Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

“It is in the family that young people have their first experience of Gospel values and of the love which gives itself to God and to others.” ~ St. John Paul the Great As Catholic families, we want our children to be open to the call to the priesthood or religious life, but how do we do that in a practical way? Where does this call come from? How can we support our children in responding to that call? Ultimately, the answer comes down to teaching our children to love and know Jesus, because the path ahead of them can only be walked with His help. In this podcast, Father Joe Doman, Alicia’s younger brother, shares his vocation story and insights into how the laity can foster vocations. We also discuss how to support the priests who care for us in our parishes.

“Wine is a constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” ~Ben Franklin God could have made food boring, dull, and simply to sustain us. But He didn’t. He made food good! Added with human creativity and work, food becomes a sign of love to our families. Parents work to buy food, prepare food, and serve food to nourish their children. It’s amazing how much work goes into just feeding people! In this podcast, we talk about feeding babies, the kind of food we give our kids, our perspective on organic and non-GMO foods, and why we think it's important to consider the philosophy of food that you are passing on to your kids. Additional Resources: Plating Grace (Fr. Leo is awesome!) The Catholic Table (great book and blog!) Once-a-Month Cooking (Cook book)

“More than ever necessary in our times is preparation of young people for marriage and family life.” – St. John Paul II, Familiaris Consortio Preparing for a wedding can be a whirl of appointments, deposits, planning, decision-making, “Pintresting,” and, sometimes, drama. But the wedding is just a day: marriage is a lifetime. Preparing for marriage is a very serious and important task for any couple. Marriage is naturally fraught with difficulties, and that's especially true in our culture, today. There is little support for faithful marriage, and many of us come from families who have given us poor examples of what a healthy marriage should look like. In this podcast, we list some topics that couples really need to discuss as well as some of our own insights on how to renew the sacrament of marriage in our Church. Show Notes: some resources we mentioned Catholic Bishops on Marriage Fr. John Riccardo: a Biblical Vision for Marriage Pt 1(iTunes) Video series: Beloved

“The future of evangelization depends in great part on the Church of the home [the family].” - St. John Paul II The deepest desire for many of us as parents is to pass on the faith to our children. According to many statistics, upwards of two-thirds of young people are leaving the faith. So it's obvious that most parents are facing an uphill battle in this area and must intentionally evangelize their children. What is the secret formula for success? What does it look like to be an evangelizing parent? In this podcast, we share the top five ways to evangelize your kids. Gain some insight, spark a conversation, and go deeper in the work of evangelization. Listen in and share your ideas.

“Once you’re a parent, your relationship matters more, not less, because now other people are counting on you.” ~ TheDatingDivas.com Marriage is under attack, but many times the attack is not direct and aggressive. Instead, it is slow and subtle – couples simply drift apart. How do we keep this from happening in our marriages? In this podcast, we share five ways to keep your love alive in your relationship. Each of us must continue to pursue and discover our spouse, no matter how long we have been married or how well we think we know each other. During this episode, we also share how our listeners can help us spread this ministry of Messy Parenting. Listen in! Consider sponsoring the podcast

There are few tasks in parenting that can be as challenging or as rewarding as disciplining sons and daughters who are moving from childhood to adulthood, otherwise known as teenagers. This is an important time of transition for both them and their parents. Old ways of communicating and protecting them will not be as effective as they were. Some families breeze through this time, while it takes a heavy toll on others. In this podcast, we would like to give some foundational principles that we have found very helpful in discipling, not just disciplining, children who are going through this amazing and critical transformation in their lives. This podcast had so much information in it that we decided to break it up into two parts. This is the second part.

"Don't throw away your friendship with your teenager over behavior that has no great moral significance. There will be plenty of real issues that require you to stand like a rock. Save your big guns for those crucial confrontations." ~Dr. James Dobson There are few tasks in parenting that can be as challenging or rewarding as disciplining sons and daughters who are moving from childhood to adulthood, otherwise known as teenagers. This is an important time of transition for them, and it is a time of transition for parents as well. Old ways of communicating and protecting them will not be as effective as they were. Some families breeze through this time, while it takes a heavy toll on others. In this podcast, we would like to give some foundational principles that we have found very helpful in discipling, not just disciplining, children who are going through this amazing and critical transformation in their lives. This podcast had so much information in it, that we decided to break it up into two parts. The second part will be out next week.

“Father Mike Scanlan was a priest of the New Evangelization before there was a New Evangelization.” ~ George Weigel Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, who died on January 7, 2017, the week before this podcast, impacted many lives with the saving message of Jesus Christ. He was a friar, priest, preacher, teacher, healer, and university president, but to us, he was a spiritual father. In this podcast, we take some time to reflect on the lessons that we have learned from this man that we would like to share and continue to make real in our lives. We know you will benefit from hearing about this great man because he taught us both how to love Jesus in a deep, real, intimate way. We hope we can honor his legacy by continuing to proclaim the Gospel in the best way we know how -- by sharing these stories with you. The debt we owe him is beyond all measure. Thank You, Jesus, for this gift, this privilege, this humble friar who has changed our lives for all eternity.

“Human beings look separate because you see them walking about separately. But then we are so made that we can see only the present moment. If we could see the past, then of course it would look different. For there was a time when every man was part of his mother, and (earlier still) part of his father as well, and when they were part of his grandparents. If you could see humanity spread out in time, as God sees it, it would look like one single growing thing--rather like a very complicated tree. Every individual would appear connected with every other.” ― C.S. Lewis We all come from somewhere. We are part of the human family, but also we are part of a particular family with a history. So many of us, especially Americans, have lost the appreciation for our family tree that we should have. It’s important that we know where we come from, so we can pass that on to our children and to future generations. In this podcast, we talk not only about the importance of knowing our ancestry, but also about maintaining connections with extended family and teaching our children their family history through videos, keepsakes, and photos. All of these things are important in keeping us grounded in our place in history. Show Notes: Catholic tangent: I Ain’t Afraid of No Ghosts!

“In children, we have a great charge committed to us. Let us bestow great care upon them…Form the soul of thy son aright, and all the rest will be added hereafter.” —St. John Chrysostom We are so grateful for all the people who have emailed us encouraging words and stories of how these podcasts have touched their lives. We are MOST grateful for those people who email us questions because we can use them as topics for our podcasts! Thank you for trusting us enough to ask for our help. In this episode, we take some time to answer questions and give encouragement to those who have asked us about issues like teaching gratefulness, getting kids to sleep, and tithing. Keep those questions coming!