I saw this item a week or so ago and kept meaning to post it, but other things intruded. It’s heartfelt, and hopeful, and sweetly romantic.

Anyway: I’ll let the story speak for itself:

World Youth Day 2008 will always be a meaningful memory for Anders C. Bergmann of St. George Parish at Patrick Air Force Base in Cape Canaveral and Katherine Schinn, a parishioner at Queen of Peace Parish in Ocala. It will be inextricably linked to their engagement of marriage.

The couple, both 21, traveled in a group of 12 from the Air Force base, which included Bergmann’s younger brother Colin and his parents, U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Anders P. Bergmann and Linda E. Bergmann, as chaperones.

Anders C. Bergmann arranged the details of the proposal from home. He purchased the ring, searched online for the perfect event and even got train schedules to the location to ensure they wouldn’t miss it.

He learned Archbishop Denis Hart of the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia, was presiding at a Mass at St. Aloysius Parish in Caulfield, a suburb of Melbourne, July 12. The couple routinely kneels to pray after Mass and it was then, following prayer, that Bergmann chose to pop the question. Schinn said yes and the archbishop blessed their engagement afterward.

“The fact it was right after Mass and at World Youth Day was such a prayerful beginning,” Schinn said. “I think in the entire experience of the universal church, it is a perfect visual.”

The couple attended an interfaith youth pilgrimage July 13 that included guest speaker Cardinal Oscar Andres Rodriguez Maradiaga, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, Honduras. He is also president of Caritas International, an organization started in 1897 to eradicate poverty and social injustice in the world. The cardinal blessed the couple’s engagement, an event that was extra special for Bergmann and Schinn, as Bergmann’s parents had been stationed in Honduras and were present at the cardinal’s first Mass in Tegucigalpa in 2001.

“I’m really excited and I can’t wait to start my life with the woman I know I’ll be spending the rest of my life with. I’m really happy that she will be my wife and I will be her husband,” Bergmann said.

At the conclusion of the final Mass July 20 with Pope Benedict XVI, Schinn raised her hand with her engagement ring for a papal blessing.

Bergmann and Schinn are students at the University of Florida in Gainesville. Their wedding date is set for May 16, 2009, and is already on the calendar at Queen of Peace Parish.

Photo: Archbishop Denis Hart of the Diocese of Melbourne, Australia extends his blessing to Anders C. Bergmann and Katherine Schinn on the occasion of their engagement following Mass at St. Aloysius Parish in Caulfield, Australia. After Mass, Bergmann asked Schinn for her hand in marriage as they knelt in prayer. Photo courtesy Anders P. Bergmann, from Florida Catholic.