle, who is an Oblate priest, send her a card when she married Joe that said marriage is between three: the two of you and Jesus. “I never forgot that through the good, sad, difficult, and challenging times,” she said.

Joe said people often ask them, “What is your secret?” to 50 years of happy marriage. He mentioned the prayers both of them made before they met; and the conviction on both their parts marriage is for life. He also stressed the importance of keeping romance alive, through special dates and trips alone.

They have also learned to listen to each other and, when they get into arguments, to forgive and not hold onto resentments. Joe said they have both learned to not only say they are sorry but also to ask for forgiveness. They remember Fr. Joe King asking, “Do you want to be right, or do you want to be free?”

The sooner they forgive, the easier, Joe said. “The longer we held onto resentment, the worse it got.”

The Pintos now have 10 grandchildren, five boys and five girls.