Latest / The Lila Rose Show / E292: Do Soulmates Exist? How Christians Can Date (and Marry) Well | Lila Rose Show

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E292: Do Soulmates Exist? How Christians Can Date (and Marry) Well | Lila Rose Show · The Lila Rose Show

0:00
There is a problem in today's dating culture among Christians
0:02
that we marry the plan more than the person.
0:04
Yes, I was engaged before and that ended it's.
0:07
So much more common than people realize for people to look at
0:09
each other and say we do love each other, but this.
0:11
Is not the right thing? Are soul mates real?
0:13
How should we ask Christians to you soul mates?
0:14
They're not real. They can be.
0:16
There's a lot of pressure in the soulmate question.
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When you hear stories like that, you're like, OK, soul mates have
0:21
to exist. I mean, the heart is deceitful
0:22
above all things. I remember like.
0:24
Oh, even like the style of worship that Americans have made
0:27
mainstream teaches us to see those butterflies do.
0:30
You believe that you've met your soulmate and the guy that you're
0:32
dating. Don't put this on the Internet.
0:37
Is there such a thing as the one How should you approach
0:41
discernment and decision making and dating, especially as a
0:43
Christian? And can you bounce back after an
0:46
engagement that's been broken off?
0:48
These are just a few of the questions we're discussing with
0:50
today's panel. And if you want more, you can
0:52
check out our other dating panel episodes.
0:54
LinkedIn the description A huge thank you to everybody who's
0:56
been subscribing to the show. It's continuing to grow because
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Thank you so much to all of you who make this show possible.
1:21
Welcome everyone to this new dating and relationships panel.
1:25
You are the third panel to do this.
1:27
I'm so grateful that you guys are all here.
1:29
Some of you are familiar faces and some of you are not to the
1:31
show. So let's start by going around
1:34
and if everybody can just introduce themselves with their
1:36
name, a little bit about themselves and their
1:38
relationship status. My name is John Jerone.
1:41
I run a video Catholic video production company out here in
1:44
Southern California, and I am dating one of the women behind
1:47
the cameras right behind me. Yeah.
1:50
And how long have you been in your relationship for?
1:52
3 1/2 months, yeah. Awesome.
1:55
The Dorbs. I'm a little baby.
1:58
I'm a little baby, Paul. That's good.
1:59
That's good. Little babies are precious in
2:01
the eyes of the Lord. I'm Paul Rose and I do a podcast
2:05
called Sing the Hours where I sing the Liturgy of the Hours.
2:10
It's a lot of fun and I'm Lila's brother.
2:12
What's your relationship status, Paul?
2:14
Oh, I'm a married man coming up on three years and three kids.
2:17
Three years and three years. Be fruitful and multiply.
2:20
Oh yeah. The third is not born yet
2:22
though. The third is due date is 2 days
2:25
before our 3rd wedding anniversary so if he's on time
2:28
we will have been Moi efficient. Nicely done.
2:32
What's the Spanish? Version Julia is a champ, the
2:34
champ of all champs. She's a champ.
2:37
Love that most of your listeners know me.
2:39
I love your listeners. I'm Emily Wilson Hassam.
2:42
I have been married 10 years. We just celebrated our 10th
2:45
wedding anniversary and we have three children and it is such a
2:48
joy. Hi I'm Noel fitchett I'm a
2:51
Christian content creator mainly make content for Christian women
2:55
I'm dating someone we've been dating for a month and a half
2:58
now so pretty fresh. Beautiful.
3:01
Good. All right, so we're going to be
3:03
talking about discernment. How to know they're the one.
3:06
The old Mary's in the room. Oh, I'm Lila Postnomi.
3:09
I've been married seven years. So you are the longest married
3:12
person on this channel. Beautifully.
3:14
Yes, but we're going to be talking about discernment.
3:16
We're going to be talking about the breakups that are part of
3:18
discernment, soul mates, finding the one, all of these things.
3:21
But first to kick us off, my question for all of you is what
3:25
is the opinion that you have about dating or relationships
3:29
that the majority of Americans don't have?
3:34
Paul, you you, you should start. So my my opinion, he's gripping.
3:37
The mic, he's ready. The majority of Americans would
3:39
disagree with Is that going into marriage, you should have
3:43
discussions about family planning, about how many kids
3:48
you want, but then you should ultimately both decide that
3:52
there's no perfect number of children to have.
3:54
Both of those are controversial. I've been talking to people who
3:58
are in marriage prep who are it's days before their wedding,
4:02
like I'm at a bachelor party. It's like, so if you talk to
4:04
your wife about children, No, no, we'll figure that out at
4:06
some point. I'm like, what do you do in
4:07
marriages like that comes with immediately with the territory
4:09
or it should that's controversial.
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And the second thing is I really don't believe we should be in
4:14
the business of being like, the ultimate dream for me is for
4:19
kids. Because marriage is not about
4:21
self actualization or fulfillment.
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It's about service. And if you're not, if your
4:25
discernment is not about service, if it's about you
4:27
completing some part of you with the perfect little view of
4:29
family, then your marriage is going to have a rude awakening.
4:33
Rough time, bad time. Good.
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You're ready. She's she's ready with the hot
4:41
take, I think. This is like more so dating and
4:44
Gen. Z, but I think that most of Gen.
4:48
Z has experienced miniature divorces because we've crossed
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emotional and physical boundaries that are only
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supposed to be expressed within marriage.
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And because of that, our generation is heartbroken
4:59
because we've experienced a divorce and emotional and
5:02
physical one that we were only supposed to experience in the
5:04
context of marriage. And it makes dating a lot harder
5:06
because of that. That's a good take.
5:09
Any divorces? I like that.
5:10
That's good. And really quick, too.
5:12
I should have asked this already.
5:14
Who here is Gen. Z?
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Raise your hand. OK.
5:17
And you are you Gen. Z, Paul.
5:19
Oh, sorry. OK.
5:20
And the rest of us were millennials.
5:21
Let's. Let the audience decide in the
5:23
comments. I was born in 1994.
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Am I Gen. Z maybe?
5:27
Is it the year or is it how you act?
5:29
You're on the cusp. They say you're.
5:30
A millennial? Yeah.
5:31
I've never heard that. I don't like that.
5:35
All right, Emily, I know, I know you don't do hot takes, but
5:37
what's your hot take? I think at a really foundational
5:40
level, I actually asked my neighbor this the other day.
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She's almost 90. I said, what's the best dating
5:44
advice you could give? She said don't talk about
5:47
religion or politics from the beginning.
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And I was like, that was, that's the worst dating advice you
5:52
could give. My hot take is it's never too
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early to talk about what matters to you.
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A lot of people would say this is off limits.
5:59
This is off limits on the first date.
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You would never talk about that. It is never too early to say I
6:04
care about. These are my values.
6:05
This is what I'm passionate about.
6:06
Not in an overbearing, intense way, but straight from the
6:09
gecko. Share about what matters to you.
6:11
Why wouldn't you love? It also sacred spark.
6:16
Yes. Helps you file the people too.
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That's. For sure.
6:19
I think mine's insular, like it's a little bit more contained
6:21
in its scope, but I think it applies to the to the question,
6:24
the American question. I think marriage is idolized a
6:27
little bit nowadays in so far as a lot of our, a lot of the, in
6:33
the culture today, families have broken apart so much,
6:35
communities have broken apart so much and we become stranded in
6:39
pockets of isolation such that we, we, what we want is good
6:44
communion with the people around us.
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And we want to find that in a relationship because it's the
6:48
only thing around us. We don't have friends as much
6:49
anymore. I mean, there's so many studies
6:52
bearing this out now that we're in a loneliness epidemic because
6:55
people, while they may be surrounded with people, they're
6:58
very disconnected from them. Such that then when we get into
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the realm of relationships, we want to have this person satisfy
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every aspect of the things that we want in our lives, which is
7:09
not an incredible burden that should not be placed on our
7:12
future spouses or current spouses.
7:16
Good hot takes. OK, so is there any hot take
7:19
that was just spoken on my hot take you?
7:21
Can't you got to complete? It trying.
7:23
To avoid the moderator, I'm the neutral moderator.
7:26
What is my hot take? See, I didn't prepare for my own
7:28
question. It actually was Paul's question.
7:30
In Full disclosure, he was like, you should make sure that we
7:32
start the episode with this. What is my hot take about dating
7:36
in marriage or dating in relationships today?
7:38
I mean, it is that not enough people are getting married.
7:41
And I think that's, you know, controversial in the general
7:45
public because people are like marriage shouldn't be an idol,
7:48
etcetera, not an idol, but you know, don't force your views on
7:51
people. And then even in the faith
7:52
world, we do celebrate the single vocation.
7:56
We celebrate the consecrated vocations of priesthood, all
7:58
these things. But the reality is I think most
8:01
people are made for marriage and we're just not marrying enough.
8:04
And there's a lot of reasons for that, but OK, were there any hot
8:07
takes said that anybody disagreed with?
8:08
Can I jump on your hot? Take Yeah, please do Jump, jump,
8:10
jump. This is like Jubilee.
8:12
Can I Can I jump into? The seat.
8:14
I'm like, hey, it's nice to meet.
8:18
You. What's your name on my love?
8:19
Yeah. Anyway, so I think that there's
8:22
generally A vocations crisis. OK.
8:25
I think for example, the numbers of people entering the convent,
8:31
you know, entering religious life has plummeted even more
8:35
drastically than marriage rates, maybe not more drastically than
8:38
like well formed marriage rates cause like a a marriage where
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people are. Entering.
8:43
Marriage have to to have a united to become one flesh.
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I mean there's so many barriers of contraception and stuff.
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I mean like here's another hot take.
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I think even putting on a condom ruins the the unit of aspect of
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it's like putting up a mechanical barrier.
8:56
This is no need to get into all my hot takes anyway.
8:59
I just threw birth control into the conversation.
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But the the point is that you have these plummeting rates of
9:05
people that are devoting their life to a rule, a rule of
9:10
obedience. And one thing is another hot
9:12
take. Obedience to a spouse.
9:13
Just obedience in general. This.
9:15
Is this is the crazy thing is that so Satan disobeyed like the
9:19
the original fall is about disobedience.
9:21
Eve disobeys Satan as the fallen Angel disobeys.
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So what's crazy is that in the modern age, obedience has become
9:27
something that we look at as taking away freedom, when
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obedience is the most freeing thing for the human person.
9:36
Because we're designed for obedience.
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We are designed to obey. And obedience is a virtue that
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has been cheapened, ignored. But it's part of vocation
9:45
because a monk or a nun or a priest, they enter A and their
9:49
first vow in all three circumstances is obedience, not
9:52
just to a rule, but to a person. Whether the person is going to
9:55
be smarter than them doesn't matter.
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Whether the person is more well formed, whether the person's
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wiser doesn't matter. But you have a rule based on
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what you're entering into, into obedience and a marriage.
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Marriage is the same way husband and wife together.
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There's there's a mutual obedience that is now necessary
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where you're no longer your own boss.
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And so marriage, when people are getting married, trying to make
10:14
it complete them, the idol, the idolization of marriage, it's
10:18
like 20° removed from the truth, which is that we need to be
10:23
entering into service and also into obedience because obedience
10:25
sets us free. And, and it doesn't mean
10:28
obedience to the person who is smarter than you.
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Like, oh, I joined this company and I'm going to be obedience
10:33
to, to, to my boss because he's the genius who started the
10:36
company and he's more talented than me.
10:38
We look at obedience as a hierarchy of, of ableness or
10:41
utility. And that's as far as it ever
10:44
gets. Because obedience itself, it has
10:46
to be this like social contract Hobbs, you know, it has to be
10:49
something that I have the agency democratically of buying into.
10:53
I vote to be obedience. I give this if there's, there's
10:55
a give and take where I'm getting something in return.
10:57
I'm getting my, my income, I'm getting my whatever security, my
11:01
4-O1K. But obedience is where you you
11:04
consecrate your will to somebody, no matter what.
11:09
They could lose their heads and you're still going to obey and
11:13
that. Is but with the with the caveat,
11:15
like in a marriage, mutual submission, you don't obey your
11:18
spouse. Like especially a woman won't
11:19
obey her husband if the matter is something that's immoral.
11:22
So there's always there's always limits.
11:23
And same with the priest. Like if a superior tells him to
11:25
something immoral that violates his ultimate obedience to God,
11:28
he's not going to listen. That's because there's a
11:29
hierarchy of obedience where ultimately we're we need to be
11:31
obedient to our Creator. Of course of.
11:33
Course. But most of the things people
11:36
have gripes about being obedient to are not life and death moral
11:39
issues. It's like, oh, I, I want, you
11:41
know, something very mundane. And that's where struggles in
11:43
marriage come from when just submission of the will is the
11:47
reversal of the fall. Submission of the will is
11:50
entering into like Christ, right?
11:52
He did not view equality with something to be grasped at.
11:54
It says in the scriptures, he is God himself.
11:56
He is the word by which heaven and earth were created.
11:58
And it says in the at the end of the of the 2nd chapter of Luke,
12:01
it says and he went home and was obedient to them in all things.
12:05
Little Jesus who literally created them, who who speaks and
12:09
things are made. This little child, the author of
12:12
all things submits himself to the whims of Mary and Joseph.
12:16
That mystery that sets sets the tone for what all Christians who
12:20
put on Christ and want to live their lives in Christ are called
12:22
to. And we have no better excuse
12:25
than Jesus Christ for for, you know, not being obedient.
12:28
It doesn't matter if we know better.
12:29
You just do it. And here's another hot take and
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I'll end it with this is that that also applies to your
12:34
parents. Even after you turn 18, just
12:36
because you have a a right to vote now, just because you have
12:38
your own job and your own house and you're and you're your own
12:40
boss. If your dad says, hey son, I
12:42
need help with someone. Can you come over you you should
12:44
do it, you should do it and and the the stakes are so high.
12:48
It says in the 10 commandments honor your father and mother
12:50
that you may live. The reverse of that is be
12:53
disobedient. You will die like our our the
12:56
life and death of our souls, of our very nature is dependent on
13:00
us being obedient, and marriage can give you that.
13:04
What does everybody think? I also think like there's so
13:06
much joy that comes with obedience.
13:09
Like God is the creator of the universe, therefore he knows how
13:12
his creation will flourish and he knows what will bring his
13:15
creation the most joy. And when we walk in obedience,
13:17
it's not only because we're trying to create or obey a
13:20
certain set of rules or kind of earn God's favor, because we can
13:24
never earn God's favor, but rather because God knows what
13:27
will bring us the most joy. We can trust in his character
13:29
that he's a good father and that obeying him brings forth that
13:32
joy. So I think there's like a lot of
13:34
peace in that and trusting in his character because obedience
13:37
is great, but also it brings so much joy.
13:39
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15:16
Soulmates, this is something that you read about in, you
15:22
know, literature sometimes like Romeo and Juliet, like they're
15:25
just like this total love for each other while they also kill
15:29
themselves and next to each other.
15:31
Very actually dark, dark story. But anyways, are soul mates
15:34
real? What should we as Christians
15:37
think about soul mates? How should we as Christians view
15:39
soul mates? They're not real.
15:42
They're not real. They.
15:43
Can be. Paul and I disagree.
15:45
Well. Maybe, I don't know if we
15:46
entirely disagree. I have a problem with the
15:48
verbiage and the cultural connotation that comes from the
15:51
idea of a soulmate. Because what is the idea of a
15:55
soulmate? That somebody was set apart from
15:57
you for your life, that you were made for?
16:01
That seems to me to be a usurpation of how the soul
16:04
should be oriented towards God. Because it becomes an idol.
16:08
Yes, that's kind of my point once again, is we idolize the
16:10
relationship as if that's going to be the thing which brings us
16:14
union, perfect union with somebody.
16:16
And that won't ever happen until we're in heaven.
16:19
And the, I mean, our Lord even kind of, I think he's alluding
16:21
to this in Matthew, he says, you know, that we're not going to be
16:24
married in heaven. We'll be like the angels.
16:26
There's no marriage in heaven. It's a means for the procreation
16:29
and education of children and the sanctification of the
16:31
spouses on the earth. Well, it's not just those,
16:34
because it's also a sacrament, which means that it does
16:37
actually reflect transcendental realities.
16:39
I was going to yes, of course. I mean, the love of of of of
16:41
husband, wife and child is a reflection of the love of the
16:44
Trinity. But.
16:45
But not just a reflection. It actually contains.
16:47
It contains the Trinity. It's a sacrament.
16:49
Do this. Before we keep going those
16:50
route, I'm just going to do a quick run around.
16:52
Do you believe that you've met? You may you may have met or
16:54
you've met your soulmate in the guy that you're dating.
16:59
That's a big. Question.
17:00
It is a big question. It is a big question but but I
17:06
feel like if I answer this then I'm answering my response about
17:08
soul mates. We'll say I just want to do a
17:10
room check about how people see their relationship.
17:13
Why do you think I found the person that I'm supposed to
17:15
marry? Would you consider him a soul
17:16
mate? Don't put this on the Internet.
17:23
I don't know if I if I agree with with the terminology of
17:26
soulmate as well. That's fair.
17:29
I don't believe in soulmates. I believe that the the Lord
17:32
calls you to marry a really specific individual and for that
17:35
call to holiness. But there's other religions that
17:38
do teach you're married in heaven.
17:40
And when I talk to people who believe that, I say I love Jesus
17:44
Christ with all my heart, soul and mind.
17:45
If you think I'm worried about Daniel when I meet the Lord,
17:49
you're crazy and Daniel knows that he's like Jesus is your
17:52
first love through and through, you know, in everything.
17:55
So when I go to meet the Lord, hopefully, you know, in the
18:00
beatific vision and get to be with him for all eternity
18:02
singing holy, holy, holy with Saints and angels.
18:04
My husband is going to be the least of my concerns.
18:06
And hopefully my marriage will have sanctified me enough to get
18:09
to that point for the Lord to say, I know exactly who you are.
18:12
Come on in, you know, So soul mates, I think is a really over
18:15
romanticized thing, but I really feel the Lord calls you to
18:18
holiness with a person. And I think there's other people
18:22
who believe that there's a lot of different people you could
18:24
choose to marry and have a wonderful marriage.
18:26
I don't know, you know, there you could go really deeper into
18:29
it. But as far as soul mates, I'm
18:31
not a believer. But you believe God called you
18:34
specifically to Mary Daniel. Yes.
18:35
So in that sense, and that's good because we didn't, I never
18:37
defined what is a soul mate. We never defined it.
18:39
So let's just define operationally a soul mate is
18:42
someone that you're specifically called to.
18:44
OK, how about that now? Now, now the changes, now we're.
18:47
Getting. The changes.
18:49
Are in I. Still think I disagree with that
18:50
even. OK, so but Paul, I mean.
18:54
What? OK, you have.
18:56
A good What's your view on What's your view on soul mates?
18:59
I love my wife and let's start from the very beginning God
19:06
calls everyone to some form of fatherhood motherhood, some form
19:15
of marriage that's like written from Genesis, right We're called
19:18
to like those little animals enter the ark two by two.
19:22
It's written all over creation that we the the Trinity is such
19:25
that God is 3 persons. And in order to fully be a
19:30
reflection of the Trinity we need a community of persons
19:32
ourselves. So family basically is a a
19:36
universal thing. Now, with that being said, the
19:38
universal call, I think sometimes so so the second
19:43
general thing is that God's Providence is everywhere.
19:46
Like I, I could say that me dropping my foot right now is a
19:49
soul stomp because in some mysterious way, and of course
19:52
it's not so deterministic, but in some mysterious way, God
19:55
who's outside of time and who one of his transcendental
19:58
characteristics is he is will, he is worth in some sense,
20:01
everything is a beautiful song that God has already written in
20:05
some sense, but the but the mystery is.
20:07
It is such that we can't then determine that, you know, I had
20:10
no agency in this or that God was like moved heaven and earth
20:14
to make me stomp my foot right now.
20:15
So those are two, two layers that have to be said first.
20:17
Now the third layer is that we know from scripture, like in the
20:20
book of Tobit, we know that God specifically calls Tobias and
20:26
Sarah right to each other because Raphael says before time
20:32
began, this woman was was made for you.
20:35
And that's that's his encouragement.
20:36
So that's real. So with that being said, how do
20:38
you reconcile the three? And and Eve was made for Adam,
20:41
yes, and Adam for Eve. Exact.
20:43
That's a good point too. So.
20:44
But here the problem is that in the modern imagination, in our
20:48
moral imagination, we like things to be simple.
20:49
There is or there aren't soul mates.
20:51
Everybody gets it because we, we're so imbued with democracy.
20:54
That has to be everybody gets the same treatment or nobody
20:57
gets it. So when we're talking about soul
21:00
mates, I think that there are compelling examples like I'm out
21:03
of retreat. So seeing the hours we, we do
21:05
retreats. And there was this couple,
21:06
lovely couple from LA. They have 17 children and the
21:10
the mom when she was a little girl, so her Angel constantly
21:15
talked to her 'cause she's an abortion survivor and her Angel,
21:17
Angel told her how to dodge in the womb.
21:19
It's a crazy story. You should interview this woman.
21:21
She's the holiest couple I've ever met.
21:23
This couple, they also loved each other.
21:26
Like in a way that's like kind of weird.
21:29
I say that with the utmost of respect, but they're like 60,
21:32
maybe 70 years old. And just the way that they were
21:34
like holding hands throughout the retreat, I was like, did,
21:37
did these people get married yesterday?
21:39
Like they were so in love with each other.
21:41
And then on the last day of the retreat, I asked them for their
21:43
story. And she, among other crazy
21:44
things, she was like, when I was a little girl, I, I was told I
21:50
had to marry him. I was like, what are you talking
21:51
about? Well, my Angel, the same Angel
21:52
had talked to her whole child that even in utero and she
21:54
remembers it. I, I saw him playing across the
21:57
street as a little boy and I felt this tug and my Angel
22:01
appeared to me and spoke to me with a, with an actual audible
22:04
voice and said, don't worry. That's the man you're going to
22:07
marry. You'll see him again.
22:08
And I didn't see him for years. We, we didn't know each other at
22:10
all. But it turns out he was my like,
22:12
we, we, we met later like college or something.
22:14
We didn't realize that we lived three houses down from each
22:16
other our entire childhood. We didn't know each other at
22:17
all. And then we got married and he
22:19
was the man that as a little boy playing around, I felt this
22:22
draw. My Angel assured me you will
22:24
marry him someday. Don't worry.
22:26
So when you hear stories like that, you're like, OK, soulmates
22:28
have to exist, but for some people.
22:30
The danger of that story, obviously the danger, the beauty
22:32
and the danger is you hear that story and you're like, OK, I
22:35
guess I'm not going to, I'm not going to get married until my
22:37
Angel or the Holy Spirit whispers in my ear.
22:40
That's the one. And you do hear these stories of
22:44
these beautiful couples and like God audibly tells them or they
22:47
just, they know not even through like the knowing sense, but they
22:50
know in the sense of like a supernatural grace Beyond that,
22:54
it could be a voice. It could be some like special
22:56
thing that happens that this is the one.
22:58
And so people who don't have that experience think, well,
23:01
either I can't get married or somethings wrong with me or
23:03
something wrong with my relationship.
23:04
What you're saying is it's all going to be different with all
23:07
different kinds of souls. Yes.
23:09
The journey is going to the personalities, the temperament.
23:11
Background so much by default like the word of Scripture to go
23:14
be free from multiply like God has already spoken to every
23:17
single one of us in the most authentic pure voice without any
23:22
mistake mistakability whatsoever in the scriptures, we already
23:25
all have received our divine revelation.
23:27
Here's another, Here's a hot take to throw on the pile of the
23:30
takes. In a sense, if you don't have
23:32
that, if you don't have your Angel telling you this is the
23:35
one, right? Choosing to marry someone is
23:37
even more romantic in a way without that, because it is
23:41
beautiful to be told by God you go marry this person.
23:43
That's amazing. But if you don't have that,
23:45
there's a beautiful romantic risk and adventure and a
23:47
choosing that goes into you choosing Julia or whoever else
23:51
choosing here that didn't maybe get an audible voice from your
23:52
Cardian Angel to go do it. So I think we're also almost,
23:57
you know, under emphasizing the beauty of free will in choosing
24:00
a spouse and getting to say, getting to say, yes, I want to
24:03
marry you. Absolutely.
24:04
I think that discernment, I think as I work with, you know,
24:08
over the years, I've walked with so many single people and
24:10
through Sacred Spark, we're walking in with even more single
24:12
people. And I feel like it's a lot of
24:14
pressure. Like you said, the black and the
24:16
white, like you either soul mates or not soul mates.
24:18
And this black and white of is this people having to figure
24:22
out, is this my soul mate? A lot of people have that deep
24:25
knowing and some people don't have like, oh, I just saw him
24:28
from across the room and I knew, I just knew.
24:30
And I meet a lot of women and men who get really stressed
24:33
because they say, when does that feeling come?
24:35
When does this revelation happen that I know it's my soul mate.
24:38
But ultimately for everyone, whether they've heard from a
24:41
guardian Angel or not, it is that choosing it is that free
24:44
will choice of walking down the aisle as a woman or walking out,
24:47
you know, to meet her at the end of the aisle on that wedding
24:50
day. You choose to get up and say, I
24:52
am choosing this. Whether you've had a revelation,
24:55
whether you feel like in, you know, this is the best choice
24:59
for us. God is calling us here.
25:01
There's a lot of pressure in the soulmate question and it causes
25:04
singles a lot of stress. And I'm sure a lot of your
25:06
listeners out there are saying I'm in this situation.
25:09
I'm really stressed trying to figure this out and I think the
25:14
stress of that needs to be dissipated a little bit.
25:16
Emily, have you seen that when in some situations people will
25:20
have that revelation and the person's not interested at all
25:24
and they don't get. Married, meaning the person they
25:27
had the revelation about is like I'm not you.
25:29
Know that's why it's a meme in a lot of like you see this on
25:31
Instagram all the time. You know the God told me that
25:34
you're my wife and she's like get away from me.
25:36
That's that's what I'm worried about, because it seems as if we
25:39
operate as if we don't have free will sometimes and we rely on
25:42
everything to be God's will. And then we can manipulate that
25:45
because we'll God ordained this, which is really just my own
25:48
sinful inclinations or whatever my own desire is.
25:50
And then we use that to trump or throw our will into other people
25:54
rather than it actually being the will of God.
25:56
It's not exercising prudence, which is the highest of the
25:58
virtue. Amen.
25:59
And I think it also, I've kind of viewed it as stewardship, be
26:03
it singleness or marriage or dating.
26:05
How am I stewarding this gift? And I think sometimes it's
26:08
really easy to get into that analysis paralysis.
26:11
I mean, for me, I didn't date anyone.
26:13
And this is my first relationship.
26:14
So I didn't date anyone until I was 26.
26:16
And so my mom got married at 21, engaged my dad after two months
26:20
and started going to church together and had four kids right
26:23
away. So for me, I thought, OK, when
26:25
my life wasn't lining up to look like my parents, then I must be
26:28
doing something wrong, then that God must be withholding
26:31
something. But just like Psalm 84 says,
26:33
like no good thing does the Lord withhold from those who walk
26:35
uprightly. And so remembering and learning,
26:37
OK, this is stewardship. How am I stewarding?
26:39
Be it a relationship, dating, marriage, singleness, the way
26:43
that God wants me to. And for me, that ease so much of
26:45
my anxiety and help me just rest in the Lord.
26:48
We're not promised happiness on the side of the veil, like we're
26:51
not promised all these good and wonderful things that other
26:53
people have been given. You know, sometimes that might
26:55
just be a cross that we're called to carry and that
26:58
actually can be for our own salvation.
26:59
We are, we are promised blessedness and that's the
27:02
highest form of happiness. So we yes, but.
27:05
So what that looks like, what that looks like, to your point,
27:08
John, it's like one person's blessedness may not be ours.
27:11
Yeah, exactly. And we have to be careful not to
27:13
envy or to feel despair, because we look at other people's
27:17
blessedness and they look different than ours.
27:18
When when John talks about how not John the Apostle this John?
27:23
Often confused together, I understand.
27:25
So when when John said often times people feel like God told
27:29
them to marry this person and then it doesn't transpire into
27:33
anything. I think that's a symptom of a
27:36
greater problem that most of our we flipped the ordering of
27:41
decision making and of experience of reality from, you
27:45
know, intellect will prudence, discernment down to body down to
27:50
gut, right. And we put the gut at the very
27:53
top and we follow our gut feelings and gut feelings can be
27:57
overwhelming. Really truly.
27:58
I mean, I remember in, in early dating experiences, I thought
28:02
because of a series of, you know, thinking I was reading the
28:05
signs properly, I thought, Oh my gosh, I, I need to marry that
28:08
woman in like 3 months. And it was just like a complete,
28:10
there was nothing, nothing there.
28:12
But I was so overwhelmingly convinced of it.
28:14
And once you're overwhelmingly convinced of something, this is
28:16
how it can happen. You, you feel it in the gut.
28:18
And then you start rearranging these other things to fit that
28:22
original bias that you've created.
28:24
Because the feeling was so strong, the attraction was so
28:26
strong. And now you've been like, like
28:28
in that movie, The number 43 or whatever, where he sees it
28:31
everywhere. Suddenly, suddenly you see, oh,
28:34
yeah. Well, you know, I encountered
28:35
that scripture the other day, so this must be God telling me.
28:38
And Oh my gosh, I saw that girl's name on a tombstone when
28:41
I was at the the cemetery the other day.
28:43
So that must, Oh my gosh, Can you believe it?
28:44
Then you start telling people that and then they're like, wow,
28:46
that's amazing because everybody wants to affirm you and suddenly
28:48
you think. And the girl is like I am not
28:50
interested. In.
28:52
You and so basically the problem is that we've we've reduced our
28:55
discernment like when people hear God telling them something
28:59
often times if it's not with a spiritual director, if it's not
29:01
in the context of a lived like like you said, the man who walks
29:04
uprightly the the the Lord does not withhold any blessing.
29:08
The Walking uprightly piece of it as being our focus and the
29:11
resting in the Lord too. There's often this like
29:14
scattered, like, like what's, what's the word like?
29:18
It's phonetic. Like, yeah, like we, we are very
29:21
this urgency, this urgency. By your passions.
29:25
It's all passion be and and all the symptoms are there.
29:27
It's urgent. We're we're making up reasons to
29:30
align with it. It felt very strong and the
29:32
problem is that in a lot of areas, our faith, not just in
29:35
our discernment of who we're going to marry and a lot of
29:37
areas our faith is about what's going to maximize my feelings so
29:40
that I feel close to God. So my personal relationship
29:42
feels ratified and strong. So I can feel Jesus presence and
29:46
a lot of that actually it might turn out to be just a closed
29:49
box. We're feeling on our feelings,
29:51
and our feelings are feeling each other, and now we're
29:52
feeling feelings. I mean, the heart is deceitful
29:55
above all things. I remember like when I was
29:57
meeting guys, I would kind of feel these butterflies and
30:00
thinking, OK, like this must be the guy that I'm going to date
30:03
and it but it was really just one, I think anxiety and I
30:06
excused. I kind of tricked myself into
30:09
thinking that that was butterflies.
30:10
And also it just emotions are so fleeting.
30:13
I feel happy one day and then sat another day.
30:17
Only God's word is is sustaining.
30:19
And so yeah, I think that just the heart is deceitful.
30:21
Above all things. We we have to remember that when
30:24
evaluating who are we going to date?
30:25
Who are we going to marry? But even like the style of quote
30:28
worship that Americans have made mainstream teaches us to see
30:32
those butterflies as God because it's like we're trying to
30:35
maximize with the music and the smoke and the most beating drums
30:38
and the guitar, which are which are very emotionally driving
30:41
instruments. We're trying to maximize.
30:43
And then people leave those experiences of quote, praise and
30:46
worship. They leave those experience
30:48
feeling like, oh, I felt the Holy Spirit.
30:50
I mean, you felt. You felt.
30:52
Yeah. But the still small voice, not
30:54
sure. Wow, you know.
30:56
Let's speak to Can I speak to the gut?
30:58
Yeah. I feel like I've met more people
31:00
who are married who didn't say I had a gut feeling about this.
31:03
But I feel like you should always listen to if we're
31:06
talking about discernment, the gut feeling that says this is
31:09
wrong, this is not the right thing.
31:11
I feel like when, like you said that the hierarchy of all those
31:14
different kinds of things, we feel the gut, the brain.
31:16
I feel like in the situations where the Lord is speaking to
31:19
you of this is not right, you guys are not aligning on these
31:22
really important things and your gut is saying this is wrong.
31:25
Even if you're engaged right? That that gut, gut feeling, I
31:29
think is not as prominent when the Lord is saying this is the
31:33
person that I'm calling you to. Well, I think your point is
31:35
really important because whether the gut is a in line with
31:40
intellect and like reality or even if it's not, if you're
31:44
going either way, you have to resolve it.
31:46
Either figure out what's not in line with reality or like better
31:49
understand the reality, but you should not move forward.
31:51
I think what you're saying, which I agree with, if you have
31:53
unresolved gut rejection of the of relationship and you're like
31:58
about to marry them, that's not good.
32:00
Like don't, I would say don't do it because there's something
32:03
unresolved there. And maybe what you'll discover
32:06
through counseling and prayer and everything else is, oh, I
32:08
have these wounds. So it's not the relationship,
32:11
it's not the person, it's wounds.
32:12
I have that. And this is how we're going to
32:14
navigate them in the relationship.
32:16
And it's not, it's not prohibiting the the marriage
32:18
necessarily, but this is how we're going to handle that.
32:21
I would say that's less common than actually there's something
32:24
objectively problematic about the union or about what you're
32:27
going into the union with or they're going into the union
32:29
with. But maybe that's a hot take that
32:31
some people. Paul Grimace, did you?
32:32
You like it? You like it, You like it?
32:34
Well, I do You like that? You start so hot of takes.
32:37
Like, all right, kind of drum it up.
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34:25
John, I've got to ask you because you if you're willing to
34:27
share, you know, before the panel, you know, we were
34:31
discussing some relationship histories all together and you
34:34
shared a story. And I think if I don't know if
34:36
you have a that story, John, do you have the story?
34:39
Lila, do you have? The story you want to share in
34:41
the class Hello. Class I was engaged before OK
34:44
and that ended there's actually it's actually not that juicy OK,
34:48
because and this is actually maybe perhaps what I.
34:50
If you think they were a soulmate, I guess I'm.
34:52
So passionate about this because people don't talk about this.
34:55
And when I meet women who have called off their engagement,
34:57
they feel very alone and they feel like they're the only one.
34:59
So I love that you're sharing this.
35:01
It's kind of boring because I think it just speaks to the
35:03
reality of making prudential decisions and realizing that you
35:07
don't have to marry somebody. You don't have to marry
35:09
somebody. So in the course of our
35:11
engagement when we were painting what life is going to look like
35:13
together, we both realized, and maybe this is it's probably the
35:17
fault on me. Before getting engaged, it
35:19
should have been clearer in what life would have looked like
35:21
should we get married. We both came to the realization,
35:24
I don't think we should get married because we this isn't a
35:26
very compatible relationship. She's practicing the faith, a
35:29
very good Catholic, very, very good woman, all of the good
35:33
checklist items that you'd imagine.
35:34
But, you know, I don't think we should get married because I
35:36
don't think that our lives are going to align in a way that
35:38
we're going to have a great home or whatever.
35:40
Meaning you both had different, you were both aligned on
35:43
morality theology. A lot of the big picture things,
35:45
yeah. But in terms of what your
35:47
desires were for your lifestyle and like your household, there
35:50
were these dramatic differences where you thought maybe you
35:54
could have figured it out, but neither of you even had the will
35:56
to figure because that's the best.
35:57
Thing it could have been married.
35:58
Like I could have married. Her you could have figured.
35:59
Out and the grace of the sacrament of matrimony would
36:01
have made it such that we would have had a family and it could
36:03
have worked. Out, but you didn't want it
36:04
enough. Yeah.
36:06
Is that, am I wrong for that? I don't know.
36:07
No, that's not wrong at all. That's actually that's that's
36:09
very telling because if you don't want to go on and on, you
36:13
go. No, you go, Sacred Spark
36:16
founder. Yes.
36:17
What do we have? How?
36:17
Do you sent out save the dates had every had things gone into
36:21
motion because. We couldn't get a date set
36:23
because we were in this. Tension.
36:24
OK. I've seen that before too.
36:27
We're. Like.
36:28
No, I mean, I'm just thinking I won't.
36:29
I won't air their laundry on this show, but I'm thinking of
36:31
some. Just anonymize it.
36:33
Yeah, who like the wedding? The laundry.
36:36
And, and we all thought, you know, well, I guess they need to
36:38
do a new wedding date or something.
36:39
But in, in, in the end, it was just like there wasn't the will,
36:44
There wasn't enough of a spark in the engine to get the engine
36:49
actually. Like started brings.
36:50
Up a lot of like, OK, now what's happening?
36:53
Yeah, there's a difference between saying I'm going to buy
36:55
the car and then driving it off the lot, you know what I'm
36:57
saying? Yes.
36:57
You're going to say something, Emily.
36:59
It's just I want all the listeners and everybody
37:01
listening to know it's never too late until you have made that
37:05
those vows stood in front and consummated, right And
37:08
consummated. Yes.
37:09
No, you're right, You're right. It's not even too.
37:11
Late until they concentrate the marriage.
37:12
It's. You cannot.
37:13
Yeah. That's true.
37:14
I have known couples who they sent out the save the date, save
37:17
the date. They realize this is not the
37:19
right thing. I got a card that says the
37:21
marriage between this person and this person will not take place.
37:24
Wonderful. Why is that wonderful?
37:26
We don't want people marrying each other who are not supposed
37:28
to be marrying each other, who would have a lifetime of strife,
37:31
Yes, the grace of the sacrament, but a lifetime of strife and
37:34
tension. I know people who have called
37:36
off their wedding three weeks before, and I don't know a
37:39
single person who has ended their engagement.
37:41
I don't like talking about broken engagements.
37:43
Nothing is broken. Not marrying a person who you're
37:46
not supposed to marry is a very positive thing.
37:48
It's a very good thing, people who have ended their
37:50
engagements, it's much more common than you think.
37:52
And anybody who has ended an engagement who would sit here, I
37:56
don't know a single person who would say, I wish I hadn't ended
37:58
that engagement. I wish I had pushed through with
38:00
it. 100% of them have said it was such a hard decision and I'm
38:06
so glad I did it. I know a priest.
38:08
He called off his wedding three months before and she is married
38:10
to a wonderful man. She has children.
38:12
He is a wonderful priest. And he says, I'm so glad I did.
38:16
And it's such a taboo topic, I think sometimes, but it's so
38:19
much more common than people realize for people to look at
38:21
each other and say, we do love each other, but this is not the
38:25
right thing. You might disappoint people, you
38:27
might lose a lot of money, but it's way better than down the
38:30
road being like, wow, we should not have pushed through because
38:33
we were afraid. We were never going to find
38:34
anybody else. We were afraid of the cost,
38:36
right? We'd spend $30,000 like oh what
38:38
are people going to think it is not worth it to marry?
38:42
$30,000 is a blip in this. Hold on, I do.
38:45
I do know someone who told me that they regret calling off
38:49
their engagement in their 20s. OK.
38:51
Tell us more. Well.
38:53
This is this is completely anonymized.
38:55
So I might be pulling stories, but the the the facts are true
38:58
in some space or time. Yeah, well, I don't.
39:02
Want to like? That one, but it's interesting
39:04
to hear. Right, but it's just one, it's
39:05
only one. I, there's far more than a
39:07
broken mouth. And we're like, that was the
39:08
right thing to do. Thank God I broke off this
39:10
engagement. So I, I know far more of those
39:12
stories, but I do know this one story and it's a little bit
39:13
haunting because this is a person who called off their
39:16
wedding in their 20s. Looking back on it, they say
39:20
they're still not married. And looking back on it, they say
39:22
it was because of wounds and issues I had in my upbringing
39:25
and things like this. I should have moved forward with
39:27
it. And I wouldn't, you know, but
39:28
God is still working with my life.
39:30
You know, they still put their trust in God.
39:32
But it's a cautionary tale. Like don't be so Willy nilly
39:35
like there is. It is possible to go the extreme
39:37
of, you know, having a standard for your significant other that
39:42
is unfair and coming into the relationship with such
39:45
significant cultural or other wounds or issues that you don't
39:49
see correctly and then you make a wrong decision.
39:51
Something that needs to be said as an overarching thing before
39:53
you truthfully prove us or whatever, is that this entire
39:56
conversation needs to be shrouded over the understanding
40:00
that every single relationship is unique and different, and you
40:03
have to discern these things prudentially based on your
40:05
circumstances in life and your relationship.
40:07
Like to that point. That woman hearing that message
40:09
that Emily just gave, which I think I entirely agree with,
40:11
that 99% of engagements that get broken off, people are probably
40:14
grateful that they did. The woman who didn't experience
40:16
that should realize that, that, that that's, you know, well, I
40:20
don't want to say that to her necessarily, but to the person
40:22
who's in that situation, it might be worth exploring
40:25
continuing the engagement or continuing the relationship.
40:28
It's not as if this is a cold cut and dry, black and white.
40:31
You're always going to, you know.
40:32
No, it might also be she's saying that because she's not
40:34
married yet. And it might be that when she
40:37
gets married, if she marries and she'll be like, thank God I
40:40
didn't get engaged. So that could be a moment of
40:42
weakness or thank God I didn't stay engaged, right?
40:45
Can you talk about the weeks following that decision that you
40:48
both made together, how that was for you to make that choice?
40:52
And then in the weeks following, how did that feel like?
40:54
What was that process like? It's bizarre.
40:57
OK, I, it maybe it sounds uncharitable, I don't know, but
41:01
it was really freeing and I never really regretted it or
41:03
felt like, man, I've got to get back into this.
41:05
It just felt good. Like there's pain in the, in the
41:08
sense that there was something there that was lost, but it
41:11
wasn't that bad. And all I did was continue to
41:13
stay close to the sacraments of the church, keep a good interior
41:16
life and spend time with friends, share that with news,
41:20
with friends. And they were there for me and I
41:21
was coddled by them, helped by them, but like, it wasn't a big
41:26
loss. Yeah, I feel like when you make
41:29
the right choice, no matter how hard it is, when peace follows,
41:31
it's a really strong indicator. I don't know if that'll be the
41:33
case for everybody though. You know, I'm sure it'll be
41:35
quite hard for some people based on the context.
41:37
That's why it's hard to say that that'll be the case for
41:39
everybody or whatnot. Oh yeah, I think it's just your
41:41
individual experience and people who have those experiences, like
41:44
the woman you mentioned, like the priest that I mentioned, all
41:46
so different. That's right.
41:49
Noel, any thoughts? I think, I mean, I haven't
41:54
broken off an engagement and I'm in a new relationship, but one
41:58
thing that I have kind of seen is like God is a God of clarity
42:02
and he is a God of peace. And so when we're in
42:05
relationships that don't align, they can be great people like
42:09
you all mentioned, but they're just not in alignment.
42:12
They're not your teammate to do life and serve God's Kingdom
42:15
with. I think with that comes a lot of
42:17
confusion, a lot of anxiety, and one thing that I've just noticed
42:22
is how much peace there is in a relationship that at least in
42:26
the couples that I've seen that aren't married and my parents
42:28
and other couples, there was so much peace.
42:30
And that doesn't mean that there's not fear and those
42:33
wounds from past or childhood. I'm someone who struggles with
42:37
fear. And so that's something I've had
42:39
to remind myself of. Fear doesn't automatically mean
42:42
you run away from something or that it's bad, but just the
42:46
amount of peace and even if it is breaking off something or
42:49
walking away from something or choosing not to date someone or
42:51
marry them, grief can exist. But also I think peace can exist
42:56
simultaneously. So I want to ask what people's
43:00
processes have been like for their discernment for their
43:03
marriages. We can all old married people
43:05
share. And then what processes you guys
43:07
expect to do in your dating relationships to ascertain
43:12
whether or not you will, in your case, ask the person to marry
43:15
you. And in your case, I don't
43:17
receive that question. And but there will be
43:19
communication with both of these people.
43:20
Of course, you know those decisions are not made
43:22
unilaterally. To meet together position.
43:24
And in position. And what was your process of
43:27
discernment? Like, well, I was gonna ask you
43:28
10 years back, you know, it's funny, by the way.
43:30
And this shows you that there's no right pace as long as you're
43:33
following. As long as you're following.
43:36
I know what you're going to say. Don't.
43:38
Say it and the and the the laws of marriage, it is actually
43:41
quite beautiful to think that we have three couples here and
43:45
somehow we have three kids in 10 years, 3 kids in 7-7 years and
43:50
three kids in three years. That's not as bad as what I
43:52
thought you were going to say, but that's that's good.
43:54
No, but I mean like there, there is no The goal of marriage is
43:58
not to have as many children as possible.
44:00
The goal of marriage is not to find your perfect number of
44:03
children. The goal of marriage is to
44:04
collaborate with your spouse and with the Almighty God into
44:10
creating a vision of the Trinity and its love in a family.
44:14
I thought you were going to say everyone here got married at
44:17
different ages. If that's the story you were
44:19
going. Is that true too?
44:20
Well, course is true. 2026. 26. 3030 and I was 28, so it's
44:27
pretty similar. Pretty similar.
44:28
That's pretty similar. I thought you were younger.
44:30
No, it's 26. I feel like I got married but.
44:32
Interestingly, what you were showing about your parents is
44:34
really I related because my parent, our parents met and
44:38
married at like 2122 and got married within four months, met
44:41
and married within four months and you said met and married
44:43
within two or? Yes, they met and then got
44:46
engaged after two months and they were married that year.
44:48
So yeah, pretty quick. Yeah, that's like a like a thing
44:50
that some people do. So where did you meet your
44:52
Danish beau? He's Dutch, Dutch and Dutch and
44:55
Danish, two different things. That's true.
44:57
That's yeah. All good.
44:59
We, we shared, we were on episode recently with Lila and
45:02
we met when I was speaking out there in the Netherlands.
45:06
So that was in 2013. I think one of the biggest parts
45:10
of our discernment process that really showed we are compatible
45:15
with one another to get married was we made decisions together.
45:18
Well, there were a lot, a lot of decisions that we had to make.
45:23
We went through a visa process, green card process, who's going
45:26
to visit, what are we going to do?
45:27
And we really were really aligned in our decision making.
45:31
The way we made decisions was really compatible with one
45:34
another. And man, I, maybe you guys can
45:37
speak to this in marriage, you make so many decisions together.
45:40
It's exhausting. It's insane on a daily basis how
45:44
many decisions you make. And that was a really strong
45:46
indicator. We talk things through well, we
45:49
make decisions together well. And that was a part of the brain
45:52
of the like, not the heart, gut, emotions, part of the process,
45:55
but that brain level question of can we make decisions together?
45:59
Well, because if we can't, life is going to be really difficult.
46:02
So what was your first interaction with him like?
46:05
Oh goodness. Did he like talk to you after a
46:07
talk? Like hey.
46:08
No, we shared it in the episode. He came to pick a number of us
46:12
up from the airport. He was like part of the
46:14
volunteer team at the event. And then we had talked
46:17
throughout the weekend and then I went home and we he got to
46:21
share his whole side of the story on the episode that we did
46:23
recently. And he sent me a letter saying,
46:26
I just really feel like you're a wonderful woman and I would love
46:29
to just get to know you more. And no, it was a Facebook
46:32
message. God bless.
46:34
I have a question I didn't ask you when we did the interview,
46:36
but you just shared like intellectually what helped kind
46:39
of check boxes of this makes sense in terms of like a
46:42
practical, you know, compatibility is really a
46:44
compatibility because we make decisions well, we flow well.
46:47
But in terms of your experience of falling in love, your
46:50
experience of attraction, had you never had an experience like
46:53
that before or was it? I mean, of course you never had
46:56
but. Was it unique?
46:57
Yeah, how unique was the falling in love experience?
47:00
What about it was unique in those initial stages it.
47:02
Was had you dated someone before?
47:03
Yeah, I had I had had relationships before, but yeah,
47:07
this was unique in the sense of really, I wouldn't say this gut.
47:11
My husband had the gut feeling. He shared that in the episode.
47:14
He goes to his dad and he said, dad, I met the woman I'm going
47:17
to marry. I wasn't like as so much of the
47:20
in the gut. I was more of a brain kind of
47:23
thinking person. But overall, the process was
47:26
really the strong call toward this person, toward Daniel, tore
47:30
this life together in prayer, in an emotion.
47:33
It was just kind of a whole mixture of this drawing the
47:37
Lord, drawing me to him to the idea of our life together.
47:41
And I'm not so much of like an emotional person, but I did feel
47:45
strongly I missed him when I was away from him.
47:47
I wanted to spend time with him. I meet people were like, we
47:50
don't really like spending time together.
47:51
I'm like, OK, then this is not good.
47:53
You need to to part ways. But I we really desire to be
47:57
together on an intellectual and heart level and that helped a
48:00
lot in our discernment. What about you?
48:03
What was your his discernment process like?
48:06
Well, I met and I, I think this is an important note note for
48:09
anybody listening and I think that you'll see this theme in a
48:11
lot of successful marriages is that people included their
48:18
people. You're not marrying as an
48:21
island. It's not two people on a desert
48:23
island of the digital modern world where you are your own
48:26
little profile amongst the sea of profiles.
48:29
It's a very public act that involves the whole body of
48:33
Christ and your family and your the future generations of your
48:37
family. And it has it has huge
48:40
implications on society and accepting that and acknowledging
48:46
that is a first step. My now wife, we met at my best
48:51
friend's birthday party because she is her.
48:54
She is his cousin. So my buddy Sam from high
48:57
school, he it was like his 19th birthday and small group, just
49:05
like a couple friends and Julia and Julia and I really hit it
49:10
off. We had these intellectual
49:11
conversations. I thought that she was really,
49:13
really intelligent and pretty and everything.
49:15
But then as I was leaving, she like knocked on my door and was
49:18
like, Hey, I just wanted to say if you know you're a really
49:22
impressive person, I'd love to like get to know you better.
49:24
She actually kind of made the first like substantial move and
49:26
I was like, really, I'm impressive.
49:28
OK, cool, let's let's go on a date.
49:30
So on that first date, we, we had a great first date, but she
49:34
was heading off, back off to school, off to Wellesley.
49:37
This was January so she was just on her first semester at school
49:42
and she was just home for a couple weeks.
49:44
Anyway, so she we had a first date and that first date I
49:48
brought her back to hang out with my parents.
49:50
My parents loved her. Like even though over the next
49:53
few years, because we actually did that, that first date was
49:57
the first date and then we didn't date for like 3 years.
50:00
I, I ended up moving to Boston and then we reconnected when she
50:03
was a senior graduating. So we went on a first date after
50:06
her first semester and then we went on our second first date in
50:10
her last semester of college. And in between was a whole
50:13
roller coaster of different life experiences and youth and
50:16
whatever. But the in between, I, I can
50:19
remember that throughout the in between both my parents and my
50:22
friends, if there was like a girl, I went on a date with her,
50:24
something to be like, you know, this girl's nice.
50:27
But what about Julia? Like Julia was so cool.
50:30
And I'm not kidding, just again and again and again over these
50:32
years, my people and, and not just my people who always affirm
50:36
me, the people, the friends who always affirm me were just like,
50:38
oh, this new girl's great. Or like, whatever the, the, the
50:40
point I want to emphasize and I like how your husband talked to
50:42
his dad. I was like, This is why I'm
50:44
gonna get married. That that's really important.
50:46
Because if, if you, it's, it's hard to have the check and
50:49
balance of reality. If it's just you and your
50:51
feelings and your perception of God, it's really good to get the
50:56
people in the conversation at the beginning, even there's no
51:00
date. I, I don't know if this is a
51:01
thing that this might be a hot take.
51:03
There's no date too early. Some people are like, well, now
51:05
I want to introduce you to my family because you're legit.
51:07
No, I, I mean, personally it's yeah, I, I think it's a very
51:12
positive thing to bring that that girl, that guy back day
51:15
one. Like, why not?
51:16
Because, well, at least this is me.
51:17
I'm a crazy person who's just like, really and.
51:19
I'm but you were local, my family, but Paul, you were
51:21
local. If someone has to like you're
51:23
not going to like travel them to see your family.
51:24
It has to if it works in certain contexts.
51:27
This, this, this might just be a, a me thing.
51:29
Our family's really, really tight, but like, I, it just felt
51:32
like the natural thing to do. I was, I thought this girl was
51:34
really cool. It'd be like, and I thought to
51:36
myself in, in that first date, you know, I think my parents
51:39
would think you're really cool. Do you want to come back and
51:40
meet them? It was kind of weird in
51:41
retrospect, but I think that that's a that's a good sign.
51:44
If, if you could imagine the person that you're dating
51:47
getting along with your people, that's a good thing.
51:49
Like let's end the whole cultural framework of like the
51:52
worst thing is the in laws, the in laws, like people always
51:55
complain about in laws. And it's like, I can't believe
51:57
I, you know, there's all these jokes.
51:59
It's the butt of a joke. Like there's nothing worse than
52:01
your in laws. I think if we would introduce
52:04
our future spouses early on and just get them all hanging out
52:08
together, fighting it out, duking it out, it's a good thing
52:11
I don't. Know we don't date alone.
52:13
We don't date on islands. You're part of a if you're part
52:16
of a community. This is what I was saying
52:17
earlier by like the idolization of marriages because we don't we
52:20
don't we don't belong to communities as much.
52:21
This area is great. Like, Southern California is
52:23
great because there's so many people.
52:24
There's a lot of people in suburban areas in the middle of
52:27
the country that just aren't in a community.
52:28
Yes, they're dating on islands. Yes, it's just a long.
52:31
And you can't do that. You're not a good, I'm not a
52:33
good arbiter of myself. Like I don't know myself better
52:36
than some other people know me and how my actions affect other
52:39
people. You have to date in community.
52:42
I'll share a brief thing that I want to hear Noel and John share
52:45
about their decision making framework that you're going into
52:47
dating with if you have 1. So for Joe and I, community was
52:50
a big part of it because like 2 of my best friends within
52:53
meeting Joe within like 3 months were like he's the guy Lila.
52:56
Like they just like loved him. And.
53:00
My oldest brother kind of set it up.
53:01
My mother loved like every and what's not to love?
53:04
Like that's the thing. But having universal having
53:07
people, there was only one person, I'm not going to say who
53:10
it is not a family member who who their person there is this
53:14
other person that sent it had some like negative thing, but
53:16
they had never met them so they didn't count.
53:18
But there was almost universal welcome and excitement because
53:22
it was it just made so much sense and it was so good.
53:24
And then there was all of the emotion and the attraction and
53:26
all of the things you would want.
53:28
But the decision making framework that was given to me
53:30
by a very wise priest shout out Father Paul Donlan.
53:32
The best was it starts in the heart.
53:36
It goes. You run it through the head, you
53:38
run through the math, you run through the discernment, you
53:41
talk to the friends and the wise counsellors.
53:43
You think it through. So it's for some people it might
53:46
even start in the head and go to the heart, but typically starts
53:48
in the heart with attraction. Actually does not resolve where
53:52
decision making starts. Sometimes it's the intellect,
53:54
sometimes it's the will. Well, that's a great point.
53:57
So whether it's the head or the heart, either way you bump it to
54:00
the head. You need to use your intellect,
54:01
you need to think it through, you need to be thoughtful, you
54:04
use your discernment and then you go back to the heart again.
54:07
And the heart is ultimately the source of the the movement of
54:10
the will. Like does your will really want
54:12
this? Right.
54:13
And if you really want it, then you choose it.
54:15
If you don't really want it because you could also start in
54:17
the heart, go to the head. It all checks out.
54:19
And then, you know, maybe didn't all check out in your case
54:21
actually. So I shouldn't say that.
54:22
But let's just say theoretically it could start in the heart.
54:24
You're attracted, goes ahead. Yeah, they make a great, great
54:26
person like this could all work. And they're like, I don't really
54:28
want it. I don't really want it.
54:31
And then it's not doesn't work. So it has to start heart to head
54:34
to heart. And if you got a yes from all of
54:37
thumbs up, go for it. For things to flower in the soil
54:40
of your heart. You also are a creature who is
54:45
made in the image of the transcendent.
54:46
You're made in the image of God. You need timelessness, space and
54:50
quiet. I fear for anybody to discern
54:54
anything in this day and age because of the social media
54:57
addictions, etcetera. Especially since so much of
54:59
social media is self gazing. Like we see images of our self
55:03
everywhere. I think every time that that
55:05
happens, you probably need a weak reset of silence in order
55:07
to figure out what you actually want.
55:09
Like to to discern even what you as a creature want, you need to
55:12
have silence. With Julia, my silence.
55:18
It was so funny because I spent Julie and I then dated for like
55:21
4 years before we got married and we broke up a couple times.
55:24
And by the way, it's OK to break up also.
55:27
And it's OK then to get back together.
55:29
If there's no like serious impediment to why you broke up,
55:32
like if the person is an axe murderer, then you break up,
55:35
then don't get back together with the axe murderer.
55:36
But like Julia and I, each time we broke up, we also did a very
55:41
clean break. No communication.
55:42
No, we, we like. And then it was, you know, I
55:45
think the first time, maybe it was a month and I said, do you
55:48
want to talk or she said you want to talk.
55:50
And it's like, you know, I think we're actually Better Together.
55:52
This was like very clarifying the, the, the time away.
55:55
It's, it's OK. I think we're so afraid of like
55:59
rejection that we're afraid to break off engagements.
56:02
We're afraid like, and we're ourselves afraid to be rejected.
56:05
There's, there's a lot of things going on there, but it's OK
56:07
sometimes to break up, to take a break.
56:10
Now the the final time that happened, we thought it was
56:13
going to be forever. I was not sure what I wanted.
56:17
And part of that was you thought maybe you were going to be a
56:18
priest. I thought maybe I was called to
56:20
the priest that. Was still hanging over your
56:21
head, which is a big question. I, I took a few, I took a few
56:27
breaks of silence. I went on an 8 day silent
56:29
retreat, thought I would get the answer.
56:31
But the problem is that I thought if I do this, I'm going
56:33
to get the answer, which is also something you need to not Our
56:37
hearts are very like. Like you said earlier, there's
56:39
nothing more more deceitful or what is what is the.
56:41
Heart is deceitful above all proverbs, yes.
56:44
Proverbs So the the the beautiful thing that happened.
56:47
I finally had my breakthrough and I really firmly believe in
56:50
this. It's not just about retreat.
56:52
I think retreats are dangerous. Hot take to all my Catholic
56:56
friends out there, especially we, we go on a lot of we, we run
57:00
the antidote retreats to the danger.
57:02
The danger is that in a brain that has been filled so much
57:06
with social media and random bits of nonsense to then enter
57:10
silence. I'm sorry.
57:11
The only thing that's going to percolate in there is all the
57:13
nonsense. If you sit in silence after, if,
57:16
if you go from 0 from 100 to 0 of like all kinds of social
57:20
media and film and tik toks and junk, you're going to synthesize
57:24
the junk in the silence. You need to feed yourself with
57:27
good food and that's why, say, Teresa of Avila said it's
57:30
foolish to go to spiritual, it's foolish to go to prayer without
57:34
having a good spiritual book or the Gospels or.
57:37
Scripture, She also says don't do any more than an hour a day
57:39
of silent prayer. She's the mother in of all
57:42
contemplative prayer, she said. Then Satan enters into the
57:44
silence like you, you it. We do need silence.
57:48
We do need it, but we also need directed silence because silence
57:51
in, in its own, on its own is not going to solve all our
57:53
problems. It is 90% of what's necessary.
57:57
So the first few times I went on these silent retreats and I sat
58:00
there thinking the Lord was speaking to me, going around in
58:03
circles, writing down and praying and reading a book.
58:06
And it wasn't, it was somewhat directed.
58:08
But anyway, the success, the breakthrough happened.
58:11
We we, we broke up and then I went on a pilgrimage.
58:16
And that's next level because now you're moving and the
58:19
physical, we're not just brains in a box.
58:23
We are not brains in a box. We are our bodies.
58:28
You are your body. You are your soul, but your body
58:31
is you and your body needs to be part of that process.
58:34
And so I walked in the woods of upstate New York on a walking
58:37
pilgrimage to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs for a
58:39
week. We walked like 20 miles a day or
58:41
something crazy. I ended up walking way behind
58:44
because I hurt my foot. I was wearing like dress shoes
58:46
or something. I don't remember what happened.
58:48
The priest carried me on his back for a little bit of it,
58:49
which is super embarrassing. Long story there.
58:52
Don't want to get into it. Yeah, this priest is a tank.
58:55
But anyway, I literally it was Father Michael Zimmerman.
58:57
The guy was AD 1. He was the captain of the track
59:00
team and he didn't make. Father Eric, do that.
59:01
No, but anyway. He could have done it.
59:04
It was a hard pilgrimage for my poor feet.
59:06
But that meant since I was fathers, since I was, yes, since
59:09
I was so behind the other people, I ended up walking in
59:12
the woods alone for a lot of it. And at the time I was, I was
59:14
already doing all the Liturgy of the Hours.
59:16
So I'm singing the Psalms in the woods by myself.
59:19
And then really things started to open up for me like I kid you
59:24
not with with the psalms I I encountered a few times it
59:26
happens often times in daytime prayer.
59:28
The Psalm your wife like a fruitful vine in the heart of
59:31
your home, your children, it's fruit of the olives around your
59:33
table. Indeed.
59:34
Thus will be blessed the man who fears the Lord.
59:36
You know, Psalm 128, the man who fears the Lord and these Psalms
59:39
as you pray them and as you're walking and moving and sweating
59:42
and you're in pain, you're you're no longer hooked up to
59:44
the the IV of social media in this ultra comfort that we all
59:48
have with your AC and your comfortable bed and your sleep
59:51
meter that tells you how you slept and your coffee get a
59:54
little uncomfortable. You need to be uncomfortable.
59:57
You need to fast like like he said, some problems can only be
59:59
solved by prayer and fasting. The fasting you need to be
1:00:02
uncomfortable to discern. So go out there, walk in the
1:00:04
woods and pray and pray aloud to the Lord with his words.
1:00:08
I'm praying the Psalms. This is all God's word.
1:00:10
I know there's not any distractions happening.
1:00:12
And then everything opened up for me like in a really profound
1:00:15
way that by the end of it, I was so certain in, in, in a very
1:00:19
well ordered like from the intellect down to my sore feet.
1:00:23
I was from my entire body. I was very clear on what, on how
1:00:27
much an idiot I was being and how sluggish my spirit was.
1:00:31
Because that's what happens is social media and all of our
1:00:33
comfort makes you sluggish. And then you think you, you get
1:00:36
these blips of enthusiasm you follow and then the plant dies
1:00:39
in in the soil of your heart and you never figure out what you
1:00:43
want because what you want in the deepest soil of your heart
1:00:46
God did put there. God did make you for something
1:00:49
for sure. And but that you, you never get
1:00:52
to that deep soil when you have so much noise, so many weeds,
1:00:55
just you're, you are taking seeds.
1:00:57
Every time you, you, you doom scroll, you're taking seeds of
1:00:59
weeds and dumping them over the fertile soil and they're just
1:01:02
growing and thorns are growing and growing and growing.
1:01:04
And then occasionally a little flower breaks through.
1:01:06
You're like, oh, that must be it.
1:01:07
But no, that flower is just the tip of a iceberg of beauty that
1:01:10
God has put in your heart, which you're never going to get to.
1:01:13
So I walked in the woods, and I called Julia.
1:01:15
From the woods. Once I had my phone back because
1:01:17
also there's no reception the whole time.
1:01:19
So I was also like totally phone free.
1:01:20
I was just in the woods praying to the Lord.
1:01:22
And then on the last day when when we were done with the
1:01:24
pilgrimage, I was in a field by myself and I called her and was
1:01:27
like, I know we're not dating. I know you never want to speak
1:01:29
to me again, but if it's all the same to you, I would really like
1:01:33
to marry you. It was the wrong time to
1:01:35
propose. Don't do it that way.
1:01:37
But I literally just because at that point I had such clarity.
1:01:39
I'd already dated her for, for four years.
1:01:40
I had all the information about her and she was amazing.
1:01:43
She's the most amazing woman I've ever met.
1:01:44
And in that moment, I sorted out all the meat problems because I,
1:01:47
I was in my body for a week and we're, and we're always so far
1:01:51
out of our body. We are, we are in the digital
1:01:53
sphere on an island. And so pilgrimage is important.
1:01:56
And I was with the priest the whole time.
1:01:57
Any question I had, I talked to him.
1:01:59
So there was community too. I had these like 7 other people
1:02:01
with me on this pilgrimage. So I had an intense encounter
1:02:03
with the Lord in community, in pilgrimage.
1:02:06
There was a family reunion, my parents celebrating 40 years of
1:02:09
marriage. We booked this Airbnb up in Napa
1:02:11
that could fit the whole extended family and all like 20
1:02:13
plus grandchildren at the time. This was like, you know, 3 or 4
1:02:16
years ago. And it was like a week before
1:02:17
my. Walk and it was a week before
1:02:18
your walk in the park privilege. And we were all there.
1:02:20
I was there with my beautiful husband and my our two beautiful
1:02:22
kids at the time, you know, all of the spouses, everyone's
1:02:25
married except for one sister at this time, Nina, who's now
1:02:29
married. And then Paul was not married
1:02:31
and we're all like singing karaoke right at like 9:00 PM at
1:02:34
night or 10, whatever time. And we're all hanging out and
1:02:38
we're all with our spouses. And Paul's not with any spouse.
1:02:41
And you can just see like he's like, he's like a lost, lost
1:02:46
person. He's.
1:02:47
Like, yeah, I sing. She's out of my life.
1:02:48
Yeah. So, so he starts, so she's.
1:02:50
Out of my. Life he starts singing and.
1:02:53
And. I mean, that was almost as.
1:02:59
Deep. Inside.
1:03:01
And it cuts like a knife. She's.
1:03:03
Out of mine and we all knew it was about Julia.
1:03:06
It was about Julia and you, you needed your retreat.
1:03:09
You needed the the woods and the Lord and the Psalms.
1:03:12
But like it was it was there and we all saw it and I saw it.
1:03:14
I was like, guys, just just got a very Julia, you know, the
1:03:17
priesthood is not for this young man like he's been.
1:03:19
He wasn't in my soil. I I wasn't even with the
1:03:23
priesthood. The priesthood is a noble thing.
1:03:25
And, you know, we are all called to serve the Lord.
1:03:30
We're all called to fatherhood, motherhood.
1:03:32
And there were parts of the soil of my heart which absolutely
1:03:35
align with the priesthood. And but, you know, it's really
1:03:39
beautiful. One of my dearest friends is a
1:03:42
Catholic priest, and he also was the vocations director of
1:03:44
Boston. And he said that same summer he
1:03:46
was like, listen, Paul, you know, I shouldn't be saying this
1:03:50
because my job is to get recruits to the priesthood.
1:03:52
And you're a very holy young man, but it's not for you.
1:03:56
And he said because you, you wouldn't make it through
1:03:58
formation. You would disagree with all the
1:04:00
things your, your professors say.
1:04:02
You, you would you're you're, you're too much of A, of a, of a
1:04:05
singular personality. And I think you should just go
1:04:10
get married. Did.
1:04:10
You say marry Julia. I think he did, yeah.
1:04:12
Because at the time, but, but basically that was very free
1:04:14
too. So like, you know, if if you
1:04:17
have good counselors too, that's important.
1:04:19
So good counsel. My family was already there.
1:04:21
Like my family was super. I mean, they were like, where's
1:04:24
Julia? Oh no.
1:04:26
That's the thing, we're all at the the Family 40th reunion and
1:04:29
we're all like, where's Julia? Yeah, nothing like siblings.
1:04:32
But it wasn't until I went in the woods.
1:04:34
So I'm telling you, go on pilgrimage and and throw your
1:04:37
phone away. I mean, it's so much pollute,
1:04:39
there's so much pollution, we don't even see it.
1:04:41
All right, so Noel and John, now that the wise merits in the room
1:04:47
have given you every advice you could ever dream of.
1:04:49
Now just kidding. But anyways, what was what is
1:04:53
your decision making framework that you're entering your
1:04:55
relationships with I really to discern marriage.
1:04:58
I really like what how you were talking about like the soil and
1:05:00
distractions, because I think it's really easy to compare our
1:05:03
relationships to other relationships on social media.
1:05:06
And I heard a quote that said, like, it's impossible to have
1:05:08
the mind of Christ when all you do is fill it with the world.
1:05:11
And it's so easy to do just with social media and different
1:05:13
people's opinions. And Proverbs says in an
1:05:16
abundance of counselors, there is wisdom.
1:05:18
Like you will not fail with an abundance of counselors.
1:05:20
And so for me, the night after or the morning we're talking in
1:05:25
the the morning I found out that the guy I'm dating now was
1:05:29
interested in pursuing a relationship with me.
1:05:30
I talked to my dad. He was like the first person I
1:05:32
talked to you. We weren't even official at this
1:05:34
point. And I was like, dad, this is
1:05:36
exactly what he said. This is exactly how it happened.
1:05:40
And I just was an open book with him.
1:05:42
And I was like, what are your thoughts?
1:05:43
And my dad had never really liked any of the guys that had
1:05:48
asked me out. And with him, he was just listed
1:05:52
out a few things. And my dad was able to speak so
1:05:55
much clarity into the situation that I didn't even notice.
1:05:59
And I also think just him being, you know, the shepherd of our
1:06:02
home and the leader of our home and my protector and my father,
1:06:05
like getting in his input and his words of wisdom, being a
1:06:09
married man for 30 years, like it just meant so much and also
1:06:13
provided so much clarity, excitement, girl.
1:06:14
And I can be very emotional. And so to get that fatherly
1:06:17
perspective was so helpful because for me, honestly, it
1:06:20
didn't start in my heart. It started kind of in my head
1:06:22
and then went to my heart. The more I got to know my
1:06:24
boyfriend because we were friends for two years prior.
1:06:28
And so we were both talking to other people.
1:06:30
He was in a different relationship.
1:06:32
And I never really would have thought there was no romantic
1:06:35
interest at all. He was a great friend.
1:06:38
But I just had this image in my head of what I wanted in a
1:06:41
spouse and what I was looking for.
1:06:43
And I had even previously kind of like this other guy, He was
1:06:48
older than me. He we were kind of both nerds
1:06:50
and very similar. But with my boyfriend, we're
1:06:53
very different, similar in the right way of like values and
1:06:56
morals and conviction, but not what I would have thought and
1:07:00
was in front of me for two years.
1:07:02
But I say all of that we we've met with married couples a lot,
1:07:07
still have our single friends, but we go to dinners with
1:07:09
married couples once a week. We spend time with this married
1:07:11
couple and so really inviting them in and letting them speak.
1:07:16
I really, really value their opinion.
1:07:17
And I think it's just a proverb says in an abundance of
1:07:20
counselors, there's wisdom. So really letting them speak
1:07:22
into our lives. How are you guys?
1:07:24
Like, do you talk openly about like a discernment processor
1:07:28
plan or is it more like we're just going to get to know each
1:07:30
other more in this new way because you're already good
1:07:33
friends and kind of see where it goes?
1:07:35
Yeah. So for me, so we were, so we
1:07:38
were hanging out just as friends.
1:07:40
He was, he's a photographer. So he took some photos of me and
1:07:44
we were just texting. He's from Illinois.
1:07:47
And so we were talking on the phone that night.
1:07:49
And for me, I'd kind of got the roundabout from so many guys
1:07:51
prior. We just talked and it never goes
1:07:53
anywhere. And so I kind of just asked him
1:07:56
like, hey, is there some sort of interest?
1:07:58
And he was like, yeah. And I started to get a little
1:08:01
worried. He's like, let me just call you
1:08:02
because I already know how you are as a person because I've
1:08:04
been friends with you. So let me just call you and call
1:08:05
me. And I was like, hey, OK, this is
1:08:07
my plan. I want to date you.
1:08:08
I want to pursue marriage in our dating.
1:08:11
This is what I would like to do. But you take all the time you
1:08:13
need. You don't have to make a
1:08:14
decision right now. And even if you don't like me,
1:08:16
just think it over, talk to your parents.
1:08:19
And we'll revisit once I come back from like Illinois.
1:08:22
And so for me, that was just so helpful, just giving me that
1:08:26
space to kind of think about it and then talking with my dad and
1:08:30
then deciding to to date from there.
1:08:32
And so for us, it was super intentional.
1:08:36
I kind of that night he told me he liked me.
1:08:38
I don't know if this is the best advice, but that night he told
1:08:41
me he liked me. I told him these are all of the
1:08:43
things that I want in a marriage, all the things I want
1:08:45
in life. These are how many kids I want.
1:08:47
This is. And obviously the Lord can
1:08:48
change that. And maybe that's just me being
1:08:50
prideful and need to grow, but I just laid out like the desires
1:08:55
that I had and the desires that the Lord's given me and was
1:08:58
like, OK, or what? How do you feel about that?
1:09:01
Or is this something you're in line with or something that you
1:09:03
would be open to exploring? And his response, I was
1:09:06
expecting to scare him away because I didn't want to lose my
1:09:08
friend. So it's super apprehensive to
1:09:10
enter into a relationship with a close friend.
1:09:12
But his response was that all sounds great.
1:09:14
That's actually really in line with what I want to do.
1:09:17
And as we kind of just jumped off the deep end into deep
1:09:20
conversations, and I think that's part of being friends
1:09:23
first. But for me, I just really feel
1:09:26
strongly about dating with the intention to marry.
1:09:29
And I don't really want to waste time.
1:09:31
I'd rather have really hard conversations.
1:09:33
And if we're not supposed to work out, then let's end it
1:09:35
sooner than later. That way we kind of mitigate the
1:09:38
amount of wounds that we both have so.
1:09:41
I love it, thank you for sharing.
1:09:44
I just love the Church and that's what I want to do is
1:09:47
model my dating life off of being Catholic because it's just
1:09:51
the Church has everything that we need it to.
1:09:54
It supplies us with everything that we need to live a good and
1:09:56
ordered life and discern things well.
1:09:58
So what do I mean by that? My utmost priority is that I'm
1:10:02
in a state of grace and keeping a strong interior life and
1:10:05
praying a ton and that the person that I'm dating is doing
1:10:08
the same thing. If that's the case, you have the
1:10:11
whole court of heavenly angels and Saints interceding for you,
1:10:14
your guardian Angel guiding you and the Church.
1:10:17
You're under her protection sacramentally.
1:10:21
Everything in that process of discernment just becomes really
1:10:23
easy when that's the way that you're living.
1:10:26
So much so that the Catholic worldview already answers all
1:10:29
the questions that the dating world has to kind of give you in
1:10:31
regards to family life, in regards to how you want to
1:10:33
Orient your household, in regards to how you're going to
1:10:36
be intimate with each other. It just answers all of these
1:10:38
things for you. So that if you find somebody,
1:10:39
and that's what that was my intention, just find somebody
1:10:41
who loves the Church and loves our Lord, all those questions
1:10:45
will be answered in such a way that the only thing that you
1:10:48
need to then focus on is compatibility.
1:10:50
And that kind of like what you were saying, Lila, like the
1:10:52
will. Is this something that I
1:10:54
foresee? Because I'd like, I just really
1:10:56
desire it. And our house and our home will
1:10:59
be a good life in that regard. Like we we we share a similar
1:11:01
view of how to raise children and live our lives.
1:11:05
Is that too easy of an answer or like?
1:11:06
Do you do like pre, is there premarital counseling within the
1:11:09
Catholic Church? For us, We do premarital, OK.
1:11:11
So yeah, we do like premarital counseling.
1:11:12
And I feel like that's super helpful too, to kind of like
1:11:15
flush out those really hard questions.
1:11:17
The thing that I, I, I think that's both of your answers are
1:11:19
so beautiful. And I, I, I think in terms of
1:11:22
the compatibility question, that's where there's so much
1:11:25
subjectivity, right? Like what does it mean to be?
1:11:27
I think you have high of standards.
1:11:30
I don't know. I think you've said that before
1:11:32
too, Lila. Well, let's, let's do a round on
1:11:34
that. What does it mean to be
1:11:35
compatible? Do people have too high or too
1:11:37
low standards? I know you have a lot of
1:11:38
thoughts on this, Emily. Yeah, I think that we can really
1:11:43
overthink compatibility to really just split hairs and be
1:11:47
like, are we compatible here? My husband and I are very
1:11:50
complimentary to one another. He I don't really like putting
1:11:54
labels on people, but he's very Type A.
1:11:55
If we're looking at the labels, you know, the world puts on
1:11:58
people. I'm a creative, I'm all over the
1:12:00
place. I'm thinking about how, you
1:12:01
know, I can help women and change the world.
1:12:03
And so this complementarity for the compatibility.
1:12:06
Some people would say opposites attract and you should really
1:12:09
marry someone who's not like you.
1:12:11
But then I meet couples, they're very similar.
1:12:14
They're, you know, I'm, there's one, you know, well known person
1:12:18
in the Catholic speaking world and I know him and he's very.
1:12:22
Just name him. I will not name him.
1:12:24
He's very, like, intense. He's very open.
1:12:27
He's very, you know, extroverted.
1:12:29
And so I thought his wife would be like this quieter woman, like
1:12:32
more contemplative, introverted. And then went on a women's
1:12:35
retreat. And then we were in this big
1:12:36
house, and I hear this, this person running down the hallway,
1:12:40
and she comes into this bed, the bedroom where all the girls are
1:12:42
hanging out before the retreat. She flies onto the bed like a
1:12:45
flying squirrel and someone said that this is this persons wife.
1:12:48
I thought, Oh my goodness, they're so similar.
1:12:52
I thought she would be completely opposite
1:12:54
complimentary, but both of them are very similar.
1:12:57
And really it's amazing that it's a couple by couple thing.
1:13:00
You you said that long time ago that it's such an individual
1:13:04
thing of saying, do I want to marry someone who is the
1:13:06
opposite of me or do I want to marry someone who's a lot like
1:13:09
me? I also meet people who they
1:13:11
break up with someone. I'm like, why did you break up?
1:13:13
And they say I felt like I was dating myself.
1:13:16
We were so similar that it just wasn't working.
1:13:18
So my husband and I are very compliment complimentary in the
1:13:21
compatibility department, which works for some people and
1:13:24
totally wouldn't work for other people because in that we drive
1:13:27
each other insane because we're so different.
1:13:30
But it's one of our strengths at the exact same time.
1:13:32
And it's hard to kind of, you know, flush that out.
1:13:35
People who live that experience would know what I mean.
1:13:37
But it's really up to in the we're, if we're looking at the
1:13:40
will, it's up to you to decide when the rubber meets the road.
1:13:44
Something I forgot to mention along those lines is that along
1:13:47
the lines of discerning that compatibility is I listed and I
1:13:50
still tend to do this. All of the faults which I have
1:13:52
that I determine I feel like I have in my life.
1:13:54
And then all of the things that I think that this woman is
1:13:57
really good at and all the faults that I think she has.
1:13:58
And then I say to be like, can I, am I OK to marry her as she
1:14:03
is now assuming that like these things don't change, or perhaps
1:14:07
also seeing what things could possibly change in my own heart,
1:14:10
what things could change too? And saying, could I marry this
1:14:12
person as they are? And could our faults work with
1:14:15
each other? Because I feel like at the end
1:14:16
of the day, it's just can you resolve conflict together and
1:14:19
handle issues together well? And if that's you know, there
1:14:22
and you have and you like the person, am I simplifying it too
1:14:25
much? No, you're.
1:14:25
Doing great, John. This is good stuff.
1:14:27
I think it's great. I actually that's so that's I I
1:14:30
think that's very fun. It's maybe a a dark word to use
1:14:34
for that, but making the faultless for yourself and the
1:14:37
person you're considering, you know, marrying.
1:14:39
But there's there's a beauty to it because you're going into it
1:14:42
with this full eyes wide open of this is who we are.
1:14:45
And this is obviously it sounds like it's a a shared project
1:14:47
that you guys are doing together in a conversation you're having
1:14:49
and the. Prerequisite for marriage.
1:14:50
You have to know the person. You have to know you.
1:14:52
Yes. And you have to you have to
1:14:55
commit to them for life. Like imagining that they would
1:14:58
never change. Yes, or it could get so many
1:15:00
people. Yes, so many people marry
1:15:02
potential. They imagine someone could be
1:15:04
this. Three years in, you have to
1:15:06
stand on that altar and say if this person never changes from
1:15:09
this, I'm OK. With my mother.
1:15:11
If this person violently changes their personality, I'm also.
1:15:14
In I'll still stand. Well, and that would work.
1:15:17
What? Is it like my personality has
1:15:19
violently changed ever since? Well, it doesn't mean that
1:15:22
people won't change, but I'm talking about that marrying
1:15:24
potential, marrying what you hope they will become is not
1:15:28
what? Is it, what is it that mom would
1:15:30
say? I I I'm trying to remember now.
1:15:32
Thank. She never said this when I was
1:15:34
dating Joe because I think she was just like locked in.
1:15:36
It was like, but this was previous exes.
1:15:38
But she would say something like, oh, that's an issue like
1:15:41
this problem in the relationship.
1:15:43
It's just going to get worse when you're married.
1:15:44
Like, you know, that was that. I don't remember how she had
1:15:47
this funny way of saying it, but basically, like, yeah, take the
1:15:50
issue in the relationship and imagine it 10 times worse, 100
1:15:53
times worse. You still want to marry them.
1:15:56
What about Sacramento graces? I mean, the graces are real.
1:15:59
But this idea that I'm going to go into the marriage and pretend
1:16:02
like things are going to be easy with things that are already
1:16:06
things to sort through is actually a fool's errand.
1:16:08
Like, that is not fair to the person.
1:16:09
It's not fair to yourself. And that doesn't mean you
1:16:11
shouldn't marry, but it does mean go into it with the eyes
1:16:13
wide open. And we are two sinners before
1:16:16
God, doing this in to hopefully be sanctified.
1:16:19
One thing to encourage our not yet marrieds is to be OK.
1:16:24
That and to meditate on how you guys are a loading Please wait
1:16:30
just in terms of personality. Like I didn't realize I was a
1:16:33
loading Please wait and wasn't even marriage that like
1:16:37
drastically changed my personality or even my fabric of
1:16:40
reality. The real cataclysmic change that
1:16:43
nobody can ever describe to you. But once you experience it, your
1:16:47
memories become foggy. Before this event.
1:16:50
I can't imagine the world without my daughter Carmela.
1:16:52
So when you have that. First kid?
1:16:55
Well. No, I'm saying.
1:16:56
The first kid and my goddaughter.
1:16:58
When? You become a father.
1:17:00
When you become a father, that ontological change is actually
1:17:04
is actually more permanent than marriage because like your
1:17:06
spouse can die and then then you can get remarried.
1:17:09
And you might not marry and they're still alive.
1:17:10
It doesn't like change the existential reality when you get
1:17:13
married and create new souls, God Co create with you this new
1:17:16
human life. You are creating a new reality
1:17:18
and in. A certain sense that bond is
1:17:20
even more eternal. Like God never says there's no
1:17:22
children in heaven. He says that the marriage is not
1:17:25
the same in heaven. But I think that your children
1:17:26
will they're they're they're in terms of the order of being.
1:17:30
Your children will always be your children no matter what.
1:17:32
There has been an ontological change where your flesh is is
1:17:36
immutably even if they die, that that soul is what you
1:17:41
collaborated with God to create forever.
1:17:44
I need to can I just quickly interject something?
1:17:46
Don't lose the thought of what you were going to say to about
1:17:48
the personality changes. But on the topic of marriage not
1:17:52
being in heaven, right, Scripture tells us we're not
1:17:54
married in heaven. We're married on earth and
1:17:57
marriage is this preparation for heaven.
1:17:59
But in heaven, there's no marriage in heaven because you
1:18:02
have a singular, you have this like beyond our imagination or
1:18:06
comprehension, unity with God and with all of the communion of
1:18:09
Saints and the angels and that and that includes your marriage.
1:18:14
So it's not like in heaven, you won't know Daniel, in heaven, I
1:18:16
won't know Joe in heaven, you won't know Julia in heaven.
1:18:19
We will be even more united with them than we could be on this
1:18:22
earth. And I think, and that's the
1:18:23
beautiful hope of, it's not like I lose this connection I have
1:18:25
with my beloved. It's actually in heaven.
1:18:27
It's more perfect, perfected. And now we get to share this
1:18:30
perfected union with all of the angels, Saints, and I.
1:18:33
Think Christ is drawing further attention to the fact that
1:18:35
heaven is a marriage? Yes, it's.
1:18:37
The wedding. The ultimate marriage, yes.
1:18:39
And so all other marriages, I think when he says there's no
1:18:41
marriage in heaven, there's a certain sense in which
1:18:44
mystically, and I, I can't describe this because I'm not
1:18:47
there, but all marriages will be subsumed into that mystery in a
1:18:51
way that I don't think destroys them.
1:18:54
Like that's, that's the thing where Eastern religions differ
1:18:57
from Christianity is that like you're a transcendence, you're
1:19:00
losing yourself, you're overcoming yourself.
1:19:02
You kind of like enter into the oneness of I'm, I know I'm
1:19:06
simplifying the theology here, but you enter in and then you
1:19:08
kind of like vanish into your, your ego.
1:19:11
You're trying to transcend ego. But in Christianity, our
1:19:14
transcendence is it we, we actually still remain, but we
1:19:19
remain with Christ and glory, which is an audacious thing to
1:19:24
to claim. But when you have a child, Oh my
1:19:27
goodness, I mean, I can't I can't imagine the universe
1:19:32
without. I don't even know what my being
1:19:34
was like when Carmela didn't exist.
1:19:36
Like it becomes an in a very integral part of your nature,
1:19:40
your your kids. Like one way that I was warned
1:19:44
that it would be. And it makes perfect sense is
1:19:45
the best way I can describe it. Maybe, maybe Lyle and Emily can
1:19:49
agree or disagree, but I'm in this interview right now and
1:19:53
there is an invisible thread which right now is 350 miles
1:19:56
long give or take, that is permanently connected in my
1:20:00
mind. I can never forget in my
1:20:04
subconscious, no matter what I'm doing, my 2 babies and even my
1:20:08
child in the womb, my son, there are these.
1:20:10
Threads that are. Permanently you could be when I
1:20:12
was in Europe on our pilgrimage in November.
1:20:15
There's the constant awareness of your children and it's like
1:20:18
this invisible threat. And for the mother, when I'm
1:20:20
away from them for too long, it gets physically painful.
1:20:22
Like literally I get physically uncomfortable and I need to get
1:20:26
back to them. And maybe some marriages you
1:20:28
feel that same intensity for your spouse, but personally,
1:20:32
there's a new level of just like insane attentiveness to your
1:20:37
children. And part of the two edged sort
1:20:39
of that is you have to make the decision to keep your spouse 1st
1:20:43
and to love your spouse first. But in terms of you mentioned
1:20:46
earlier, like we, we want to raise kids the same way.
1:20:49
You are going to have an ongoing discussion once that kid is like
1:20:53
pooping where they shouldn't. And I mean, there's so many
1:20:55
things that no matter what you discuss now, you're not going to
1:20:58
be prepared. And then the decision making,
1:21:00
all the little decisions like this is our big struggle right
1:21:03
now. I cannot help myself but give my
1:21:05
daughter a cookie. I can't.
1:21:07
When Carmela in the morning, she makes my coffee.
1:21:09
She's a rose weakness, you know, I'm going to say.
1:21:11
The espresso machine. She's like why are they eating?
1:21:14
Just say no. And I'm like, but they're so
1:21:16
cute. My daughter Carmela, she's not
1:21:18
even 2. She makes my espresso and then
1:21:20
she says cookie. I'm like, of course.
1:21:23
And then she says 2 cookies. I'm like.
1:21:25
And then Julia comes in. She's like, Carmela doesn't want
1:21:27
to eat her eggs. What's going on?
1:21:28
I'm like, I gave her two cookies and Carmela's like, she's eating
1:21:31
the cookies and like, and I need to figure this out because I
1:21:35
didn't think I would be the pampering parent, but you look
1:21:38
at this little creature and you worship her and you're like, we
1:21:40
need to. So it, it's an ongoing battle.
1:21:43
And then I thought that I, I read this book where it says the
1:21:45
best way to teach your children obedience is to be obedient to
1:21:48
them. And I was all into that.
1:21:49
And then I realized how much. Of a book was that I think.
1:21:52
It was maybe even a Catholic author.
1:21:53
It was this very compelling article I read.
1:21:55
And Julian, I talked about that. She was like, I don't know.
1:21:57
But when we got. Married.
1:21:57
We didn't resolve. That, but I was like, no, I
1:21:59
think this is legit. I read this book.
1:22:00
It could be. You're like, no, no.
1:22:03
And then? I realized that it actually does
1:22:06
violence to my 2 year old soul to reverse the order of things
1:22:11
because this is an amazing thing that I never never realized
1:22:14
happens. But maybe you guys can speak to
1:22:16
this too. It's like even as a one year old
1:22:18
Carmela, I didn't. This is not some like macho
1:22:22
thing. It's just is reality.
1:22:23
When I say Carmella, no, she even from an early age, even
1:22:27
before she could speak, she straightens up and is like
1:22:29
attentive to the word of like that 10 commandments thing.
1:22:32
Honor your father and mother. It is actually written in the
1:22:35
soul of an infant where like they are attentive to the voice
1:22:38
and the command. But when I say Carmella, do you
1:22:40
want to go to bed? She goes no, yes, no, no movie
1:22:43
poo bear, poo bear. She loves Winnie the Pooh.
1:22:45
I'm like, but then if I say Carmella, we're going to bed,
1:22:48
there's there's actually a ontological.
1:22:50
Response. There's a difference where like
1:22:53
you're you are or speaking in reality to be the parent and
1:22:56
then the child. And I wasn't prepared for that.
1:22:58
I thought I'd be this kind of hippie parent who was like, no,
1:23:00
Carmela, I think we should go to bed.
1:23:03
Let's talk through this. But she's just like a she's like
1:23:05
an insane person. She has no function like, but
1:23:08
it's a beautiful thing learning this as you go.
1:23:12
So don't be so over preparing like the social contract of
1:23:17
marriage doesn't have to be. We agree on these things and
1:23:19
we're entering it because we want to raise kids the same way
1:23:22
and we want to do. I mean, once you're fighting for
1:23:24
your life and have children running around and there's feces
1:23:27
involved, all of your agreements need to be negotiable because
1:23:32
you're going to be learning as you go.
1:23:33
Is that fair to say? Yes.
1:23:36
Well, how was you going to say that's that's very comforting to
1:23:38
hear that because I've said that with no authority because I'm
1:23:40
not a married man. But I had the same opinion.
1:23:41
Like I don't want to nail down what life's going to look like
1:23:44
because how am I going to know? Like I feel like marriage is a
1:23:47
crazy thing. It's hard to commit to
1:23:49
something. I feel like when you're
1:23:50
discerning with someone, you have to discern, is this the
1:23:52
person I want to marry if things go exactly according to plan,
1:23:56
and is this the person I want to marry if things look nothing
1:23:59
like we thought they would? Because a lot of.
1:24:02
Because you're not. You're not marrying the plan,
1:24:04
you're marrying the person. Wait, wait.
1:24:05
Say that again, because that is so.
1:24:06
That is such a good distillation of wisdom.
1:24:08
Can you repeat that? Is this the person I want to
1:24:10
marry if things go according to plan?
1:24:12
If I want to have four children and we have four children,
1:24:15
whatever those plans look like? If this is, is this the person I
1:24:18
want to marry for that? Or is this the person I still
1:24:20
want to marry even if nothing looks like I thought it would?
1:24:23
Couple struggling with infertility, right?
1:24:25
They might have been dating and said, we want to have six kids
1:24:28
and all of a sudden they come to a place where they think, wow,
1:24:31
things look nothing like we thought they would.
1:24:34
But they committed to one another, saying come hell or
1:24:37
high water, if it looks like this, if it looks like this, we
1:24:40
still want to commit to one another, right?
1:24:43
Committing to love one another when the dream looks exactly as
1:24:46
you hoped is a very easy thing. It's very like, wow, things are
1:24:49
turning out exactly as we planned.
1:24:51
But if things are the exact opposite or you know, in any
1:24:54
way, shape or form not that way, do we still want to be together?
1:24:57
And do we do we still want to ride it out together?
1:24:59
I feel like that's a really important question because so
1:25:01
often things look nothing like we thought they would.
1:25:05
It's so good. Yeah.
1:25:07
You marry the person, not the plan.
1:25:09
And. Then the person, I mean, when
1:25:11
Christ talks about it, that that fits that, that like leads
1:25:13
directly. This is why it must be true.
1:25:15
It leads directly to the word. It's like, you know, the man is
1:25:20
called to be crucified in marriage.
1:25:24
I mean, why would Christ describe it like that, Saint
1:25:27
Paul? Why would he describe it like
1:25:29
that if we weren't supposed to consider marrying if it doesn't
1:25:33
go according to plan? Because.
1:25:34
Because no. I think it's also because when
1:25:36
you, I think there's a tendency to desire, marry, marriage for
1:25:39
all the good things that can give you, right?
1:25:41
The children, it can give you their companionship, it can give
1:25:44
you the excitement, it can give you the intimacy.
1:25:46
All these things it can give you, it can give you, but it's
1:25:49
not an it you're marrying as a human being.
1:25:50
It's a person, right? And they are completely their
1:25:54
own free will. And then there's all
1:25:55
circumstance and choice and everything that could happen.
1:25:58
And so that's where I do think it's a problem to marry someone
1:26:02
because you think you are going to have a certain life with
1:26:07
them. And so, you know, as an example,
1:26:09
when I and Joe and I got married, we did talk about like
1:26:12
our dreams, our visions, we talked about all of it.
1:26:14
But at the end of the day, I knew I'm marrying Joe, He's
1:26:16
marrying me. He's not marrying my potential
1:26:18
to bring life into the world as a mother because I might not be
1:26:20
fertile. I'm not marrying his potential
1:26:22
to be a father because he might not be fertile.
1:26:24
Like there is a problem in today's dating culture in among
1:26:27
Christians that we marry the plan more than the person.
1:26:32
And I think that that is dangerous.
1:26:34
And we have these expectations for the for the person going to
1:26:38
the marriage. And then those expectations get,
1:26:40
you know, thrown off. And then we have all of our
1:26:41
struggles and our and our miseries.
1:26:44
I remember another spiritual advisor telling me, do not marry
1:26:46
your expectations. You're marrying a man.
1:26:49
And if you marry your expectations, no one will ever
1:26:52
be able to fulfill ultimately your expectations.
1:26:55
I can hear that in one of Harris's little reels, the
1:26:57
Interstellar soundtrack is playing.
1:26:58
It's like and then Lila's like you marry a person, not a plan
1:27:02
and. It shows like a picture of like
1:27:05
2. People it's.
1:27:06
Great thinking in terms of social media.
1:27:07
But Noel, what were you going to say?
1:27:09
I was. Just talking with a married
1:27:10
woman, we went to lunch and she said something very similar.
1:27:13
She was saying, encouraging me love, love the person for who
1:27:17
they are, find ways to encourage the things that they're
1:27:19
passionate about. And of course, like that's
1:27:21
within reason because I'm, we're not married, we're still
1:27:23
discerning in that. But it was such good advice
1:27:26
because I'm, I can tend to be like a, a fixer in my eyes, but
1:27:30
it's like, OK, does that really need fixing?
1:27:32
Or is that just a preference and growing with that person?
1:27:35
But I, I think that that's, that's so, so helpful because I
1:27:38
think even Christian social media can kind of paint
1:27:41
relationships that need to be a certain way and follow a certain
1:27:44
pattern. And that's one thing that I
1:27:46
loved about all of your stories is all of you met your spouses
1:27:50
in a different way at a different age.
1:27:52
It, it, it went differently for everyone.
1:27:55
And I think for me as a single, I was starting to get frustrated
1:27:58
when it didn't fit the pattern that I had saw on social media
1:28:02
and we didn't meet, you know, one week later meeting at young
1:28:06
adults and then starting to date or starting to court.
1:28:08
I've, I've had this image of dating and marriage in my head,
1:28:12
which wasn't a bad image, but I think he can cause a lot of
1:28:15
frustration and just remembering that's different for everyone
1:28:18
and you're growing with that person.
1:28:19
That's an exciting thing. I love that, John.
1:28:23
What were you going to say? I was just.
1:28:24
Going to add to the previous conversation that I'm glad that
1:28:27
that came up, that the idea of what is, what do you mean by
1:28:30
life? Like what do you mean by life
1:28:31
together for being, for better or for worse?
1:28:34
Because that was what I what I meant.
1:28:36
And what the conversation that we that we've had before too, is
1:28:39
all those same things. What if living situations
1:28:40
change? What if somebody's infertile?
1:28:42
What if that, that's what I mean by life.
1:28:43
That's what we should mean by life.
1:28:44
So yeah. Well, that's it.
1:28:46
The wedding vows in sickness and health, for richer or for
1:28:49
poorer. That's what life.
1:28:51
Is that's what life is and the other thing is if you're like
1:28:53
not able to decide to get married with each other because
1:28:55
you can't decide where you're going to live, this is a red
1:28:59
flag. You probably shouldn't get
1:29:00
married because if your marriage is contingent on where you live,
1:29:04
you're you're building your marriage in a House of Santa
1:29:06
that. May or may not have been why my
1:29:07
engagement. But that's it.
1:29:08
But that's it. But that's a great reason to end
1:29:11
up an engagement. You're like, well, we can't
1:29:12
agree how to get married. Well, if we can't, we can't
1:29:15
agree where we're going to be when we're married, Then I don't
1:29:17
know if everyone want to marry you.
1:29:18
Like, OK, you're you're marrying a human being, not a location.
1:29:22
But if the location matters so much to the two you can't just
1:29:24
you can't agree, then you must not want to marry each other
1:29:26
enough and you should part ways. I will offer one unusual thing
1:29:31
with the obedience that we discussed at the beginning of
1:29:32
the conversation. It is important.
1:29:35
It might be a helpful framework if, if you're listening to this
1:29:37
and we've, we've given you some interesting frameworks, maybe
1:29:41
this isn't an additional one that might help some people is
1:29:44
that you should contemplate whether you are a man or a
1:29:48
woman. You should contemplate, I am
1:29:51
marrying a person number one for service.
1:29:53
I want to serve this person for the rest of my life and #2
1:29:57
you're marrying a person. I am going to, like you said,
1:30:00
make decisions and I think that a necessary thing that follows
1:30:05
from that different way of looking at it is this is a
1:30:06
person that I'm entering into a contract of obedience with.
1:30:10
So it is true. You, you hear from religious,
1:30:13
from from priests, you, you hear priests who might say, my Bishop
1:30:17
wants to send me to this parish. I really don't want to do it.
1:30:19
I think I know better. But the Bishop still has to do
1:30:20
it. I mean, the priest still has to
1:30:21
do it. He is.
1:30:22
And the Bishop, the priest can't choose his Bishop.
1:30:25
A new Bishop can come in, etcetera, etcetera.
1:30:27
You can choose your spouse. So you can make a best guess and
1:30:31
it's not going to be optimal, but I think it's important to
1:30:36
marry someone that is at least wanting to be a wise person who
1:30:43
values wisdom because not everybody's wise.
1:30:47
We're all works in progress. But somebody who loves wisdom,
1:30:50
values wisdom, has some humility because you're #1 you're going
1:30:54
to make decisions with them. And that's hard. day-to-day
1:30:56
decisions. What, what are we going to eat
1:30:58
for dinner tonight? You don't want to think of it.
1:31:00
You don't want to think of it. It's tough.
1:31:02
Those little decisions, big decisions are even harder.
1:31:04
Like where are we going to move? Well.
1:31:05
I think what you're saying is humility, like I, I think
1:31:08
humility is the beginning fear of God, which is humility.
1:31:10
Knowing our place is the beginning of wisdom.
1:31:12
And I think if there was one quality you wanted to make sure
1:31:16
that this person that you're planning to marry has, I would
1:31:19
say the one of the most priceless qualities is humility.
1:31:21
That's true. And do I respect this person
1:31:24
enough? Do I have a mutual respect where
1:31:27
I'm going to be OK for the rest of my life from, from whatever I
1:31:30
know about them now doing what they say?
1:31:34
Like that's really important because the man I know there's
1:31:36
all this macho theology where like you really do have to do
1:31:39
what your wife says. Every seasoned Marry a Man will
1:31:42
tell you I threw out that macho stuff a long time ago.
1:31:45
Well, now we're getting. If you want peace.
1:31:47
We're getting. You have to.
1:31:49
I'm talking about. I'm not talking about big
1:31:51
decisions necessarily, even in little.
1:31:52
Things the practical data if. Your wife tells you pick up your
1:31:55
pants, pick up your pants, you know, And that's tough for me
1:31:58
because I love throwing them everywhere.
1:32:00
But the point is that you, you, you need to be open to obedience
1:32:08
and you need to be a mutually, mutually, There's a mutual thing
1:32:12
there and you just need to discern before you seal the
1:32:15
deal. Am I OK with this person telling
1:32:17
me what to do? And I don't need to even need to
1:32:19
get into the theology of is that wrong or right?
1:32:21
If a man tells a woman what to do, a woman tells a man, it will
1:32:23
happen. It happens in every marriage.
1:32:25
You guys need to. Sometimes things need to be done
1:32:27
quickly and you need to be. Able to this is interesting
1:32:29
because we're we've got about you guys have all done amazing.
1:32:32
We've got about 10 more minutes here and there are a few things
1:32:35
I was like what should we end with here?
1:32:37
I think submission and marriage and headship is actually a very
1:32:41
important conversation and it's 100% doesn't affect stating I'm
1:32:45
sure you have a take on this. I know Emily does I know I'm
1:32:48
sure John does and I know you do and there's obviously the
1:32:50
Christian teaching that we all agree with what Holy Scripture
1:32:53
says. But then the interpretation and
1:32:55
the practical application of Holy Scripture is what's
1:32:57
sometimes hotly debated right among Christians and certainly
1:33:01
maybe in some households Even so should we do a quick round on
1:33:04
this one? Were there any other thoughts
1:33:06
people wanted to share about soulmates, discernment,
1:33:08
marriage, I think? We should do ladies first on
1:33:11
what do we think of submission because.
1:33:13
Hold on, before submission, was there one more thought anyone
1:33:16
wanted to share that felt led to and then we'll do submission?
1:33:18
To give them a rose us out practical posture of heart.
1:33:21
I want to give all your listeners one of my favorite
1:33:23
singers. Yeah, from Henry now and I think
1:33:25
going into any vocation requires open hands.
1:33:29
Henry now and said Lord unclenched my fists and I think
1:33:33
so many people we go into vocation, whether that's
1:33:35
marriage and we hold on to these plans.
1:33:37
We got them real tight. We're going to this many kids.
1:33:39
We're going to live here and our life is going to look like this.
1:33:41
Even my priest friends who they they, they that that valve of
1:33:44
obedience. I've called my priest friends.
1:33:46
He's like, I'm, I'm getting reassigned, not thrilled about
1:33:49
it, not thrilled about the place that I'm going, but I'm called
1:33:51
to that obedience, right? And my priest friends, my
1:33:54
friends who are religious sisters who have gone committed
1:33:56
to their vocation in their vows with these open hands to say,
1:34:00
Lord, whatever it is, I'm not going to go in like this trying
1:34:03
to make the plans, my own plans, but I'm going to be surrendered
1:34:06
in every second, every day, every moment to the plans that
1:34:10
you have for me in marriage as a priest, whatever that might be.
1:34:14
Lord, unclench my fists because we want to hold on tight to the
1:34:19
plan that is having a lot in the discernment of marriage with
1:34:22
Daniel. I see my friends living that out
1:34:25
in many different ways, that open hardness.
1:34:28
I love it, Emily. Thank you.
1:34:29
So beautiful. So to close us out here, this is
1:34:32
more towards, you know, whether you're preparing for marriage or
1:34:35
you're married. I think the gender, if you want
1:34:38
to call it gender roles. What does headship look like in
1:34:40
the household? Wives, be subject to your
1:34:43
husbands as you are to the Lord. For the husband is the head of
1:34:46
the wife, just as Christ is the head of the Church, the body of
1:34:49
which he is the Savior. Just as the Church is subject to
1:34:51
Christ, so also wives ought to be an everything to their
1:34:54
husbands. Husbands, love your wives, just
1:34:56
as Christ loved the Church and gave Himself up for her in order
1:34:59
to make her holy by cleansing her with the washing of water by
1:35:01
the Word, so as to present the Church to Himself in splendor,
1:35:04
without a spot or wrinkle or anything of the kind.
1:35:06
Yes, so that she may be holy and without blemish.
1:35:08
In the same way, husbands should love their wives as they do
1:35:10
their own bodies. He who also who loves his wife,
1:35:12
loves himself. No one ever hates his body,
1:35:14
etcetera. For a reason, a man will leave
1:35:16
for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and
1:35:18
be joined to his wife. The 2 will become one flesh and
1:35:20
then I'm going to skip forward. Each of you however, should love
1:35:24
his wife as himself and a wife should respect her husband.
1:35:27
I'm going to give my quick hot take and then let's hear from
1:35:29
other folks. And a lot more can be said about
1:35:32
this. But in our household, what this
1:35:34
looks like is Joe. First of all, my husband
1:35:36
deserves my respect, regardless of how I feel.
1:35:39
And I think this is important for women because women, we have
1:35:41
our emotions, we have our psycho moments, we have our little
1:35:44
feelings, we have our challenges.
1:35:46
We have our like honest to goodness issues, like whether
1:35:49
our own or something that in the relationship that we don't like
1:35:52
something he's doing, whatever it is, he always deserves your
1:35:54
respect. You always wanted his love.
1:35:56
It doesn't matter whether you feel loved or not, you deserve,
1:35:59
he deserves your respect. So I think that's, that's the
1:36:01
Christian teaching. I think it's also headship of
1:36:03
the home is he has a special responsibility for my soul, for
1:36:06
our children's soul. I should help him in and support
1:36:10
him in that responsibility. And when it comes to decisions,
1:36:13
especially the ultimate big decisions, he is the tiebreaker
1:36:16
in our home. He hears me out, we wrestle, we
1:36:18
discuss, we figure things out together.
1:36:20
But if if it's really like it's out of thing and when we've come
1:36:24
to this point, he's chosen to do something that I wanted out of
1:36:27
love for me and sacrifice for me.
1:36:29
But I let him make that decision.
1:36:30
And I would have gone with his way if he had made a different
1:36:32
decision, even if I, you know, had my issues about it or
1:36:36
whatever it is. So that's how we do it in our
1:36:38
household. Emily Christian wife over here.
1:36:40
What do you do? Obviously there's a you could go
1:36:44
boil this way down. I love submission to be under
1:36:48
the same mission, right? You just read a passage.
1:36:51
We could be unpacking it until Christmas, right?
1:36:53
Of so many different verses and all that they mean, but my
1:36:56
husband and I are under the same mission, right to love one
1:37:00
another, to raise up our children to be holy Saints and
1:37:03
to, you know, give glory to God in everything that we do as a
1:37:07
family. My husband, we work very much in
1:37:09
the same way. My sons and my daughter.
1:37:12
She's very tiny. She doesn't really know this
1:37:14
yet, but my sons know that my husband is the head of our
1:37:17
household that you know, in the same way the decisions when it
1:37:21
comes to it. The buck stops at him.
1:37:23
He leads our family and I think that male leadership is really
1:37:28
has been lost in many different ways with toxic masculinity and
1:37:32
all these things. And there's a lot of nuance
1:37:34
there because women are in abusive relationships and that
1:37:38
comes into play of women say, do I just listen to everything my
1:37:40
husband says? And because he's abusive,
1:37:42
there's a lot of different like layers to this onion.
1:37:47
But in our house, I can speak to the leadership of my husband.
1:37:49
I know he wants my good. I know he wants the good of our
1:37:52
children. And I know he will lead us to
1:37:54
that. And if I trust his discernment,
1:37:57
if I respect him in every way, I can trust him to just carry the
1:38:01
torch, the Hassan family torch, and walk forward with us like
1:38:04
every step of the way. Noel, we'll end with the
1:38:09
gentleman because they are the the men of the room.
1:38:12
I think, you know, when I, I look at the Trinity, right,
1:38:14
because marriage is supposed to emulate the covenant that we
1:38:19
have with God. And when we see the Trinity, we
1:38:22
see that Christ submitted to the Father and that they were in a
1:38:25
mutual submission with the covenant before the foundations
1:38:27
of the earth. Even when Christ in the Garden
1:38:30
of Gethsemane asked the Father if he would take the cup away
1:38:32
from him. That submission I thought was a,
1:38:36
I guess I had like a negative connotation when I was younger,
1:38:39
but seeing how Christ even modeled that submission, it's
1:38:42
not a negative thing. It's a good thing.
1:38:44
It's a health thing, and it's a thing that even Christ himself
1:38:47
does. And seeing that in my parents
1:38:50
was really helpful growing up. I think there's kind of like a
1:38:53
distorted view online of like stereotypes and conflating that
1:38:57
with what it means to be in a healthy marriage.
1:39:00
But seeing my parents, my dad is absolutely the head of the
1:39:03
household, but absolutely welcome.
1:39:05
My mom's makes her opinions. But if there was a big decision,
1:39:09
my dad was we couldn't override mom by going to dad.
1:39:13
We knew that that they were in a they were together in their
1:39:17
decisions that they made. And so for me in discerning
1:39:21
whether or not the person that I'm dating is supposed to be the
1:39:24
person I'm want to marry, Am I willing to let him lead a
1:39:28
household potentially and shepherd our family and shepherd
1:39:31
our children? Because if I don't see a guy
1:39:33
being able to step into that role or doing that or trusting
1:39:36
him to do that, that's probably a good sign for me to re
1:39:39
evaluate if that's someone that I want to continue discerning in
1:39:41
a dating relationship with. Paul No, you, you go.
1:39:45
Well, my answer is boring. That's good.
1:39:46
Then let's let's end with something exciting.
1:39:48
There's enough 20 year olds on podcast to throw out their
1:39:50
opinions on submission. Just go listen to good married
1:39:52
couples who are actually in the weeds of living it out.
1:39:55
What do I have to say that hasn't already been said?
1:39:58
It's very submissive. Oh.
1:40:00
God. Now I feel bad for saying
1:40:02
something. I mean, I could draw all of the
1:40:05
good sound bites that are in the Christian ethos, but I feel like
1:40:08
it's all been said before. I mean, it's in the Scriptures.
1:40:10
Wives respect your husbands and husbands die and love your
1:40:13
wives. And then just use that as a
1:40:15
hermeneutic by which to Orient your lives.
1:40:17
And it's not much more than that.
1:40:19
Perfect. The first verse is often
1:40:22
ignored. Submit to one another.
1:40:24
So even before we get a hierarchy, we get a mystery.
1:40:28
Mystery is that there's a mutual submission.
1:40:30
Like you said, we're we're, we're both in a submission.
1:40:34
So that's number one is that there's a mutual submission.
1:40:36
So it is appropriate to say that you are discerning someone to
1:40:41
submit to, whether you are male or female.
1:40:44
The second mystery is that wives are called ultimately to submit
1:40:51
to a headship, which is clear in the scripture.
1:40:55
Now, we often think of power as the hermeneutic of headship, but
1:41:00
there's actually beyond what it can allow you to do.
1:41:03
Headship is a reality of it's an ontological reality.
1:41:07
There's there's mystery there too.
1:41:10
People rarely think of the positives that come with that.
1:41:12
That I in a, in a mystical way that the church says that I as a
1:41:15
father, because of that headship have the authority to bless my
1:41:18
children and bless my wife. I am to be a blessing and that's
1:41:21
something that comes through my headship.
1:41:24
It's not simply about I wield some sort of final say.
1:41:27
I actually have a first line of blessing and then I have a final
1:41:31
line of defense. Where, if, when, when headship
1:41:35
gives you the freedom to discern if, if there is a heresy like
1:41:42
think, think, thinking about the church is important because
1:41:45
Christ says it to love your wives as Christ loved the church
1:41:48
and Christ lets the church go do its thing and he ratifies more
1:41:53
than he he directs. Like for example, the Pope calls
1:41:56
a jubilee year and he says these indulgences are going to clear
1:42:00
all of your debt of sin. We have no doubt in our mind
1:42:04
that Christ is going to be obedient to that because he has
1:42:07
given the keys to his church. Yes, Christ is the head of the
1:42:11
church, but Christ gives incredible amounts of self
1:42:15
determination to the church because he shares in, in his
1:42:19
service, he shares his very body with, with, with the church.
1:42:24
And so that, I mean, I, I don't think that a wife needs a
1:42:28
husband's permission to make every little decision.
1:42:31
But there is the, the hierarchy provides a final line of defense
1:42:35
that if, if things go too far out of bounds, then a husband is
1:42:39
given a, a gift to be able to be that final safeguard and have
1:42:44
that final say. And that's a beautiful thing.
1:42:46
And then the final note is that you, you, you have to ask
1:42:50
yourself, because it says, and again, notice it says obedience,
1:42:53
right? It says love Christ, a man is
1:43:00
called to love his wife as Christ loves the church.
1:43:03
And what does the church, what does the Scripture define love
1:43:06
as it says in first John, For what is the love of God but to
1:43:10
obey his commandments? Christ says if you love me you
1:43:12
will obey my commandments. So there we actually cycle right
1:43:16
back to obedience, where if you want to love your wife, you have
1:43:19
to do what she says because that ultimately is what love looks
1:43:22
like. Now that doesn't deny your
1:43:25
headship. Christ held onto his headship
1:43:27
when though he was in the form of God, he did not view equality
1:43:29
with God as something to be grasped, but rather took on the
1:43:31
form of a slave being born in the likeness of men.
1:43:34
And therefore God gave him the name above every other names
1:43:36
because he was subject, yes even to death, death on a cross.
1:43:39
And because of that, that emptying doesn't remove Christ's
1:43:42
headship, but in the law of grace and in the economy of
1:43:46
salvation, that's the ultimate grasping of your headship is
1:43:51
self emptying, which is why it comes back to the original keys.
1:43:54
Prepare for marriage by deciding, is this the person I
1:43:56
want to serve? Because we're called as, as you
1:43:59
said to, to lay down our lives for our wife.
1:44:01
It's a crucifixion. And who do I want to be obedient
1:44:04
to is still in the cards. Even though you're not foregoing
1:44:06
your headship. You are not foregoing your
1:44:09
authority, but you can in the day-to-day, in the small things
1:44:13
in life you can offer. You can offer a self emptying
1:44:17
not because it removes your authority, but it actually
1:44:20
ratifies it in a heavenly way. Is this the end of the podcast
1:44:28
or or was that just? Bars, we're clapping for each
1:44:30
other. Beautiful.
1:44:33
That was that was amazing. Everybody.
1:44:35
Thank you. All right, really quick, quick
1:44:36
round up. Where can people find you, Noel?
1:44:39
On any social media platform. Noel Fichit.
1:44:42
As some of your listeners know, Daniel and I have created a
1:44:44
space for Catholic singles to connect with one another.
1:44:47
It's called Sacred Spark. You can find it on the App Store
1:44:49
or on the Google Play Store. Amazing.
1:44:51
We hope it helps you find a great match.
1:44:54
Where can people find you? Come pray with me on Sing the
1:44:56
Hours. We're going to be every day.
1:45:00
Day and night we pray, we sing the Liturgy of the Hours, and
1:45:02
you can come pray the Psalms with me.
1:45:04
You can find me on my Instagram and see all our work there and
1:45:07
on my website johnjerone.com. Amazing, thank you guys.
1:45:11
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