For the Grieving Heart The time following the loss of a baby is numbing and painful as you try to navigate all of the emotions that are flooding your entire being. The grieving process is complex and leaves you wondering when your heart will find healing again, when...
Marriage
How To Choose Love Over Lust In Your Marriage: 10 Ways To Love Your Wife
So how does one practically move from lusting after one’s wife to learning how to love her? Warning: this is not a simple list, but takes a lot of grace, humility, and effort. Buckle your seatbelts, gentlemen. 10 Ways To Love Your Wife (And Stop Lust) Dump the porn....
Why Love Your Wife? 10 Reasons To Choose Love Over Lust
Find the first part in this series on Loving Your Wife HERE. Before we can go into specifics about how to transition from lust to love with your wife, let’s examine why developing a look of love – with your eyes and your heart – is so important for your wife and your...
10 Things That Happen If You Look At Your Wife With Lust, Not Love
Gentlemen, have you ever had your wife completely turn down your advances, seem completely disinterested in your attempts to woo her, and instead be totally annoyed with you? If your answer is yes, then you’re meant to read this. Why might she be reacting in this...
What Your Kids Will Learn When You Prioritize Your Marriage
Growing up, I always thought I had a solid family unit. My parents were youth leaders in our small Methodist church and my Dad was a fireman/paramedic in our small town. We were just a normal and faithful family. This is why I was shocked when, as a 19-year-old young...
3 Things Men Can Learn From Mother Teresa’s Letter To Women
We need one another. As men, we need strong women. We need their support. Women need strong men and need their support as well. When it comes to being men and women, we desperately need to be and remain GROUNDED, to avoid getting caught up and carried away by...
It’s Time For Catholics To Get Real About Sex
Catholic Sexual Teaching - An Invitation to Reality Lust and Counterfeit Sexuality We live in a throw-away society. Fast food and plastic plates — our culture is full of the cheap and easy. Unfortunately, this mentality bleeds into our sexuality. America is obsessed...
How Is A Catholic Marriage With God At The Center Different?
Marriage is truly an adventure that requires careful packing. After saying "yes," you leave your childhood home, bid your farewells, say your see-you-laters (definitely not goodbyes), pack your entire life into a handful of suitcases, and embark on a new journey with...
The Spiritual Power Of Marriage Can Bring Hope To The World
I have the great blessing of having three adopted siblings. After having six biological children, my parents decided to adopt three more. They are incredibly generous people, and I think are perhaps strongly against the idea of spending any time at all in purgatory,...
Help! Is A Healthy Dating Relationship Even Possible Anymore?!
Dating is easy today, right? Hardly. It’s never been easy; but especially in a social media world—and after the pandemic, nothing can be taken for granted. This is literally uncharted territory. And yet, human nature remains fundamentally the same in so many...
4 Lessons I Learned In Seminary That Help Me In Marriage
Four years ago, my future seemed clear to me. I thought I’d spend my days living in small-town Minnesota and ministering to country parishes as their priest. I love my home state, and I love the people there very much, but God had other plans. After...
It’s Time For Catholics To Stop Believing These 5 Myths About Online Dating
Online dating has never been more popular. In fact, the trend suggests that online dating may become the norm rather than a supplemental tactic. A recent study showed 19% of internet users in the US said they were currently using an online dating app or...
What Your Kids Learn When You Prioritize Your Marriage
“Well, the children have always come first” is a remark that echoes in the offices of too many marriage therapists. Imagine if their wedding vows had been, “I, John, take you, Jane, to be my beloved wife. I promise to stand by idly, but with deep emotional pain...
Infertility And NFP: Still Called To The Joy Of Love
As you may know, many couples use fertility-awareness methods like Natural Family Planning (NFP) to try to become pregnant, but NFP can also help couples carrying the cross of infertility. Learning about the body’s signs and signals of fertility can often reveal...
The NFP Advice You’ve Never Heard Before That’s Inspired By St. Teresa of Avila
Natural Family Planning (NFP) is a beautiful and effective way for married couples to remain open to life while also following Church teaching against contraception. For many couples, NFP can be a way for them to grow closer to each other and as a couple grow closer...
A Guide To Virtual Natural Family Planning Instructors
Need some help learning or relearning Natural Family Planning (NFP), Fertility Awareness Method (FAM), the Marquette Method, Boston Cross Check™, or the Billings Ovulation Method®? Here is a list of providers that offer virtual courses so that you can learn these...
4 Ideas For Lent Date Nights
Truly, Lent is a time to be solemn and focused on our Lord in his journey to the Cross. But as a couple, it still remains important to be united with our beloved through time together and conversation. A Lent themed date night could be a perfect combination of these...
What Does It Mean To Have A Crucifixion Type Of Love For Your Wife?
This beautiful spoken-word piece titled “A Crucifixion Type Love” was written and performed by Brent Rice and, although (disclaimer) we don't know much about Mr. Rice and his personal religious beliefs, there is no doubt that his poetry is stunning, passionate, and a...
NFP And The Deconstruction Of Love
One of the best things about the Catholic Church (which of course, there are many, many things) is the communion of saints. The wisdom and holiness of the men and women who have gone before us can guide us toward the light that is Christ. There are few areas of our...
3 Reasons We All Need Our Own NFP Tribe & How To Find Yours
Living the natural family planning lifestyle can sometimes feel like a solo hike up a steep mountain. We start off excited, convicted (by the science and Church teaching), and as prepared as we can be for this beautiful endeavor. A few miles in, we are facing an...
3 Pitfalls To Avoid While Practicing Natural Family Planning
Natural family planning has the potential to bring out either our best or our worst traits as people and as spouses. There’s nothing quite like sacrificing our own physical desires (think along the lines of dieting or...
5 Ways To Nurture Your Marriage In A Season Of Infertility
It is estimated that 1 in 6 couples struggle to get pregnant. Infertility is often a hidden suffering, and is even considered a “normal,” albeit temporary, difficulty encountered in some marriages, but easily fixed if the couple...
Five Things Children Of Divorce Want The Church To Know
Every year over a million children experience the divorce of their parents, and at least one-quarter of all young adults are children of divorce. And those numbers grow when you include people whose parents never married but later split up, or those whose parents...
If This Is What Marriage Implies, Is It Really Worth It? The Strange Things That All Couples Fight Over
oday's video could be useful for illustrating the daily quarrels that we can all relate to. Although I myself am not married and am on my way towards the priesthood, more than once I have witnessed –with a bit of awe to be honest–the surprising...
The Sweet And Sour Of NFP (Natural Family Planning)
It doesn’t take long when first discovering the world of natural family planning to realize that most couples have a love/hate relationship with NFP. The reasons to love it are obvious and the reasons to hate it are obvious. It is a strange mix of sweet...