Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

"A capable wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels." - Proverbs 31:10 Let’s be honest.  Moms do much more work than the average person, especially when they are at home with young children for most of the day.  Even moms who work, or who have a side hustle, rarely pull back on caring for children, running the household, and keeping everyone fed and clothed.  But this great service to the family can also be a burden, it can cause resentment, and it can cause burnout.  Moms can feel stuck, even trapped.  How do we prevent that from happening?  How can we change our perspective and embrace what we do for our family as our path to holiness and sanctification?  It comes down to three things - identity, belonging, and mission.  Listen in to learn more!  

“We are witnesses to what the Lord Jesus has done in our lives.” ~ Tony Foy, Executive Director of NET Ministries Ireland Many of you may have picked up that Mike is pretty proud of his Irish heritage.  We had a daughter who wanted to be an international missionary at 18 and Mike was hesitant until she said she wanted to be part of NET Ireland.  That was a quick sell!  NET is an organization that forms missionaries to evangelize junior high and high school students all over the world.  Tony Foy and his wife Sheena have been running NET Ireland for – years while they have been raising seven children of their own.  In this conversation, we talk about both of our experiences raising children who become adult missionaries, share our differing perspectives, and give the lessons that we have learned through it all.  Tony and Sheena are brilliant guests and we had some good crack (look up an Irish translation for that!).  It was a joy for us to connect with other like minded parents who are also in ministry to hear their wisdom and stories about this greatest of adventures - Catholic family life. 

“Most people spend more time planning a one-week vacation than they spend planning their life.”  ~ Michael Hyatt As we begin a new school year and the fall season we think this is a perfect time to start or re-start a new habit or routine in your family and be more intentional about your family culture. This is a great time for your family to do a reset! Too often we put off making changes in our family, or it ends with us just talking about it. But it doesn’t have to be that way. This is a special podcast that we did in front of a virtual “studio audience” - couples from our member site!  We recorded it with them and will be starting small accountability groups to keep the resolutions from the “reset” going.  After listening to this podcast if you want to join a small group, let us know!  Or maybe you want to get together with some of your friends and do a “reset” together.  Use this time of new schedules to make some new fresh habits for you and your family.  We are always called to begin again and move upward and onward to strengthen our family culture! 

“If you want to be a great parent, you need to be an amazing spouse”  ~Mike and Alicia Hernon Often romance is associated with shallow, fleeting feelings, but really, the romance that we share without spouses is a powerful example to our children of the exclusive intimate relationship that only spouses are to enjoy.   A kiss in the kitchen or an embrace in front of your children is not only to make them say, “Dad! Mom!  Ewww!” but it is to show them the way they are called to love.  It is this intimate exclusive love that is the foundation of the family, and the best place for children to grow is within the shadow of the love of their parents.  So it is essential that we continue to pursue our spouses and learn how to love them intimately.  This is a task that should take our whole lives!  And just to make it interesting (or difficult depending on your perspective!) men and women have different needs when it comes to intimacy and we need to be pursued in different ways.  

“We do not hesitate to declare that devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is the most effective school of the love of God; the love of God, We say, which must be the foundation on which to build the kingdom of God in the hearts of individuals, families, and nations” ~ Haurietis Aquas, 123 What is the devotion of Nine First Fridays?  This is a request that Our Lord made to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque in 1675.  In these visions, she saw Christ revealed with His heart exposed as He explained to her that this Heart was beating with love for all humankind.  In this world that is getting darker and darker, more than ever we need to find refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus! The devotion is simple. Families go to mass for nine first Fridays in a row, with the intention of making reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for all those who ignore Him, scorn Him, and do not love Him. In return, Christ made 12 Promises to all who complete this devotion.  You can find those in our blog this month!  If families begin this devotion in October, June will be the 9th first Friday and then you can consecrate your family to the Sacred Heart on June 16, 2023!  See below for some additional prayers to the Sacred Heart.  This small offering of ours attains for us powerful blessings!   https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/prayers-to-the-sacred-heart

Love should be seen as something which in a sense never ‘is’ but is always only ‘becoming’” ~ St. John Paul II All marriages go through a cycle.  That cycle includes times of romance, when everything is going well, your love is full, and you are working as a team.  It also includes times when things aren’t so great - we call this “disillusionment”.  Disillusionment is when you don’t have the feelings of being in love; you may not even like your spouse very much!  This is when we feel dry and even alone in our marriage and we need to choose to love.  It is like times of dryness in our spiritual life.  We still show up to mass, say our prayers, and go through the motions, but we don’t feel close to God.  Our marriages can be like this as well!  We need to learn that we still need to show up to work with our spouse, choose to smile and be kind, and speak with affection, even if the feelings aren’t there.  In this podcast, we describe this part of the cycle of marriage and give some encouragement on how to deal with it and move through it because when you do, it leads to true joy, a love that is deep and real because it has been tested and tried.  

“The family is where children discover how to be human. It’s where they learn how to respect and love other people.. where they discover their place in a family story larger than themselves.” -Archbishop Charles Chaput   We meet parents all the time who tell us, “My kids don’t get along!” and our response is, “Of course they don’t get along.  That is kind of what your job is as parents.  To teach them how to live in peace with other people and they practice this with their siblings.”  Family is the training ground for life. This is where children learn how to be human - to fight, to forgive, to share, to live in community.  Parents must be the stewards of the culture of the family and part of that culture is the relationship between brothers and sisters.  The greatest gift a parent can give their child is a brother or sister - but that is just a starting point.  We parents also need to intentionally work to teach those brothers and sisters to love each other.  Because strong sibling relationships are one of life’s greatest joys.  Listen in as we discuss this essential topic for parents.   Check out our blog post on this topic: Encouraging Good Sibling Relationships

Family communion can only be preserved and perfected through a great spirit of sacrifice. - St. John Paul II Let’s be honest.  Parenting is hard. Some studies have shown that up to 18% of American parents regret having children.  Though that statistic may not be completely true, it does show a growing number of people who don’t just struggle with being a parent, but actually resent it.  We need to talk about this!  It is good to acknowledge those feelings, but parents need to then move through those feelings, be curious about them, and make sure they don’t get stuck there.  In this podcast, we talk about why people may feel this way and what to do about it.  Our mission is to empower parents to embrace their sacred calling and we can’t do that without meeting parents where they are at.  For those parents who struggle with this job - we hear you and you are welcome here.  Listen in and join the conversation. Check out our blog post on this topic: Help! I Hate Parenting My Kids (Sometimes)

   Food is love, but it’s only love if it’s shared. ~ Fr. Leo Patalinghug Family dinner is something so simple yet so important and foundational in your family culture.  We need to constantly be reminded and encouraged to take time to focus on those relationships in our family daily, or at least weekly.  In this fun, engaging conversation with Fr. Leo, we discuss family dinners, but also inviting others into our homes, and how to have true leisure. Fr. Leo makes the point that dinners together are not just important, they are actually essential! In this podcast we also talk about our upcoming cruise with Fr. Leo to Portugal and Fatima next spring.  It is a river cruise through wine country but also to several shrines and holy places, particularly the blessed shrine of Our Lady of Fatima.  We are blessed to have such a great friend in Fr. Leo and we hope that you will join us for this conversation, but also on our trip next year! Fr. Leo’s organization - https://platinggrace.com/ Women Wonderfully Made FREE Webinar Dads Vs. Wild FREE Webinar Join us a the Cruise and Pilgrimage to Fatima - https://www.messyfamilyproject.org/fatima-cruise/ Check out our blog post on this topic: Do Family Dinners Matter?

Blessed is the house where an older person lives! Blessed is the family that honours the elderly! - Pope Francis, from his message for the Second World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly None of us live in a vacuum.  We didn’t just appear upon the earth in isolation!  We are all part of a family - not just our nuclear family, but a wider group made up of aunts, uncles, grandparents, and great grandparents, stretching back generations.  How often do we consider the role of our grandparents in our lives?  Or the role that we will play in the lives of our grandchildren someday?  In this podcast, we discuss the importance of these relationships, some guidelines for both generations to learn how to relate to each other, and how parents can embrace their role as grandparents.  We have found that you never stop learning and growing in your relationship with your spouse or your children.  This podcast will benefit everyone who has grandparents, who is a grandparent, and those who are navigating relationships between their children and their parents.  This podcast is in response to the call of Pope Francis to celebrate the role of grandparents on the Sunday closest to the feast of St. Anne and Joachim, grandparents of Jesus, this year on July 24.