Annie explained that the novena to St. Anne – the name given to the Virgin Mary’s mother in the Catholic tradition – was the first novena she ever prayed. She heard several women say they met their fiances after praying for St. Anne’s intercession for a spouse. This moved Annie to find a novena to the saint. She began to pray it every morning at a local chapel.
“While I left that chapel every morning, I remember noticing a guy praying in one of the last pews in the back, and I thought to myself, “I’d like to meet someone like him, who is also starting his day in prayer,” she recalled.
“Very shortly after finishing the St. Anne Novena, I met John-Paul, and it turned out that he was the guy I had been seeing all along in the very back of the chapel while praying the novena,” she added. “So we attribute St. Anne’s intercession to us meeting one another.”
In addition to being authors, the Deddens’ are also the creators of the popular website and social media platform PrayMoreNovenas, an online ministry that helps people rediscover the beauty of praying novenas and sends daily emails to participants so that they can stay up-to-date on their chosen novena.
John-Paul shared how the site came to fruition saying, “While we were dating, Annie asked me to pray a novena with her. I turned her down. You see, my experience with novenas wasn’t great. I started several but I had never finished one!”
“I realized that I was constantly checking my email throughout the day and that if I had the prayers right there in front of me that I would probably finally finish a novena,” he said. “I created the website PrayMoreNovenas.com to help others who had the same difficulty and we’ve since received thousands of messages from people who finally finished their first novena using Pray More Novenas!”