Messy Family Podcast : Catholic Conversations on Marriage and Family

“The point is that neuroses don’t have to ruin a marriage. If you can accommodate each other’s “crazy” side and handle it with caring, affection, and respect, your marriage can thrive.” ― John M. Gottman Many people are good at functioning in their marriage, getting along, caring for kids, paying the bills… but are they really thriving?  How can we get more out of the most important relationship we have - the one we have with our spouse? In this podcast, we look at the book, Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work by John Gottman, and explain how to use these ideas to make your marriage grow.  Though the expression of these ideas are new to us, the truth contained in them is not. We have found that we have done many of these things in our marriage over the years!  Listen in for some great relationship advice for anyone who wants to move from a marriage that is surviving to thriving.   Key Takeaways: Review 7 principles Couple Discussion: How can we Honor each other  Start a Gratitude challenge  When is our Daily connection and weekly date night Do the Family Board Meeting  

"Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love” - Jesus to St. Margaret Mary How can we love like Jesus?  What is His love like?  Answering these questions is the role of devotions in the Catholic world.  They help us learn more about God and how He relates to us.  The Sacred Heart of Jesus teaches us to love as God loves and this is a lesson that all families need to embrace fully.  In this podcast, we interview Emily Jaminet of the Sacred Heart Enthronement network and author of the new book Holy Habits of the Sacred Heart.  Our conversation explains how both of our families have been impacted by this devotion and how it has given us a way to proclaim Christ as King, and also to have a place to go as a safe refuge in times of trial.  As we pray to the Heart of Jesus, He can change our hearts to make us more like Himself!  When we learn about how He loves, we can imitate that love which is a path of holiness itself.  Learn more about this devotion, what the Nine First Fridays are, how Jesus blesses families with the 12 Promises of the Sacred Heart and why the Enthronement is a means of evangelization and transformation.   Key Takeaways: This devotion gives “spiritual stability”, focus, and a way to understand the love of Jesus in a concrete, defined way.  It prevents us from making Jesus into our own image, but instead reveals to us how He truly loves. Jesus wants a relationship of love with each one of us and He wants to transform our hearts to be like His.  A great way to reconcile with children or those with whom we have conflict is to say, “I am allowing Jesus to change my heart”. Forgiveness means that we are coming up against “cancel culture” which says that once someone does something wrong they are cut out of one’s life.  By following the Heart of Jesus we learn practice forgiveness in our home and communities. The devotion of Nine First Fridays and the Enthronement of the Sacred Heart in the home give families concrete ways to understand and come closer to the Heart of Jesus. Couple Discussion: How can we increase our devotion to the Sacred Heart?  Emily mentioned that giving up control and trusting in Jesus is a first step to being docile to Jesus.  What does that mean to us?  How can we practice forgiveness in our home?  Is there anyone in our lives that we need to forgive?  Reference Links:  https://welcomehisheart.com/ https://www.emilyjaminet.com  

We need to take a sacramental view of ordinary life - Mike and Alicia Hernon We often say that family culture is the secret weapon of Catholic families.  Why is this?  Because the culture within your home is more powerful than any written word.  It communicates expectations, beliefs, and values to everyone in the family.  In this podcast, we tackle some questions that listeners have sent into us about the culture within their homes. We answer questions like “what do I do about kids always fighting?”, “how do I take care of individual kids in a big family?”, “how do we handle birthdays?”, and “Help! I feel like I’m drowning!” (which isn’t exactly a question, but it is a common email we get!).  In all of these situations, the issue comes back again and again to the culture you are fostering within your home.  When you see all that you do in light of that, all the other issues will fall into place.  Listen in and learn about this powerful tool that every parent should develop.   Getaway: https://catholiccouplesgetaway.com/ Listener Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XW98NMH

Christ is present in a special way when a couple prays together.  They not only renew their yes to God, but also achieve a deeper union with each other, which springs solely from the union of hearts and couples in the sacrament of marriage. - Fr. Henri Caffarel How can couples move their marriage from surviving to thriving, or from good to great? By making couple prayer a normal part of our marriage. Christian marriage is a supernatural endeavor, so that means that it is really not possible to have a successful marriage without Jesus!  Prayer between spouses isn’t just something you do, it is a gift from the two of you to Christ Himself.  It is acknowledging that Christ is the “glue” that keeps you together.   In this podcast we talk about how to incorporate prayer into your marriage, why it is so important, and how prayer can help you forge a deeper unity than you have ever had before.  Much of this conversation is discussing the writings of Fr. Henri Caffarel, founder of Teams of Our Lady.  Getaway: https://catholiccouplesgetaway.com/ Listener Survey: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/XW98NMH

The indissolubility of marriage…should not be viewed as a ‘yoke’ imposed on humanity, but as a ‘gift’ granted to those who are joined in marriage…  God’s indulgent love always accompanies our human journey; through grace, it heals and transforms hardened hearts, leading them back to the beginning through the way of the cross. - Pope Francis The marriage sacrament is meant to heal and transform us into who God wants us to be!  But sometimes that journey is not what we would expect.  In this interview, David and Margaret Bereit share their story of marriage and David’s conversion - the two are completely intertwined!  Listen in as we talk about how they walked together in freedom though they were in different places, how they loved each other and their children in the midst of their different faiths, and how David came to join the Church and what that meant for them both.  There is some great advice in this interview for those in mixed marriages and for anyone who wants to know how to deeply love friends and family who are in a different place than yourself.   https://messyfamilyproject.org/course/family-board-meeting-live/ www.catholiccouplesgetaway.com 

Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. - Proverbs 31:30 Back by popular demand, this is another interview that we did with Michele Doman, Alicia’s mom and mother of 10 grown children, grandmother to over 55, and great grandmother to more than 7!  In the last interview, we talked about Michele’s life as a young wife and mother.  In this conversation, we talk more about being a parent of a large family and how she was able to do that successfully over the last 50+ years of marriage.  Listen in and get some wisdom on discipline, relationships with teens, and managing a large household.   You will hear that the struggles are real, but so are the joys and blessings of marriage and family life.  https://messyfamilyproject.org/course/family-board-meeting-live/ www.catholiccouplesgetaway.com   Watch here: https://youtu.be/Zd_I6cwvcRM 

Of course your children don’t get along. They don’t know how to get along! That’s kind of what you are doing as parents, teaching them what they don’t know - Mike and Alicia All of us struggle to live in a community.  That is the human condition - we need other people but we also find it hard to live with them!  This is true for children, but also for adults. In this episode, we answer some questions that our listeners had about what to do when your kids fight with your friends' kids, how to handle dividing up household responsibilities with your spouse, and what to do with adult children who are living at home.  It's hard for kids to learn, but  it’s also hard for parents to know how to teach in a way that can be received. Listen into this conversation and take some time to discuss these important topics with your spouse.  https://messyfamilyproject.org/course/family-board-meeting-live/ www.catholiccouplesgetaway.com  

“Healing is an essential dimension of Christinaity.  It expresses the entire content of our redemption.” ~ Pope Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth Some of us think of healing as being “for other people”, those with trauma, abuse, or mental illness.  But that is not the way that Dr. Bob Schuchts sees healing. As you will hear, he believes that healing is part of the story of every Christian because we all have been damaged by our own fallen nature and we all live in a broken world!   There is an anointing in our Church right now for healing ministries like this and we believe healing is essential for every parent so they can be who God is calling them to be in the lives of their children.  We have been personally blessed by Dr. Bob’s teaching and ministry through the John Paul II Healing Institute and we are very excited to share this interview with him. Listen in to this conversation about why we need healing, how to be healed, and the role that Christ wants to play in each of our journeys.   https://www.restoretheglorypodcast.com/ https://jpiihealingcenter.org/

"Christian brotherhood is not an ideal which we must realize; it is rather a reality created by God in Christ in which we may participate.” ― Dietrich Bonhoeffer God did not create man in isolation, He created man to live in community with others.  This is the best path for the full development of the human person!  Men need other men to push them, support them, love them, and let them know they have what it takes.  In this touching interview, Mike talks to John Doman, Alicia's dad, about his experience as a young Marine in Viet Nam and the events that set the course of his life.  They cover John’s marriage to Michele, his wife of 50 yrs, his struggle with PTSD after the war, and how the brothers God gave him throughout his life saved him again and again - physically and spiritually. Listen to this very important conversation about the importance of relationships and how God can use them to show us His love over and over again.     Family Board Meeting - LIVE! : messyfamilyproject.org/course/family-board-meeting-live/ Watch here: https://youtu.be/FIT6s7szDlU  

"This is a book about love; more exactly, it is about the love that knows no end, the love our hearts yearn for. The love that consumes, that reverberates, that heightens—it is a love that costs everything—yet offers everything. - Theresa and Peter Martin, The Rule When the young priest Fr. Karol Wojtyla was living in Poland, he wrote a “rule” for married couples, similar to the protocols that religious orders follow for their way of life. His suggestions were born out of his deep friendships with young married couples who he observed and who helped him see what married couples need to do to find true life within the married vocation. We heard about this book and were immediately intrigued, so we invited Theresa and Peter Martin to share with us more about their book, how it came to be, and about The Rule itself.  In this podcast, we talk about the challenges of married life and how the Church can help us live a life of grace, the role of children in this quest of holiness, and what a life of prayer looks like in the home.  Most importantly, we talk about community and how essential it is for families to support each other in their common life. Listen in and see how you can join in this movement of married couples living the Rule outlined by St. John Paul II.    https://www.wojtylaci.com/ Watch here: https://youtu.be/QT9SqsDCxR8