Long before there was The JMJ Way, there were seven words spoken quietly in a hospital room:
“Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.”
When Ashley’s mom was a teenager, she was hospitalized several times because of health problems. During one of those hospital stays, she was lying in bed facing the open doorway, feeling particularly dejected and alone. As she watched the activity in the hallway, an elderly man passed her room. He looked in, caught her eye, and smiled.
Then he stopped.
He turned around, came into her room, and began making small talk with her. She no longer remembers what they talked about. What she remembers vividly is what happened before he left.
The old man gently patted her as he began repeating, almost rhythmically, “Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.” His hand kept cadence with his words.
Then, one final time, everything seemed to slow. He looked directly into her eyes with an intensity she has never forgotten, as though he wanted these words permanently seared into her mind and heart:
“Always… remember… Jesus… Mary… and Joseph.”
And then he left.
She cannot explain why, but even as a teenager she knew there was something different about that encounter. She felt she had been given a message she was supposed to keep.
And she did.
Through the years, as she married and raised her own family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—the Holy Family—became increasingly important to her. She often told her children the story of the elderly stranger in the hospital and the words he had insisted she remember.
Many years later, she discovered Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, now Blessed Fulton Sheen.
At first, she wasn’t quite sure what to make of him. He seemed a little theatrical to her. But then she noticed something on his chalkboard:
J.M.J.
Jesus. Mary. Joseph.
Those three letters immediately caught her attention because they carried her back to that hospital room and to the words she had carried since adolescence: Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
That little J.M.J. drew her in. Soon she began watching Sheen’s old programs and reading his writings. The man she had initially found a little too theatrical became someone she deeply loved. She came to know his extraordinary love for Christ, his devotion to the Blessed Mother, his reverence for the Holy Family, and especially his profound love for Jesus in the Eucharist.
And still the words remained:
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Then came Ashley and Tommy’s long journey through infertility and adoption.
For years, they have longed for a child. They have sought healing and pursued treatments consistent with their Catholic faith. Eventually, they also opened their hearts and their home to adoption, entering a different kind of waiting—a long gestation of the heart with no due date.
Last Christmas, Ashley asked her mom for something she desperately wanted but that no mother could simply wrap and place beneath a Christmas tree: she asked for help with her dream of having a child.
Her mom wanted desperately to give her something. To do something. But she could think of nothing.
The helplessness felt almost as empty as the crib waiting for the child who had not yet come.
So she prayed:
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, show me a way.”
As the beatification of Blessed Fulton Sheen approached, Ashley’s mom, her husband, Ashley, and Tommy prepared to travel to attend it together. About a week before the trip, during her usual morning prayers, Ashley’s mom felt drawn simply to remain quiet for a while after she had finished praying.
So she stayed.
And in that silence, while praying about Ashley and Tommy and the upcoming pilgrimage, those old words returned:
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
The words spoken to a lonely teenage girl in a hospital room decades before.
The words she had carried while raising her family.
The initials she later discovered written across Fulton Sheen’s chalkboard.
J.M.J.
And then came an idea.
What if they created a little holy card asking people to pray for Ashley and Tommy?
What if they asked people to pray boldly for a miracle—either the miracle of conception or the gift of a child through adoption, all according to God’s will?
What if the card included a QR code leading to their story, so people could pray with them, follow their journey, and perhaps bring their own intentions for infertility, adoption, pregnancy and infant loss, and families longing for children?
One prayer could become another prayer.
One person praying could become ten.
Ten could become hundreds.
And perhaps what began as one family’s desperate petition could become something larger: a little apostolate of prayer rooted in the hidden, humble life of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Suddenly the prayer from Christmas seemed to have an answer.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, show me a way.”
They did.
And from that prayer was born:
The JMJ Way
We believe in asking God boldly.
We believe that God can do all things.
We believe that the God who called the universe from nothingness and formed man from the dust of the earth has lost none of His power.
We believe in the God who gave Sarah a child when hope seemed humanly impossible. We believe in the God who answered Elizabeth and Zechariah after long years of barrenness and prayer.
And above all, we believe in the mystery at the heart of our faith: that when Mary opened herself completely to God’s will—“May it be done to me according to your word”—the Holy Spirit overshadowed her, the Word became flesh within her, and God came to dwell among us.
We know that God has not promised Ashley and Tommy a particular outcome. Faith does not mean demanding that God write the story exactly as we would write it.
But faith does mean that we are allowed to ask.
And so we are asking.
Boldly.
Persistently.
Hopefully.
We are asking God, if it is His holy will, to give Ashley and Tommy the child for whom they have prayed for so long—whether through the miracle of conception or through the providential gift of adoption.
Yes, Lord, we believe.
Will you believe with us?
Will you pray with us?
Will you help us carry this petition before God and ask Him for a miracle—all according to His holy will and for His greater glory?
And perhaps you are carrying your own impossible prayer. Perhaps there is an empty crib in your home, too. Perhaps there is a child you are waiting to conceive, a child you are waiting to adopt, a child you have lost, or a family sorrow known only to God.
Bring it with you.
We will pray together.
Because The JMJ Way is ultimately about more than receiving the answer we desire. It is about learning the hidden Little Way of Nazareth: offering God our waiting, our ordinary duties, our disappointments, our hopes, our homes, our marriages, our suffering, our laughter, our work, our tears—even the quiet beating of our hearts.
And through it all, remembering the words spoken so many years ago:
Always remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Our Prayer
Holy Family, help us to be a holy family and pray for us!
Blessed Fulton Sheen, lover of the Holy Family, faithful servant of God, and devoted adorer of Jesus in the Most Holy Eucharist: you faithfully kept your daily Holy Hour throughout your priesthood and spent your life drawing souls toward Christ. Through the life-giving love of the Eucharistic Lord whom you so adored, we ask your intercession. If it be God’s gracious will, for His greater glory, for the good of souls, and, if He so wills, as a testimony that may contribute to your canonization, please intercede for Ashley and Tommy. Ask God to grant them the child for whom they have prayed so long, whether through the miracle of conception or through the gift of adoption. Blessed Fulton Sheen, pray for us!
Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mother of the unborn Christ and patroness of life, wrap Ashley and Tommy beneath your mantle. Pray for them, for the child for whom they long, and for all families waiting with empty arms. Our Lady of Guadalupe, pray for us!
St. Joseph, guardian of the Redeemer and protector of the Holy Family, pray for us!
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we place Ashley, Tommy, the child for whom they pray, and all those who join us in prayer into your hands.
Always help us remember Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
Amen.