Latest / Claymore: Become Who You Are / #690 Blessed Is The Day We "Got It Wrong": Marriage and Love With Costanza Miriano

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#690 Blessed Is The Day We "Got It Wrong": Marriage and Love With Costanza Miriano · Claymore: Become Who You Are

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome to the Become Who You Are podcast, the production of the John Paul II Renewal Center.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Jack Rieger, your host.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: We are with Costanza Mariano today.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: She's all the way from Rome, and I'm excited to have her on because, as you know, our audience knows we speak about marriage and the family and what's going on with young people today.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's very tough.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to be human today, is it, Costanza?
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's difficult all over the world, I think, today, just to be human, to be in relationships, to be in marriages.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: Let me give them a little background on you.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: You're a wife, mother of four children.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: You work as a journalist for Rye.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's an Italian public television.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: You're a freelance writer on education and relationships.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: You've worked with the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have a blog that has had more than three million readers in the last two years.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: You've written four books, including Marry Him and Be Submissive.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Now that's a that's a name some women will get worked up about, right?
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: Marry Her and Die for Her, which has sold 70,000 copies in Italy and been translated into Spanish, French, Portuguese, Polish, Slavinian.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: How do you say it?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And now English.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so your latest book, Blessed is the day we got it wrong, just came out in Sofia Press, which was in Italian first and now translated into English.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I just uh finished reading it today.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Very, very good.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you, Costanza, for being on.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for calling me.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's a great pleasure for me to be in the in the city of the Pope now because from Chicago.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, we're making a good connection here.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: So tell us how old are your children now?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So some pressure is off, right?
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_02: Well, yeah, but we we are in the we call the the tunnel of the adolescent.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_02: We can see the light in at the end of the tunnels.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: The world is is changed though.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not it didn't happen overnight.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's been coming for a long time.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a baby boomer, and uh, and unfortunately, the sexual revolution and divorce and hardships and marriages were going on even then, and it's only seemed to get worse.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so what what is the meaning behind that?
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Blessed is the day.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: We got it wrong.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: Tell us why you decided to write a book and then name it that.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_02: Um I decided because I've been traveling around Italy for 12 years.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, since I wrote my first book, uh, which is uh Get Married and Be Submissive.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_02: Uh submission is inspired to the letters uh of St.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_02: Paul to the Ephesians.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Submission, I want to affirm that it's not a social um idea of being like a slave of your husband, but um submission means uh to give up the idea to change your husband, to correct him, to improve him.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um so it's uh like learning to to um to love him uh in the in the way uh for the way he is.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh after writing this book, I decided I have to make a step back.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_02: I decided to write my first one because once I went to confess my sins to my spiritual father, and after a short time in which I I've been speaking about my sins, I began speaking about my husband's sins.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_02: I have I'm very, very like I know very well my husband's sins and I don't know my my my fat my father told me I can't give you the absolution, but if you want, we can call him and we can absolve him.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_02: So he tried to explain that loving is a completely different thing.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_02: You don't have to change to teach your husband something, to change him, to improve him, to take him to the next level, but you just have to open your arms, your hearts to love him the way he is.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So I learned the the real meaning, uh the true meaning of the word submission.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: After a series of strange uh things, I decided to write this book because I uh it's a it's a long story, so it doesn't matter.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: But when I when my first book uh came out, um it was like an explosion in Italy.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: It's so many copies.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: They began to call me from all around the country in TV, radio, and newspapers.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_02: So I realized I said something maybe useful because inside each woman there's uh there's a small teacher, or maybe that wants to learn other people how to behave.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I began going around in parishes and theaters, and I discovered that many families needed to hear words like that.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I don't think about myself as a writer, but as a translator, I I try to translate what the church teaches, what John Paul II began in uh with his body theology.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: I try to translate it in a language that can be understood even from people who don't come to church.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: Because uh at that time I was working uh in uh in the newsroom of the television, and I had many colleagues who were far from the church, who were maybe divorced, who had uh had abortions, so they they are they could not understand something like uh Mulieris dignitatum or the documents of the Vatican Council.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_02: So I I try to translate.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_02: I don't want to be a writer, I want to translate the the words of the church for people who is far.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: So I discovered that the things I was saying was very useful.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_02: And then uh after 12 years of going around in the in this book, uh blessed is the day we got it wrong.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Um hold that up.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'll I'll I'll put that behind me too.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's that's the new one.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, thank you.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: I I tried to put the the thing I I've seen in these 12 years, I met many couples, I learned I often sleep in houses.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_02: I meet people, I meet families, I you know they call me, they have my number.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: We meet, uh we meet in for just a big community all around Italy.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: And I think I I can say uh something useful, useful for for many families.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: So I try to res to answer to the to the objections to to the marriage.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_02: Why should I be should I stay married even if uh I don't understand him?
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_02: He speaks a different language or she speaks a different language.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um uh if in the maybe the intimate life is not going so well, maybe he's cheating or she's cheating.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_02: I'm I I'm in love with another person, or the the children are uh like uh very very hard for us.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_02: I try to answer to the objections I listened in these 12 years and I discovered that when we we are tempted to think that we got it wrong, it's it's like um the enemy who is uh saying telling us that we got it wrong.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_02: Because when there's a wound in the couple, that is the space uh where God comes inside and He He comes in the wound and uh He takes uh the possess of our heart.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_02: So when we we are not able to look at this pose with the right uh eyes, we can pray, we should pray every day in any moment of the day to ask God, please let me see my husband or my wife just the way you see it.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_02: So when you think you are wrong, it's the moment you can ask God his his look, uh his spirit.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, yes, no, that was a little longer.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, no, that was beautiful.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: You know what we find today, Costanza, is you know, young people especially, and and then they get older, but they were taught that love is a feeling.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then they reach so they reduce love to a feeling, emotion.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: It has emotions, right?
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But it's more than an emotion.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: You say this in your book, and of course John Paul II talked about this, and then it's been further reduced down to sex.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: So young people so often, when I'm speaking to them, they think they'll find especially women, they think they're going to find love in sex.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, men have sex because they want to have sex, but women actually think they're going to find love.
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_00: You know, some of the many of the women we meet.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: It's astounding.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_00: So the reason I bring it up is you make this point in the book, that you know, these chemical uh processes, you know, hormones are going off when we first meet each other, right?
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: For the first time.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: I speak to engaged couples, you know, maybe they're gonna get married in six months, you know, a year, whatever.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they're still in love, huh?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're so excited.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what they don't realize is those chemicals, those feelings will only last if for it's about 18 months, you say for men.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I quote the same statistics, a little longer for women.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: But anyways, those feelings, like they were in the beginning, they start to fade, right?
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it's natural.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: That's natural.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: But those young people don't know it, Costanza.
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_00: So when they feel those feelings, those intense feelings go start to go away, they don't realize that your marriage was supposed to go to the next level now, deeper, huh?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: More of an act of the will now, closer to God, but they don't know it, so they think we're not in love anymore.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: So they go to find, I must have married the wrong person.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna find love.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I made a mistake, right?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: And you make that point in the book.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I I could, I could, I know I could tell you read John Paul's Theology of the Body, you know, because I could sense the beauty of the story coming out.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: It's impressive because I say exactly the same words, the next level, the same.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_02: I think love is not just feelings, it's uh also a decision.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: But to and it's a priest, my friend Don Fabio says, please do not get married if you are in love.
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: Because you can you cannot really understand if you are doing right.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: No, that's very true.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: And and what we've done now, you know, we we know this, and I could tell you you have a sense of this.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, God is love.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: We hear that in the first letter of John, right?
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: John who says, he says, this is Jesus who we've we've heard with our ears, who we've seen with our eyes, who we've touched, who we've looked upon, and we've come to understand that God is love.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: That that we didn't love God first, but that God loved us first.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the problem is we take God out of our marriages.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: We think it's two stories.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: Like our marriage is over here, God is over here, but it's linked, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's linked together.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And if we we we took it apart, and we can see it, can't we, Costanza?
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: We could see it in the culture today, in the problems with marriages, divorce.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: I always feel bad for the young people, the kids, the children, and parents breaking up, and oh my gosh, it's sad, right?
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, so what the message we're bringing is very, very important today.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: Jean Paul II in the G uh Youth Day uh at the in the 2000 in Rome um uh made a uh wonderful uh speech, and uh I have pressed in my in my head uh I was breastfeeding.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_02: So I I was not there, I was watching on TV uh because I had my first.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: But um he said it's God you are searching when you search for love.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_02: So when you when you look at the boy or the girl, you're in love, but you are you are searching for God, he's the real spouse of your heart.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: And even in the most happy marriage, there's like um original loneliness.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: He used this the word solitudine originaria, original loneliness, because in the in the middle, in the in the center of our hearts, we are we we look for God, even if we have a perfect husband or a perfect wife like me.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_02: I used to say to myself, I'm the perfect wife.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, we are a t-shirt uh with uh with a t-shirt and uh it's written, in my opinion, I am right.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: I always want to be right.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_02: So he say I surrender.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: I surrender, I surrender.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_02: But I know that he is in the in the deepest part of his art he's looking for God just as I do.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_02: So uh I I'm a bit jealous sometimes because I say I want to be the most important, but I I know it's not right because he he is God is the the the real source of each of the uh of each one of us, even in the most perfect marriage.
• 15:09
  SPEAKER_02: So when you I love what what you said about the next level, because sometimes I see very very difficult marriages, but I see that like the the way to become holy because because um when we go in the heaven, I hope, or at the j at the final judgment, we will have to say if we have tried to leave the gospel in the family first, because it's easy to be kind with people outside the family, but we have to learn to give the other chick and uh forgive seven seven uh inside the family and uh forgive uh forgive each other many, many times every day.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_02: So when the marriage is a bit hard, maybe God is asking us to be uh a little to to grow up in the in the holiness pattern, I hope.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: When I was reading your book, I was thinking back when I was I've been married 43 years now, but but when I when we had small children, we were married about my wife and I about uh 12 years, and we started to have problems, big problems, and I thought I was going to leave.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I had not been going to church, and I got down on my knees, Costanza, for the first time in maybe 20 years then.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I was up against the end, right?
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: I thought I can't do anything anymore, it's finished.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, God, do you have a plan?
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm praying for the first time on my knees.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: God, do you have a plan?
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I always think that he smiled at me and he said, Yes, Jack, you I have a plan, but you're not following it very well, you know.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: And he was right, and I got off my knees, and anyways, I came back into the church.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_00: It was only then, Costanza, that I start to see my wife different.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: Not as you expressed this in the book.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Of course, John Paul expressed it, not as a person to use, not as an object, you know, but as a person to love.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: When you get closer to God, you can love your spouse like you never believed it before, like you see them different.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I started to see her as a little girl, you know, uh, and and she grew up in a hard time, you know, and it was not easy for her.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_00: And I saw her wounds, you brought this up earlier, and God goes into those wounds.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: But our marriage didn't really change, get a lot better until she started to pray, and then she opened up her heart, right?
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I was trying to reach her, but she was like a wall, and then when she opened up to God, then all of a sudden her heart started to soften, you know?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: It took a long time, but uh but but I I guess my point is the power of prayer, the power of being loved so that I can love you, right?
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_00: We can't give what we don't have, can we?
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: We can't give what we don't have.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_02: I it's impressing uh because uh I I I I feel like you're my friend and I don't know you, but I you think exactly the same.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I think exactly, exactly the same.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I it's uh it's beautiful to to think uh uh to about your suppose as uh small children.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's so beautiful, yeah.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: So those children then, you you say it again too, that you know, we heard this story, huh?
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get on the good side of your children, right?
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: To to have a good relationship with your children, for a man, love their mother, especially for a boy, love the mother.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to get on the good side of the mother, love the son, huh?
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: Love the children.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it's true.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, you know, so many problems we have, right?
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we're selfish.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh John Paul would say this, Costanza.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: Young people, you know that your life has meaning to the extent that it's given away as a gift to others.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: But I don't want to do that because I'm selfish, right?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: But when you do do it, it changes everything, doesn't it?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: It changes it changes everything.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_02: You feel so well, so happy.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I I saw my uh a a great uh change in my children when they went to to Mexico, to the Guadalupe, exactly.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And and they went on mission to help to help people and they they came back to Rome completely changed.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_02: They were an other other person, and I think uh God because they they um they went and they they learned that when you when you begin loving uh life uh life is different so it's a long uh it's a long way they have to learn to to do good things at home too because uh it's easy to do with mission uh uh from in the other part of the world but I know uh that they taste they felt the taste of loving now and they they learned that if you stop thinking about yourself uh your heart is uh is full of joy it's it's uh completely different but as you were saying at the beginning it's very hard because they are bombed every day with uh fonts and they are bombed with different messages so uh you you can choose everything you can determine everything you can be what you want the world is uh all around you uh it's the apple uh you can it's always the same trick from the Garden of Eden till now.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: It's true so it's a big but they are bombed I think we in our in my in my youth years uh it was a bit easier because uh I was not so much pressed I might I had problems I made mistakes but I I didn't need to be a hero.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: Now I say I oh I often tell them you have to be heroes if you want to be different.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh it's so true Costanza and to me just to be married you know to be married I think I think see the sword behind me there's a sword it was a big sword that Braveheart William Wallace in the movie Braveheart so he had a big sword and so that's our logo for young men.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: So young men 13 14 up until about 30 years old and that's what we tell them today you have to be a hero today if if if you are not a hero those phones that you showed they in here in the United States our public school systems is very bad as far as bringing pornography gender ideologies into the school so what happens these young boys eight nine ten years old they hear something in school sexual and they are they are they want to know what it is so they go on their phone they go on the computer and they they pulled into pornography and then later on I meet them you know their innocence is stolen right and the same thing with girls their innocence is stolen from them it's it's very tragic but they get married later on and they have a hard time they see the woman they want to love her but they when they get into an intimate intimacy the woman can sense that she's being used and it's so sad we talk to young men all the time can you talk to that a little bit and how prayer can go into that because you bring that up you're you're not afraid to bring up anything in this book you talk about cheating you mentioned pornography you mention all kinds of things so you're not afraid to do that very important right that we bring these things up women so often have been lied to and they think sex again is is love and so you have very dysfunctional families and the only way to heal that is grace.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: The only way to feel that is grace.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: A priest a friend of mine who is in um in a college for for priests and he says that when a young boy comes into the seminary and wants to become a priest and maybe he's been watching pornography it takes a long long way to build him again and sometimes it's impossible to erase completely what they saw.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: So it's uh it's like uh it's a we are in war we are in war in war yeah so and uh I think the most important thing uh to do is to pray and then to do what you're doing so building uh building uh a different culture like uh as we can writing and uh speaking and it's it's like a war and we have to be to be convinced that we are in the in the winning team because someone won for us.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_02: So we we have to be happy that's why I try to be in to to put jokes in my books to to make fun funny uh books because I want to to explain that living uh according to God is happier it's fun it's uh it's easier and uh it's not true that doing what the world uh um tells us to do uh it's uh it's better it's not true the the sin is bad for you you are you're unhappy when you when you live in sin it's not true that uh uh the when you when you follow all uh all your desires you're happy it's not true you are happy maybe for one second but then so um we have to be sure of that and to be to be sure that uh we are the the the the epithew yes it's so true we're finding now Constanza and and it's and it shows you the power of the heart that you're describing you know the human heart wants to be loved right and it also wants to know the truth huh you know speak the truth in love and love people in the truth but what we're finding with these young men is it got so bad so toxic so much evil that they're looking for something else it's a beautiful time to be speaking to young people today because it's it's they know something's wrong.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean they're all going to change but they're listening they're listening and I think that's why it's so important like you said you know for for books like yours to come out don't don't be afraid we got to say hey all these things are happening but if you want to really know if God is true get down on your knees and start to pray because that's the only way right I mean it's not just words is it Costanza it changes people.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's powerful when people actually encounter God in prayer it changes you.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: You know so much anxiety depression suicide even among our young people today old people too but especially young when we tell them about prayer right and settle down get deep into prayer doesn't it changes you Costanza it changes you and I I don't there's no there's no other solution at the end is there yeah it's impressive it's unbelievable how it works and uh and it's also true what you were saying that young people are thirsty of the truth and um uh two days ago it was the um Immaculate conception yeah and we have a long long discussion after dinner with two of my children about the original sin and I was sweating uh with the with the catechism of uh Catholic church uh moving and we wearing glasses but I hope I hope it explains well that the original sin is a lot like a like a wound in our heart and uh God is here to to heal to save us ten commandments is not like rules that a sad uh Lord puts uh us just because he hates us and he wants to to uh how do you say uh vietare how um I I don't know the word but he do he doesn't want to uh to tell us no but he wants to tell us yes yes to to the good things.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_02: Authentic love yes the word it was forbid he he doesn't want to forbid things that are good for us but he wants to to help us like like uh to um to make us grow and be and to to be uh to be rich and rich inside to be to be happy so uh it was a long discussion maybe two hours good for you but I I was impressed from the fact that they they were thirsty about the the truth yes so let let me but before you know we start to get short on time already how is the faith in in in in Italy because you know here in the United States it's a battle of course but we're not quite as you know we're a little bit more Christian here still I think in the United States than Europe as a whole right as a whole but it's a battle here too you know we have now we're lucky you know we have now people in in power in the White House and power that pray yeah and they pray out loud and they call upon Christ and it's really beautiful to see and now the young people that we know if if we can raise them up a little bit right so how about in Italy though it you know are we know people are walking away from the you know the church and and stuff are are young people starting like you said you know are they starting to wake up a little bit you think is there is there hope for us first of all I want to say that I read the speech of President Trump uh about the Immaculate and it was uh impressive the the his speech it was very really beautiful and it's uh good to see that the most powerful powerful man in the herb has the courage to to speak about the Immaculate uh it was a great news it was beautiful wasn't it I got goosebumps you know so yeah I got goosebumps really really and in Italy uh I think the the problem is that we we give faith for granted so um many many people the baptism uh they raised as a Catholic but after the the the cr the the the sacraments they leave the church but there is open because uh there's a lot of uh uh proposals a lot of patterns uh they they offer there are many um meetings of priests very famous in Italy i i I listened to the homilies of father mike in uh okay father mike's week yes yeah he's good huh yes we have we have some someone like him in Italy in Rome there is uh um there are maybe seven eight priests very famous and when they speak to to young people the squares are closed uh they they go to park and they there's a like a lot of people so we have not not in the in the normal parishes they are every day more empty more sad more but I can see many many lives many many points of of new life of new proposals so I think there is hope and I also organize um uh a meeting uh of prayer every year we call uh the mon monas wifi monastery and we meet we meet in uh saint peter basin basin um in the same peter church uh once once in a year and we are almost 4000 people doing silent adoration and praying together and listening to to priests speaking about uh the prayer so I I see many good uh good signs of uh yes beautiful and so and so do we but at the end it's it's it's a it's a battle isn't it we know it's a battle it's a spiritual battle and the and the biggest battle is marriage and the family right Sister Lucia of Fatima the last great battle huh between our Lord and Satan yes between marriage and the family and John Paul II knew that too he spoke about that all the time huh uh before we let you go Costanza and and thank you so much for joining us and and uh before you go we're gonna make sure we know where to get the book but but there's some advice and it's so good you know so you give advice to women there but the advice to men is a little shorter and it's very very important.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's very very important.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: Do you remember what it is the for number one thing that men need to do and it's and it's true.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_02: Listen to her.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_00: Listen to her when when I was was praying uh that's what I heard you know when I was coming back into the church and what I started to do this I'm gonna tell men just from what you wrote here I just printed it out just the these things that that you said right for men.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I would be reading my phone or reading something else while my wife was speaking you know and you have to stop.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_02: You have to just for a few minutes stop look up and listen it's very very important our priest uh uses to say to my husbands and to my husband especially try to listen to your wife ten minutes a day and he asks he asks the but ten minutes altogether are two minutes.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yes yes it's true it's easier you know two or three minutes at a time you know right but it's important it's important you know and don't try to always solve the problems right you know you mentioned it in the book and it's very very true that I men we try to answer always answer answer are trying to find answer sometimes don't worry about the answer.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you can you know if you think she's asking you know how to fix something that's different.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes you just listen right and when you do that it changes doesn't it it changes the woman's heart and then you could see the joy in their eyes and then it brings joy to you.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_00: So it goes both ways.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that was important.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other th sec number two do you remember number two?
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah go ahead okay and the number two is look at hair maybe yeah look at her and uh try to to understand if she went to the hairdresser maybe because it's true just one little thing a day if you can find one little thing a day you know did you do something with your hair whatever it is you can find it right oh something smells good in the kitchen do you want me to help you with something something you can always find one thing and it's it changes it changes you know it changes me and it changes her I want to give an advice also to women because uh to be silent just once more than you would because I I always talk too much and I always say things I should never have said.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_02: So maybe you can say it later when I speak to myself I say I'm not asking you to be silent at all but to tell it later and I can do it if I can I if I think I'll I'll tell him later and sometimes I decide not to tell him at all because it's not so important as it seemed at the moment.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: So just wait to speak okay.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: It's so important too and then the last thing I I really remember there's a lot there but one is for a woman to show some respect to the man too you know you know too often all they hear is negative negative negative you know it doesn't take much you could say one nice thing you know about a man and he will he will remember that too just like you know a a woman like you're saying here needs to be loved and and told that she's beautiful and a man just needs to a thank you once in a while hey thank you for whatever right and you know respect that and otherwise you know your heart just you we're tearing each other up inside right but that but you make it very clear and I know this in my own life that the only way you're gonna be able to do that is through prayer first.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_00: Through prayer first.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: Great yeah yes yes because it changes our hearts yeah and it's true huh true medicine right true medicine.
• 38:01
  SPEAKER_00: Hey Costanza thank you so much our time is up but we really appreciate it.
• 38:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so we can get the book through uh Sophia Press where is there any place else that we should visit and what is your blog that Costantamiriano.com and then also monasteryw.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: Can you do me a favor?
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think you do you have my email you have my email can you shoot me the shoot me both of those just to make sure I get it right and I'll put it in the show notes.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_02: Okay.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you all right I want them to visit your your blog and and see what's going on with the things that you're doing.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so much.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks for doing that thank you it's a an honor and a pleasure for me.
• 38:42
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much thank you.
• 38:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hey and goodbye everyone thanks for joining us today check out the show notes and visit Costanza's blog bye bye everyone