Latest / The Catholic Current / Better Marriage Preparation (Christian Meert) 6/9/26

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Better Marriage Preparation (Christian Meert) 6/9/26 · The Catholic Current

• 0:00
  This is The Catholic Current with Father Robert McTague.
• 0:05
  I've told couples, too, who are not living together but are also not chaste, I've said,
• 0:09
  what you're saying to your future spouse is, look at me, I can't be trusted.
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  Look at me, I'm willing to defy Christ.
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  Now pledge yourself to me, body and soul.
• 0:21
  That's drilling holes in the bottom of the boat before it launches, isn't it?
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  Yes, it is.
• 0:27
  You know, the only secure way of being close to God is by avoiding sin and living virtue.
• 0:32
  Praised be Jesus Christ, this is Father Robert McTague of The Society of Jesus, your daily
• 0:38
  host for The Catholic Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
• 0:42
  You're listening to us from the station of The Cross Studios, your local radio station,
• 0:46
  the iCatholic Radio mobile app, and we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity
• 0:51
  as always.
• 0:52
  Let's start with prayer.
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  In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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  Holy God, through the intercession of Saint Ignatius Sola, we ask that you pour forth
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  your Holy Spirit upon us, a spirit of discernment, that we might hear your voice and obey your
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  command.
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  In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.
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  Amen.
• 1:08
  Well, friends, April 15th in the United States, we dread that date because it's tax day when
• 1:13
  you've got to pay your taxes to the federal government, but April 15th for me has another
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  meaning.
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  It's my parents' wedding anniversary.
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  They've since gone to God.
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  They were married 53 years, but they were married 75 years ago in April of 1951, having
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  met on a blind date two years before.
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  Suffice to say, the world has changed a lot since then, and what we understand about marriage
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  and marriage preparation and the fact that the institution of marriage is in a crisis,
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  we're facing things that my parents would never have dreamed of, and happily, there
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  is support available.
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  There's good help available.
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  There is a program called Agape Catholic Ministries that does a lot of work in marriage preparation
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  and can also help you work through the mysterious maze of convalidation as well, and we have
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  the co-founder here today, Christian Myrt.
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  Welcome to The Catholic Current.
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  Oh, thank you so much.
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  I'm so happy to be here with you, and yes, marriage is important in our lives, that's
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  for sure.
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  Yes, indeed.
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  So Christian, when my parents, their marriage preparation in 1951 ran along these lines,
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  my father told me.
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  They both met with the priest, and they're like, you're both Catholic, right?
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  Yes.
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  Neither of you are married, right?
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  Yes.
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  Okay, pick a date.
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  And I guess it was assumed that the ambient culture that they grew up in, a Catholic culture
• 2:45
  in ethnic Irish and Italian ghettos in cities in Northeastern United States, that was enough
• 2:52
  to carry forward.
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  Whether that was or not enough is an open question, but it seems to me that it's certainly
• 2:58
  not enough now.
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  There's a startling number of marriages that end in divorce, an alarming number where annulments
• 3:09
  are involved.
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  That suggests to me that we haven't been doing a great job in preparing people for
• 3:19
  marriage.
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  What are your thoughts on that?
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  Oh, I fully agree with this, I'm sorry.
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  It's true that over the past 50 years, or let's say 60, 70 years, things have changed
• 3:31
  so much in society, okay, that if we talk about numbers, it's a little crazy.
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  For example, the number of children born from single moms went from 8% in the 1960s to 40%
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  in 2020.
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  The number of children living with a single parent family went from 9% in 1960, again,
• 3:59
  to 40% last year.
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  But I have to say something.
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  Marriage rates have declined significantly.
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  In general, 30% for the U.S. in the Catholic Church is 70% in the number of marriages from
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  1970 to 2024, 75% drop.
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  But if marriage prep rates have declined significantly, we are also seeing now, now today, many couples
• 4:32
  rediscover the beauty of sacramental marriage.
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  Yes, we know it in many families, but many couples are returning to the church for their
• 4:42
  children through marriage.
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  We can see the raise, the increase of number of people who are welcoming to the church
• 4:52
  at Easter this year, last year.
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  So yes, the culture sends a confusing message about commitment.
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  You mentioned it, you know, hey, I sleep with you, but you can trust me anyway, okay, we're
• 5:07
  going to make a, you know, a long term life together because I'm, I'm a trustful guy.
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  Okay.
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  Now, you know, we meet today, meet couples who really desire lifelong faithful marriages.
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  They have seen what's happening around the world, number of marriages, everybody's shouting
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  about 50% of marriages are ending in divorce.
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  Well, not in the Catholic Church.
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  Those numbers are not true.
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  Okay.
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  So people, they really want something that is solid.
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  What we see, really, if you think about it, you know, the hippie revolution, for example.
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  Well, it started a long time before that.
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  The hippie revolution, if we can say that, is just an exacerbation of the sex culture.
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  Sorry, I'm French.
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  The freedom to do whatever you want, no string attached, no consequences, no sin.
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  Oh, come on.
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  Don't talk about sin.
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  It doesn't exist.
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  The media, the internet, the porn culture, entertainment, society, all this.
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  But if you think of any one of these things, okay, that I just mentioned, is just an abyss
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  of immorality that has been sponsored by society, government, the media, too, of course.
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  And if we can just look at this, it's a true persecution.
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  It's a war against God.
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  When you see, you know, marriages with easy divorce, children with free abortion, Planned
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  Parenthood subsidized by the government, and so much more.
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  We see the rainbow flag.
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  Every time we see something that doesn't make sense and mimic something that is highly spiritual,
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  it's okay.
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  It's a war against God.
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  That's all.
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  They want to destroy God.
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  That's okay.
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  That was what I wanted to say.
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  Yes, well, you know, Our Lady of Fatima told Sister Lucia that the final great battle would
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  be for marriage and for family.
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  I mean, marriage is vital, first of all, in the natural order, because that's where families
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  are made, and that's where people raised well are.
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  And certainly the data are incontrovertible that one of the best predictors of social
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  malady is children growing up without fathers in the home.
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  And then likewise, marriage is an icon of Christ's relationship to the church, and of
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  course the enemy wants to break that relationship as well.
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  So from the devil's point of view, marriage is the prime target.
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  We've got about three minutes left in this segment.
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  Is it fair to say that we live in a culture that undermines and even mocks lifelong commitment?
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  Is that fair to say?
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  Yes, it is.
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  It is.
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  Everything has to be spontaneous.
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  It has to happen right now.
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  I click on the button, I have everything right now at the touch of the button.
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  So everything changes, you know, everything, the culture, the technology, everything.
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  But you know, just one quick, I hope I can say that.
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  In the early 20s, no, 2000, in the early 2000s, we had in our marriage prep classes, we have
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  couples were telling us that, oh, we were going, yeah, we are going to mass, but only
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  with my grandparents, with my grandma, yes, she drives us to catechisms, or she drove
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  us to catechisms classes, we prayed with them.
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  But today, a lot of the grandparents are already divorced.
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  They don't talk about God, prayer, they don't go to mass, they are not going to, you know,
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  how many times did we hear that, oh, we don't want to impose our religion to our children.
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  They will choose when they grow up and so on, choose what, from what, there is no transmission.
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  That is certainly true, and you know, it seems to be so broad-minded and sagacious to say,
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  well, you know, when they were adults, they'll choose, etc.
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  We don't raise children with attitudes to nutrition that way.
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  We don't say that we're going to let the kid eat, you know, margarine and sugar, and then
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  when he's 18, make wise decisions for himself.
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  We seem to abdicate responsibility, and then have this fantasy that, you know, if we have
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  the kids marginally sacramentalized, and then we send them to a vaguely Catholic school
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  system, then all of a sudden, they're going to get great Catholic spouses, and have Catholic
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  families, and produce Catholic grandchildren.
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  And along the way, somehow miraculously, they're going to be religious and priestly vocations
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  as well.
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  And that's simply not true.
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  So I think in a sickening culture, marriage has been abused by a form of neglect and wishful
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  thinking, and I think that illusion has to end, and we have to come to terms with the
• 10:52
  fact that marriage needs help.
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  And one of the things that I find inspiring is, I think your work in Agape Catholic Ministries
• 11:00
  might be the help that we need.
• 11:03
  I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your daily host for The Catholic Current.
• 11:06
  Remember, our rallying cry here at The Catholic Current is Christus Mundo Mundus Christo,
• 11:11
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• 12:22
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• 12:25
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• 12:57
  We're talking about better marriage preparation.
• 12:59
  My guest today is Christian Myrt.
• 13:01
  He's co-founder of Agape Catholic Ministries.
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  Christian, we can agree that marriage in the United States is in trouble, that of the Catholics
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  who are getting married, they're not necessarily pursuing sacramental marriage, which makes
• 13:18
  for difficulties and conflicts later on.
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  What's your priorities in terms of marriage preparation, marriage maintenance?
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  What are we getting right, what are we getting wrong, where do we need to do better?
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  Wow, that's the story of my life, you know.
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  We have been in marriage prep for Christine, my wife, myself, since we arrived in Denver
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  in 1999, and Archbishop Chaput, you know, invited us to come, and he told, he asked
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  us to do several things, and he said, one, why don't you do something for families?
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  And since we were kind of familiar with theology of the body, we say, well, marriage prep,
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  because it's all there, I mean, the template is there, and he said, yeah, you do marriage
• 14:13
  prep.
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  And so we started like this, and we realized what the people were lacking is formation,
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  I mean, religious formation.
• 14:24
  Yeah, they were kind of wandering around, and they got little pieces here, bits there,
• 14:33
  but the parents, like I mentioned, they are, you know, most of, not most of them, but some
• 14:38
  of them are divorced, or growing up, these young people coming to marriage, we have seen
• 14:46
  around them so many divorces, cheating, unhappy couples, so it was kind of, what do they have?
• 14:58
  And then we heard also that they don't know much about their religious background.
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  You know, I always tell the priests, I say, well, you want to know where your parishioners
• 15:11
  are, ask them when you see the whole father during mass, and boy, you will have different
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  answers.
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  It's not going to be there.
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  And marriage, marriage as a vocation, a what?
• 15:27
  Vocation to what?
• 15:28
  Yes.
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  And, well, and it's true, but in the last, you know, years, not recently, but marriage
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  was, like you said about your parents, you love each other, yes.
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  Are you Catholic?
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  Yes.
• 15:48
  Are you happy?
• 15:49
  Yes.
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  Do you want to get married?
• 15:51
  Yes.
• 15:52
  Okay.
• 15:53
  Good.
• 15:54
  That's a good deal.
• 15:55
  I remember my own experience was, I was, I'll try to be short, I was living in Columbus,
• 16:05
  Nebraska for just a year after my study, I got a job there, that was funny, because coming
• 16:11
  from France to Columbus, Nebraska was an experience.
• 16:14
  My wife was in Burgundy, and we exchanged, I mean, communication were not as easy as
• 16:21
  they are now.
• 16:22
  We exchanged letters, you know, a few letters about, you know, choosing the reading and
• 16:28
  everything.
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  Yes.
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  And then we got married, well, we got married during a business trip, sorry.
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  I came back from the States, I picked up my uncle, who was a Franciscan priest from, he
• 16:44
  was sick, and he was just getting out of hospital in Paris, I moved down to Burgundy, then we
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  got married.
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  We had a half hour with my uncle before the wedding, talking about the readings, things
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  like this, we have prepared a few things by ourselves.
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  There was no real preparation.
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  And then we see, we see people, they go to a one day class, come on, you know, we start
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  at nine or 10, by pizza time, which is what we are going to get for lunch, by pizza time,
• 17:21
  they are fried, because we bombarded with millions of information that they have never
• 17:29
  heard about.
• 17:30
  Right.
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  How do you want them to discuss each point?
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  Yes.
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  And then we have two hours or three hours, or then now, because it's modern, we bombard
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  them with videos.
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  Yes.
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  Give them time to talk, they are the ones getting married, we are not just the master
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  of marriage.
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  Right.
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  We have to form them, we have to accompany, this is a big word now, but this is what we
• 17:56
  do.
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  What we do is not just a marriage prep information, we are looking for transformation.
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  I think that is so important, you know, I've written about education, and I said we think
• 18:11
  of education primarily as the transfer of information, and that's true, that's a part
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  of it.
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  There is also formation, taking the good potential and actualizing it, making it real.
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  And there is also transformation, taking what has been distorted and then correcting
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  it.
• 18:34
  And in my experience, talking to a lot of priests and a lot of couples and so on, there
• 18:41
  may be really excellent diocesan marriage preparation programs out there, and if the
• 18:46
  listeners know of them, please let us know, but the vast majority of the ones that I've
• 18:52
  encountered were at best disastrous.
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  I would have couples call me in tears and say, can we spend a week with you?
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  Because our diocesan marriage preparation, you wouldn't even think that these people
• 19:05
  believed in God, much less that they were Christians.
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  They said, you know, we had one permanent deacon announce at marriage preparation that
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  the purpose of marriage is to have as much great sex as possible, and congratulations
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  on being Catholic.
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  And that was pretty much the sum total of their marriage preparation.
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  Is it fair to say that maybe we need to undertake an examination of conscience, that we've basically
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  outsourced marriage preparation to people who have been systemically unaccountable and
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  unguided?
• 19:42
  Is that a fair assessment?
• 19:43
  It's a tough one, but it's a fair assessment, yes, you're right.
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  But you know, we started the first class, the first class we did in Denver was just
• 19:55
  this.
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  We know things you don't know, I will tell you what you should know.
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  And then we had some great encounter with a teacher of teachers, and he told us, no,
• 20:08
  no, no, because I told him, I said, look, teaching must be a vocation, and I don't have
• 20:12
  it.
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  I don't want to go and tell people again and again and again and again.
• 20:17
  Yeah, at the end, I believe that, but people don't even think about what we are saying
• 20:22
  or believe in what we are saying.
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  So he introduced us to the Socratic method.
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  I call it also, well, people in seminaries and all, they know what it is, but I call
• 20:38
  it the Jesus method.
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  When Jesus asked his disciples, who do people say that I am?
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  Oh, you're this, you're that, you're a prophet, you're St. John the Baptist, you know, resurrected,
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  you're Elijah, you're whatever.
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  And then he asked the real question, who do you say that I am?
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  And that's when Peter said, you know, you're the Son of God.
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  So what we are doing, we accompany the people, the couples, and we give them questions.
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  And they have to think, and the online is, I would go back to the online later on.
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  And they have to think, discuss and everything, and write down their answers.
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  If you say, okay, what is, who is God for you?
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  Tell me.
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  Oh, that's an easy one.
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  God is good.
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  Yeah, he's good.
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  He's good.
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  Well, then they have to write it, and then they have to talk about it between them, the
• 21:40
  couples, okay, between them, without anybody around.
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  That's the beauty of the online, the way we do it, okay?
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  Then they have to write down their answers, and if they write something stupid, well,
• 21:57
  it's hard to get it back, you know, it's written, so you have to scratch it and start again.
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  And then, you know, they will see the answer of each other and say, hey, you're sure about
• 22:10
  that?
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  Did you see what you wrote here?
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  Huh?
• 22:13
  Let's talk about it.
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  I believe that a good educational process stimulates a lot of conversation, and a lot
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  of camaraderie, so that you're learning together, and then the couples present themselves as
• 22:31
  allies as well.
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  We've got about two and a half minutes left in this segment.
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  Do you ever get any opposition?
• 22:37
  Has anyone ever said, why do we have to go through this?
• 22:40
  Can't we just get married?
• 22:41
  Well, no, not really, because the people are coming.
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  They are coming.
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  You know, they are sent by their priest.
• 22:49
  I can give you a short story, promise, kind of.
• 22:53
  It's a couple.
• 22:54
  They have been married civilly 40 years, and they wanted to make a family reunion, and
• 23:02
  maybe they were parishioners.
• 23:03
  I have no idea about this, but they wanted to do a, you know, family reunion.
• 23:09
  And then certainly the lady, certainly not the guy, but the lady said, oh, why don't
• 23:16
  we go all together to the church?
• 23:18
  We asked the pastor to give us a blessing.
• 23:21
  Okay.
• 23:22
  So they went to see the pastor, and the pastor did an incredibly good job, because he told
• 23:28
  them, he said, look, this is what's happening.
• 23:30
  It's not a blessing.
• 23:31
  What you should do is that a sacramental marriage, we have been married 40 years.
• 23:36
  You know, I wasn't there, but I know the priest, and he did a really great job.
• 23:42
  And he told them, well, so the first step now is for you to take the marriage prep.
• 23:47
  Oh, the guy said, I can teach marriage prep.
• 23:50
  I've been married 40 years.
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  And oh, and by the way, you do it online, okay?
• 23:58
  So they were not very excited about doing it.
• 24:01
  And we were, Christine and I, you know, we accompanied this couple.
• 24:06
  And the first answer questions, you know, kind of grumbling a little bit at what we
• 24:12
  heard in looking at what they wrote.
• 24:18
  But at the end, they said, please tell us where can we keep having this conversation?
• 24:26
  After 40 years, they have been talking about so many different things that they have never
• 24:31
  talked about.
• 24:32
  They had not invited God into their marriage.
• 24:35
  When they discovered what it means to invite God into their marriage, they were excited.
• 24:44
  They were hungry.
• 24:45
  They wanted more.
• 24:46
  Well, because most people didn't know that that was a possibility.
• 24:51
  They didn't know that God had certain opinions about marriage, or that God has a role in
• 24:55
  marriage.
• 24:56
  And they think that marriage is just a private lifestyle choice.
• 24:58
  So in the next segment, we'll have a talk about what your particular work does to support
• 25:03
  marriage.
• 25:04
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• 26:24
  Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
• 26:28
  You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross studios, your local radio station,
• 26:32
  the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
• 26:37
  Hey friends, if you're buying or selling a home, there's an easy way to help the Station
• 26:40
  of the Cross at the same time.
• 26:43
  Real Estate for Life has 1,400 experienced morally grounded agents in the U.S. and Canada.
• 26:49
  Visit realestateforlife.org to find a Christ-centered experienced realtor near you.
• 26:54
  And don't forget to mention the Station of the Cross.
• 26:57
  We're talking about building better marriages.
• 26:59
  My guest today is Christian Myrt, co-founder of Agape Catholic Ministries.
• 27:04
  Christian, we agree marriage is a sacrament.
• 27:08
  It's an indispensable natural and supernatural good.
• 27:12
  Preparation historically has been poor, certainly in my lifetime and yours.
• 27:18
  We can do better.
• 27:20
  Where does your group fit in?
• 27:22
  Because we're going to put a link to Agape Catholic Ministries and our show notes here.
• 27:27
  What are they going to find?
• 27:28
  It says flexible Catholic resources for thriving Catholic marriages.
• 27:33
  What does that mean?
• 27:35
  Well, what we discovered, the change in our lives and of many thousands of couples is
• 27:43
  how the pedagogy, how we teach that.
• 27:48
  And the secret, we didn't look for it, it happened, is the online.
• 27:54
  But not any kind of online, an online system where it's not a Zoom, like we're talking
• 28:02
  with people and everything.
• 28:04
  It's not like, you know, the English couples have to pretend that they know everything
• 28:08
  or anything.
• 28:09
  No, it's done just like a correspondence class, but online.
• 28:15
  With mentor couples that are trained, supervised, paid, and everything.
• 28:24
  And it's one-on-one.
• 28:26
  It's not like in a class setting where you have plenty of people and you're afraid to
• 28:30
  say, oh, my mom was so difficult, she has a very, very angry.
• 28:37
  No, it's something that they can, we give them questions, they work on those questions,
• 28:45
  they discuss.
• 28:47
  Sometimes people, we tell them, we give them an idea, you know, we have nine sessions and
• 28:52
  it takes about three to four hours per session, something like this.
• 28:57
  And sometimes the people, they come back and say, well, you said only three or four hours.
• 29:02
  We spent a whole week.
• 29:04
  We had our date night every night to talk about all this.
• 29:09
  Oh, okay.
• 29:10
  But we had the time to talk.
• 29:14
  We just accompany them.
• 29:16
  We direct their conversation.
• 29:18
  We don't judge them.
• 29:20
  Nothing.
• 29:21
  Whatever they say, we say, oh, okay, that's what you think.
• 29:24
  Let me tell you about the teaching of the church on this or that, okay?
• 29:29
  For example, and so we have no constraint about having people around.
• 29:35
  We don't have, like I said, to pretend that they are so good, so nice and everything.
• 29:41
  We are not going to see their, to meet their instructor couples at church.
• 29:46
  Right.
• 29:47
  We don't have to.
• 29:48
  They have to be who they are, just who they are.
• 29:52
  They don't have to do anything special.
• 29:54
  They are who they are.
• 29:56
  And because they are the one getting married, they are the one.
• 30:00
  Everything in the marriage prep has to be for this couple, for their own good.
• 30:04
  So we give them the questions, the answer, and we tell them, hey, you say that.
• 30:10
  That's your opinion.
• 30:12
  Let's go further.
• 30:14
  What if, what do you think when the church, when we say that God is love, what is your
• 30:23
  answer of that?
• 30:24
  What God is for you?
• 30:26
  What freedom means to you?
• 30:28
  What love is for you?
• 30:30
  Let's talk about it.
• 30:32
  Talk about it, you know, between you, like when we take the consent one by one, you know,
• 30:41
  have you come here freely and without reservation?
• 30:45
  What freedom means to you?
• 30:47
  Right.
• 30:47
  Is it something, you know, a reservation?
• 30:50
  What could be a reservation in your opinion?
• 30:53
  And they can say whatever they want to say.
• 30:56
  It's their own opinion, and we don't judge that.
• 31:00
  Let me interject just for a moment about reservations.
• 31:03
  I've had engaged couples ask me if it's okay to have a prenuptial agreement that, you know,
• 31:11
  should we divorce?
• 31:12
  I will have my assets and you will have yours, etc.
• 31:17
  Almost as if they're planning an escape hatch.
• 31:21
  That's an impediment, isn't it?
• 31:23
  That kind of reservation.
• 31:25
  That's forbidden completely.
• 31:27
  If you keep the door open, you know, it's just like the guy coming in and say, well,
• 31:33
  I still have my girlfriend, you know, the old one, but I want to marry you.
• 31:37
  But, you know, she's really such a nice girl.
• 31:40
  No, come on.
• 31:42
  And I'm sorry, I always think the guys are being the bad guys.
• 31:48
  Well, you know, I remember one of my religious superiors said, you know, the difference between
• 31:53
  being involved and being committed is the difference between bacon and eggs.
• 31:57
  You know, the chicken is involved, the pig is committed.
• 32:00
  Marriage is commitment.
• 32:02
  It's all the way or it's not at all.
• 32:07
  And sadly, many young people, they've not had very many good role models and commitment,
• 32:13
  have they?
• 32:14
  Yes, that's for sure.
• 32:15
  That's for sure.
• 32:17
  That's for sure.
• 32:18
  And that's why, you know, we see a change in things, let's say, OK?
• 32:26
  And one of these examples is the number of convalidation.
• 32:30
  What convalidation?
• 32:32
  OK, so what is convalidation?
• 32:34
  Well, it's, you know, exchange of the content.
• 32:38
  It's a sacrament.
• 32:39
  They receive a sacrament, not a blessing or whatever.
• 32:42
  And we have seen, for us, we have 20 to 25 percent of our couples are in convalidation.
• 32:51
  So just to clarify for the listeners, suppose somebody got married only civilly or someone
• 33:01
  got married to a non-Catholic and didn't have a proper dispensation.
• 33:07
  That has to be corrected so that the natural marriage they contracted would become a sacramental
• 33:16
  marriage in the eyes of church and God.
• 33:18
  Is that a fair summary of convalidation?
• 33:21
  Yes.
• 33:21
  Yes, yes, exactly.
• 33:23
  Exactly.
• 33:23
  OK, so you said there's a lot of the couples you work with are seeking convalidation.
• 33:30
  That would suggest there's a lot of Catholics getting married not knowing that one of the
• 33:35
  precepts of the church is respecting the form of marriage.
• 33:40
  Doesn't that indicate a catastrophic failure in catechesis beforehand?
• 33:45
  Unfortunately, yes.
• 33:46
  I will tell you another story.
• 33:48
  I love stories.
• 33:51
  I'm an old guy.
• 33:51
  I have plenty of stories.
• 33:53
  Yes.
• 33:53
  But one day a pastor asked me to give a little talk about marriage after the school mass.
• 34:03
  So that means, you know, the school attached to the parish.
• 34:07
  And so, OK, mass is OK.
• 34:12
  At the end of the mass, all the children go to school.
• 34:15
  And then some of the adults, mainly moms, they stay there.
• 34:21
  And I just give a very, very brief description of what marriage is, sacrament, vocation to
• 34:27
  marriage, blah, blah, things like this.
• 34:29
  And that was it.
• 34:31
  OK?
• 34:32
  And then three or four of these moms, they come to me and they ask me the question.
• 34:38
  Does that mean I'm not really married because I'm just civilly married?
• 34:45
  And then we had to talk.
• 34:46
  Right.
• 34:47
  So that means they have their kids going to the Catholic school.
• 34:52
  They are coming to mass.
• 34:54
  I mean, they live kind of a Catholic life, but they don't know that they are not in a
• 35:01
  regular situation.
• 35:03
  Right.
• 35:04
  That does happen very often.
• 35:06
  Yeah.
• 35:07
  So when I see the number of convalidation, we talk to different pastors, parish leaders,
• 35:17
  and everything.
• 35:18
  In some parishes, they have 40 to 45 percent of their marriages are convalidation.
• 35:25
  These pastors.
• 35:25
  Oh, my goodness.
• 35:26
  And the Hispanic community, up to 85 percent.
• 35:30
  So I cannot verify these numbers.
• 35:33
  I don't think there is a log with all the convalidation, which is too bad, but it's
• 35:39
  nothing to add to our plate.
• 35:42
  The thing they have in common is that they want it.
• 35:48
  It's a decision.
• 35:50
  It's a decision.
• 35:51
  It's not like they are looking for something big, something deeper than what they had.
• 35:57
  So their yes to the sacrament is deeply intentional, heartfelt.
• 36:04
  They are looking for something more than what they have been having.
• 36:08
  They could say, well, we have been married, you know, so many.
• 36:11
  We have built a good marriage together.
• 36:13
  We love each other.
• 36:15
  But now we want God to be at the center of it.
• 36:18
  And this is a great, I think it's a very, it's a big sign of hope.
• 36:24
  Yes.
• 36:24
  But of course, if they go to watching videos or if they have to talk to a couple from the
• 36:32
  parish and present themselves, and they know they are going to see them again next week
• 36:39
  and again not the following week.
• 36:41
  They want to, are we going to be completely honest?
• 36:46
  Maybe not.
• 36:48
  By accident, we found this online one-on-one has an incredible answer to these questions
• 36:58
  for the pedagogy of it, for the freedom for the couple to be who they are and not pretend
• 37:05
  anything.
• 37:06
  It's true.
• 37:07
  As a priest, I'm sure you saw it, a lot of couples, if you are not practicing or just,
• 37:14
  you know, kind of far from the church, they come to you just like to the principal's office.
• 37:20
  Right.
• 37:22
  They feel guilty.
• 37:23
  They feel they are going to be scolded or whatever.
• 37:28
  Here, they are 100% free to express themselves what they do.
• 37:34
  Another quick story, kind of.
• 37:36
  Okay.
• 37:37
  We were still presenting, teaching in-person classes on top of the online.
• 37:44
  Now we have stopped it completely because it's a disservice to the couples.
• 37:51
  Okay.
• 37:52
  So anyway, and one day we had, you know, we had five sessions, in-person session of about
• 38:01
  three hours, something.
• 38:03
  It was very nice and everything.
• 38:05
  Anyway, and one day we were stuck by the snow in Colorado.
• 38:11
  It happened and it was impossible to reschedule the thing.
• 38:17
  So we called everybody and we told them, you know, this session, you have to do it online.
• 38:23
  You have no choice because we cannot reschedule everything.
• 38:28
  One guy wrote in writing, okay, he wrote this.
• 38:33
  My parents had the most horrible marriage I have never witnessed.
• 38:39
  They were hating each other.
• 38:40
  It was a nightmare to live in that house.
• 38:43
  In my house, in my family, we had a lot of mental illnesses that ended up in suicide
• 38:50
  and so on and so on.
• 38:52
  Could you imagine that this guy is going to tell you that the first time he meets you
• 38:57
  or saying this among, you know, 10, 15, 20 couples around?
• 39:04
  He's not going to say that.
• 39:07
  That's what I think, but we're coming up on our break here.
• 39:10
  So I just want to summarize.
• 39:12
  Friends, if your marriage needs support, if you're discerning marriage for planning to
• 39:17
  get married, or if the words convalidation have been spoken to you, then I urge you to
• 39:23
  go to our show resources and go to Agape Catholic Ministries.
• 39:28
  You're going to find compassion.
• 39:30
  You're going to find wisdom.
• 39:32
  And you're going to find very practical help so that you can go forward.
• 39:38
  And what really is something precious, not only to you and the one you love, but precious
• 39:44
  to your children, to your grandchildren, precious to Christ and his church as well.
• 39:50
  Christian, thank you for a fascinating conversation.
• 39:53
  God bless your good work.
• 39:55
  Thank you so much.
• 39:56
  God bless you, too.
• 39:57
  I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host every day of The Catholic Current.
• 40:00
  You want to stay with us for the rest of the hour.
• 40:02
  Coming up next, Timely Thoughts, you and me reflecting on what we've heard today.
• 40:07
  Be part of the conversation.
• 40:08
  Follow what we're following by following us on Gab.
• 40:12
  That's G-A-B.com.
• 40:15
  The channel is The Catholic Current, and you can influence the conversation.
• 40:19
  Contact us at thestationofthecross.com slash askfather.
• 40:23
  We especially want to hear from you regarding what marriage preparation was like for you.
• 40:29
  Stationofthecross.com slash askfather.
• 40:33
  We'll be back in just two minutes.
• 40:34
  Please do stay with us.
• 40:50
  Have a question or feedback about today's episode?
• 41:04
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• 41:07
  Go to thestationofthecross.com slash askfather and help influence the conversation.
• 41:20
  Praised be Jesus Christ.
• 41:21
  This is Father Robert McTague of the Society of Jesus, your daily host for The Catholic
• 41:25
  Current, where we bring Christ to the world and the world to Christ.
• 41:28
  You're listening to us from the Station of the Cross studios, your local radio station,
• 41:31
  the iCatholic Radio mobile app, where we proclaim the fullness of truth with clarity and charity.
• 41:36
  It's the last segment of Timely Tuesday.
• 41:38
  You know what that means, you and me sharing timely thoughts, reflecting on what we've
• 41:41
  heard today.
• 41:42
  I was speaking with Christian Myrt, who's co-founder of Agape Catholic Ministries, and
• 41:46
  we were talking about doing marriage preparation better.
• 41:52
  I want to reflect on that because I think there's a really significant misunderstanding
• 41:59
  of marriage as a sacrament, and in particular as a sacrament of vocation.
• 42:06
  So, you know, we talk about the sacraments of initiation, we talk about baptism and confirmation
• 42:13
  in the Eucharist, we talk about the sacraments of healing, which is confession, and sacrament
• 42:20
  of the sick.
• 42:21
  We also talk about the sacraments of vocation, which is holy orders and marriage.
• 42:30
  So marriage isn't just an idea that you and your honey come up with.
• 42:38
  Well, we've decided we're in love, so therefore we're going to tie the knot.
• 42:44
  The sacrament of marriage expects that people will say this,
• 42:49
  My spouse-to-be and I have discerned a call from Christ to live the married state in order
• 42:59
  to beget and educate children, to raise them to be citizens of heaven, and to testify with
• 43:06
  their whole lives, to bear witness to and to illustrate how Christ loves his church.
• 43:14
  And therefore, we need to be fit to live that sacrament, and yet all too often you have
• 43:29
  a so-called church wedding, because A, it looks better in the pictures, and B, grandma
• 43:34
  will disinherit you, but the church really has nothing to do with it except to be a backdrop.
• 43:41
  That's a problem.
• 43:43
  I remember my first summer job as a freshman.
• 43:48
  I spent four summers working for an auto insurance company, so I'm 18 years old,
• 43:52
  and there's this woman who was Catholic, and her fiance was Catholic, and they went
• 43:58
  church shopping, and they found the church that they thought would look best in the pictures,
• 44:05
  and it just happened to be a Presbyterian church.
• 44:10
  And then she called her local parish priest out of nowhere and says,
• 44:16
  Hi, we've booked this church for two weeks from now.
• 44:20
  You need to show up at this Presbyterian church ready to go at 10 o'clock.
• 44:26
  And the priest said, That's not how it works.
• 44:31
  Booking a priest isn't like booking a caterer.
• 44:34
  And she got more and more upset, and then one of the supervisors said,
• 44:38
  Honey, give me the phone.
• 44:39
  I know what's going on.
• 44:41
  And she picked up the phone and yelled into it, All right, Father, how much is this going to cost?
• 44:49
  I was astounded.
• 44:51
  And this is something that happened almost 50 years ago, and it still sticks with me.
• 45:02
  It still sticks with me.
• 45:04
  So one of my concerns is we really don't speak about marriage as a sacrament,
• 45:11
  and we don't speak about marriage as a vocation.
• 45:15
  I mean, imagine me as a young man going up to a bishop and saying,
• 45:21
  I've decided that I want to be a priest, but only according to my standards and my preference,
• 45:31
  and I've booked the cathedral for Saturday afternoon.
• 45:36
  Be there.
• 45:37
  I'll bring my checkbook.
• 45:39
  The bishop would rightly say, A, get out, and B, that's not how that works.
• 45:44
  So here's the question for me.
• 45:47
  We often talk about where do vocations come from, and vocations come from families, etc., etc.
• 45:53
  But the same has to be said about marriage.
• 45:57
  I was very fortunate.
• 45:58
  My parents, who died only four months apart from each other after 53 years of marriage.
• 46:06
  Now, by their own account, my parents were as absolutely human as anybody else,
• 46:12
  with all that entails.
• 46:14
  And yet, and yet, I've never met two people who were more in love,
• 46:21
  and I never met a couple who had a greater reverence for each other as spouses.
• 46:29
  So there were certain words that would never be used.
• 46:33
  There were certain tones that would never be used.
• 46:36
  And of course, violence was absolutely unimaginable.
• 46:41
  And I grew up thinking that that was normal.
• 46:45
  That's just what married couples do.
• 46:49
  They have a reverence for each other.
• 46:51
  And they certainly had an absolute commitment to each other.
• 46:54
  And they'd been through, you know, ups and downs, births and deaths, and miscarriages, and
• 47:01
  sickness, and unemployment, and cancer, and all of that.
• 47:06
  And they said, look, we stood at the altar of God, and we made promises, and God made promises.
• 47:11
  And our option, our only option, was to make it work.
• 47:16
  And I grew up thinking that that was normal, too.
• 47:20
  And one of the things that really, deeply, deeply scandalized me as a priest,
• 47:27
  when I was working in parishes, was the number of couples I met
• 47:32
  who were just brutally rude and callous to each other.
• 47:39
  They thought their resentments gave them a license to, I can't even say on the air,
• 47:48
  how verbally and emotionally abusive they were.
• 47:51
  That I have the right to dump on you because we're married.
• 47:55
  And I have a list of grievances, so I have a double right to dump on you,
• 48:00
  because we're married and I have grievances.
• 48:03
  And their children saw that.
• 48:07
  Saw that.
• 48:09
  What does that do to their children?
• 48:13
  What does that do to young boys and girls growing up?
• 48:21
  What do they come to expect?
• 48:24
  A family who's very, very dear to me.
• 48:26
  I won't mention them by name because I respect their privacy.
• 48:29
  They've got two girls in their mid to late teens,
• 48:34
  and while their contemporaries in high school are all rushing off to relationship drama,
• 48:40
  they said, look, what you and dad have is just so great.
• 48:45
  We know that no high school boy is going to give us that, so we're just going to chill out.
• 48:51
  And I remember when I was doing missionary work in Southeast Asia,
• 48:54
  this young lady who said, father, my biggest problem
• 48:57
  is that my father is such a true Saint Joseph that I don't know if I'm ever going to meet a man
• 49:02
  who will be as good to me as my father was to my mother,
• 49:06
  which is a nice problem for a young lady to have, isn't it?
• 49:10
  So here's the moral of the story.
• 49:11
  Yes, better marriage preparation at the parish, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
• 49:16
  But better marriage preparation begins in the home,
• 49:21
  and it begins when children see how mom and dad treat each other.
• 49:28
  So here's my invitation to all, married or not, in a parish, whatever,
• 49:35
  do we really, really treat marriage as a sacrament, as a vocation,
• 49:43
  and do we encourage respect and reverence and humility?
• 49:51
  Are we quick to forgive, and are we quick to ask for forgiveness?
• 49:56
  Think on these things today.
• 49:57
  Take them to prayer and talk about it with those you love.
• 50:00
  I'm Jesuit Father Robert McTague, your host every day here at the Catholic Current.
• 50:05
  Join us tomorrow for another lively episode of the Catholic Current.
• 50:09
  Great topic, great guest, great conversation.
• 50:11
  That's how we roll every day here at the Catholic Current and the Station of the Cross.
• 50:16
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• 50:19
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• 50:35
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• 50:37
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• 50:38
  may mighty God bless you, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• 50:41
  Go in peace, and please do pray for me, for I am a sinner.