0:00

Hi, I'm Edwards Sree, and

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welcome to All Things Catholic,

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where real faith meets real life.

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Hi and welcome to this special edition of All Things Catholic.

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I'm your host, Edwards Sree, and I'm excited

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for you to hear the second half of our conversation

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on marriage with my wife Beth and Father

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Mike Schmitz from the Seek23 Conference. So

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without further ado, let's jump

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into it.

0:27

So what you're describing, going

0:29

back to the four things that he mentions,

0:31

the horsemen that you can fall into,

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and then how we want to have the ratio

0:35

of seven to one. That's just fascinating that, you know, here is

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he scientifically trying to... Well, there's also people

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who will say that, you know, three to one is way too low. You

0:42

need many more acts of kindness and

0:44

trust and love. Also, I've heard

0:46

a psychologist say, Jordan Peterson, say

0:48

that 11 to one

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is you need more kickback,

0:52

you need more tension, or else the other

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person is just a pushover and you start to not respecting

0:57

them because they're too much of a pushover. You need

0:59

someone to contend with, he says. Now, that doesn't

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mean they always have to be acts of defensiveness

1:03

or stonewalling or contempt, but it means there's

1:06

some kind of person you marry to someone you can

1:08

contend with, not simply someone who just can agree

1:10

with everything you say and think that you're perfect. But

1:13

go back to... But the whole process though, it just, I think that's what

1:15

the sacrament is doing. It's changing

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our hearts to love like Jesus. You know, Jesus

1:19

is not three

1:20

to one, seven to one, 11 to one. He's

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infinite, you know, and it's perfect

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love. Now, none of us are going to get there in this lifetime,

1:27

but grace really does change our hearts.

1:30

You know, we probably go into the marriages, I

1:32

know a little, as you get into it and things get hard,

1:34

you may have moments where it is more two to one,

1:36

three to one or something like that. But

1:39

through the sacrament, God changes our heart to

1:41

love like he loves on Good Friday where he's

1:43

patient when the other person

1:45

is frustrating us. And he's, you know, he was

1:48

misunderstood. He was not appreciated

1:50

on

1:50

Good Friday. There were hurtful words spoken

1:53

on Good Friday to Jesus, hurtful actions,

1:55

you know, all these things and yet he still loved.

1:58

And I don't think many people think of marriage...

1:59

They think of marriage, you know, it's like, oh, I finally found

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someone that's gonna fulfill me. And

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yes, I'll lay down my life, Ephesians five, and you know, sir,

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but ultimately I'm looking at this other person as

2:09

someone that's going to fulfill me. Whereas

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if you look at marriage as the cross, right? And you

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look at the cross, you know, like Jesus isn't up there going, oh,

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this is awesome. I'm living the dream. You know, he's

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laying down a life that hurts, but it's

2:20

beautiful. That's what we're made for. We're made for that total

2:23

self-giving. Well, I always say that marriage

2:25

is where bad people go to die.

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You quote me, tweet that. Marriage

2:31

is where bad people go to die to themselves

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in order to live in love.

2:36

Yeah. Right. But I would

2:38

say that, like you guys, you're describing this. One

2:41

of the critical virtues of

2:43

marriage is hope. Because as you said,

2:45

you get married and it's like, wait, I thought that we,

2:47

you guys, this is the reality. Of course, especially with

2:49

Catholics who have, if

2:52

you've had great

2:53

models of marriage in your life, sometimes you

2:56

have the hardest time in those first months and

2:58

years of marriage. Because

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it's like, no, I saw my parents as pros. Like

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my parents were professional lovers. They were incredible.

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They, the way my dad cared for my mom and

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the way my mom that I've respected my dad, all these kinds

3:09

of things. And you remember

3:11

them as, after having gone through all of those ups and downs, that then you

3:14

find yourself in this marriage

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going like, oh, wait, this, we just step on each

3:18

other's toes. You just stepped on my toes on purpose, like

3:20

all these kinds of pieces, to hold on to that virtue

3:23

of hope. Because expectation, I always

3:25

say, expectation is the killer of joy. Expectation

3:27

ruins more, future expectation ruins more

3:30

present joy

3:30

than anything else. I thought it would be

3:32

like this, but it's not actually, it's like this instead. Anticipation

3:35

is great, because I love anticipation. Like I

3:37

don't, that's why I don't like surprise parties. Like I,

3:39

I like the idea of like, let me look forward to it. Cause usually

3:42

the actual thing is not as much fun as looking forward.

3:44

Anyways, but expectation is I

3:46

thought it would be like this.

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So marriage needs hope because once

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we get inside of it and realize, oh, this

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is not what I expected,

3:57

but I still have hope that we can make it through

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this. I still have hope that

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this isn't the end just because we just hurt each

4:03

other pretty badly here. This isn't

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the end just because, wow, we're really struggling uphill.

4:08

Or even like you mentioned, it's so important to

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realize, I don't know how many people

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here are discerning marriage actively right now, meaning

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you're in a relationship. And okay,

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great. One of the things

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I invite people to reflect on is the vows.

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I, Jack, take you Jill to be my wife. I promise

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to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness

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and in health, to love you and honor you all the days of my life

4:29

and reflect on

4:31

bad and reflect on

4:33

sickness. Like reflect on like

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how bad could it be? What

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if the other person gets sick and

4:40

they can't take care of themselves in our first

4:42

summer? What if we can't

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get pregnant? What if we can't not

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get pregnant? What if I'm

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the one who's sick? I know people, I actually

4:52

talk to people who say, I don't want him

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to stay with me if I'm the sick one.

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Because I don't want him to have to spend the

4:59

rest of his life just caring for me. Like that

5:01

movie, what was that movie? You

5:03

Before Me or something like that? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And he's

5:05

just like, yeah, but that's what you're saying yes to.

5:07

That's what you're vowing, right? And

5:10

that's why I think it's so important to say, okay,

5:13

sometimes we are catastrophizers, right?

5:16

We always think of worst case scenario.

5:18

There's sometimes that's not healthy. This might

5:20

be a case where it's really, really good to do. To

5:23

actually, and actually do that out loud with them. Okay,

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what's the worst thing I can imagine happening in our marriage?

5:28

Let's talk about that.

5:30

Am I saying yes to that too? And not that

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I want that to happen, but like let's

5:34

bring it to the Lord. I failed

5:36

and I wasn't faithful to you. Okay,

5:39

are we still one? You

5:42

were unfaithful. Are we still one? We're

5:44

sick. We have multiple children with

5:46

multiple issues. What happens

5:48

then? Not because

5:51

we want to be negative Nellies,

5:54

but because that's

5:56

what life is. Remember, I think Bishop said it this

5:58

morning. He said, life is hard.

6:00

But there's hope. I love the bishop

6:03

this morning. I mean, I think the best, well, my

6:05

thing that resonated most with me was when he was so

6:07

vulnerable, right? And he shared that he had

6:10

to take time away from his diocese and had to get help.

6:12

He had to seek help. He's just like, oh my gosh.

6:14

Because what do we think about bishops? They're like, no, dude, they

6:17

promote bishops because they don't struggle, because

6:20

they don't get overwhelmed by stress because

6:22

they have everything under control. Here's

6:24

a bishop in front of his brother bishops, in front of his brother

6:27

priests, in front of all of us, saying, actually, I

6:29

needed time away. Those aren't like, I'm taking

6:31

a sabbatical. He could have easily said that. He could

6:33

have said, I just needed some time away to kind of collect myself. He

6:35

said, no, I was so broken that

6:38

this is what I needed. And if I didn't get it, I

6:40

would have collapsed

6:42

and realized that that could be your marriage.

6:45

That could be my priesthood. And

6:47

that could, why? Because life is hard. Anyway,

6:50

sorry. Sorry. Go on,

6:52

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So good. I

6:54

want to raise hands here. How many of you hope to be married

6:56

someday? Let's see. I want

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to ask you a question, Father, and you too, about

7:01

what advice you would give to

7:03

young people that hope to be married someday.

7:05

They might not even be engaged or dating someone

7:07

right now. But before we do that, I've got two announcements

7:10

to make. First, I want to give a great thank

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you to Spoke

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sponsoring this broadcast booth here

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this all possible. Also, if you

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you can text All Things Catholic,

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just one word to 33777, and you can get the podcast, you

7:30

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in the podcast I do, All Things Catholic, I talk about

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7:37

like we're talking about here, or dating relationships,

7:40

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So it's everything Catholic. Again, you could just text

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7:49

this is a special edition. We're going a little longer here.

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Normally in my podcast, people tell me they love it because

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it's only like 18 to 24

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minutes. You can do it when you're going on a

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run or when you're on the exercise bike or

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you're running errands.

7:59

So again, all things Catholic, you can text that

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to three, three, triple seven if you're interested in

8:04

that. But let's close with this topic for

8:06

single people who that

8:08

they want to be married someday. What advice

8:10

would you give them to just, you know,

8:13

in their friendships, their relationships now? What can they be doing

8:15

now to prepare for their future marriage?

8:17

And I'll start with you, Beth.

8:18

Two things. There's we've had this conversation

8:21

with our older children kind of out

8:23

of nowhere. That's how my mom advice works out of

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nowhere. Son, you need to make sure you know this. But

8:28

two words, suffer well, learn

8:30

to suffer well. And what

8:33

do I mean by that? That when things

8:35

are hard, when things are challenging,

8:37

when you'd rather not be in a situation

8:39

or have to do something to really

8:42

just be in it, admit

8:44

it's hard, but then press through. Because

8:47

you're married, you have children, they need you in the middle

8:49

of the night and you're not going to want to get up. You know,

8:51

your husband is sick. You're not going to want to help. You

8:54

know, you're not going to want to miss out on that party

8:56

with your friends because kids at home are sick.

8:59

So learn to suffer well and practice

9:01

it often. I would also say,

9:03

get to know yourself. Not

9:05

like, oh, I liked my nails painted pink or

9:07

I like this particular latte. Like,

9:10

no, get to know your own story.

9:12

Like, really take off your

9:15

own personal way of seeing yourself

9:17

now. But think

9:19

about, OK, I have this maybe

9:22

low T, small T, big T trauma

9:24

in my past that I don't want to think

9:27

about because it doesn't affect me now. Right.

9:29

But maybe take some time to really

9:31

press into that because that

9:33

will be present in your marriage.

9:36

It's not like you get married and you just drop

9:38

all the stuff that you've packed down on the

9:41

altar and you get to get out of jail free card.

9:43

It's not like that at all. All of that stuff

9:45

will come into your marriage. It will

9:47

affect it.

9:49

There's the verse in the Bible, love your

9:51

neighbor as yourself.

9:53

Many times we think about love your neighbor. OK, got

9:55

that awesome. But to really love

9:57

yourself as that is the.

9:59

That word as is the barometer

10:02

of how you will love others.

10:05

So if you don't really know yourself, if

10:07

you're not curious about why am I feeling this

10:09

way, where did this come from? Why am I thinking these

10:11

thoughts? How come no one else seems to struggle with this and I

10:14

am? If you're not pondering that regularly

10:16

and working to encounter yourself

10:19

with Jesus and our Lord and

10:21

help him to show you who you really

10:24

are, not who you think you are, but who you really

10:26

are and to get in touch with that

10:28

and to really care

10:29

for yourself, then you will have a greater capacity

10:32

to love your spouse, to love your children,

10:35

to love others. It's all beautifully

10:37

contingent.

10:38

I think that's beautiful. I think

10:41

to take that time,

10:42

marriage will bring out all of

10:44

our weaknesses, all of our sins, all

10:47

of our imperfections. And it's beautiful.

10:49

That's what the sacrament is doing. God wants to heal us, but he wants

10:51

to heal us also at the deepest

10:53

level. And that involves even our hurts, whatever

10:57

false stories we tell ourselves. Those

10:59

things are going to come up and it is going to impact

11:01

our ability to love our spouse and love our

11:04

children. So you do yourself a service to

11:07

get some of that work done, you know, in spiritual

11:09

direction, prayer, reading

11:11

therapy if you need

11:12

it. As you pointed out, Father Mike,

11:15

we heard a bishop today talk about I needed therapy.

11:17

There's no shame in therapy. I know you always

11:19

say only courageous people. Go

11:22

deep with what they need in terms of

11:25

facing the dark parts in their lives to

11:27

find the healing of Jesus Christ and his light there. So

11:30

great point there. Father, what would you say? What advice would

11:33

you give people here?

11:34

I've never actually said this. I'll say three things

11:37

just because they need to be balanced out with each other. The

11:40

first thing is what I've noticed in our culture, there's

11:42

kind of a new, even

11:45

when I was going through college, it

11:47

was just kind of automatic. People dated each other more

11:49

regularly. They pursued relationships

11:52

and seemed like people really cared about relationships. They

11:54

wanted to have relationship and actually went on dates

11:58

and then dated each other and then got married.

11:59

And I don't see that

12:02

happening as much. It seems like

12:04

young people who believe their call to the vocation

12:06

of marriage are like, I just kind of hope it happens.

12:09

But I think there's

12:11

got to be some kind of pursuit or

12:14

at least some kind of, I'm

12:16

actively open. If that's a better

12:18

word to say, I'm actively open. So there's

12:20

something I'm doing about this. I

12:23

find a lot of people who take their

12:25

faith seriously have high standards. High

12:27

standards are great, don't compromise the standards. At

12:30

the same time, we recognize that we have to be

12:33

actively open, I'll say that, actively open. So

12:36

what does that mean? Well, if it was someone who's starting

12:39

a call to religious life or to priesthood, that means I'm

12:41

checking out seminaries, I'm checking out religious communities,

12:44

I am talking with people, I'm actively

12:46

pursuing this, even though if I'm, I'm not sure

12:48

yet, there's no one there who's,

12:50

there's not a love connection yet, that's not a problem,

12:53

but I'm actively open is what I'm trying to say. He said that,

12:55

at the same time, at the same time,

12:57

to not allow your

13:00

prayer to be dominated by discernment.

13:05

I allowed my prayer for many years to

13:07

be dominated by discernment in the sense of, every

13:10

time I went to pray, every time I went to a retreat, every

13:12

time I went to a conference like this, they didn't have the conferences

13:14

like this, but every time I went to mass, it

13:16

was like, okay God, what do you want me to do? Just

13:18

that's what I want. I don't care what else you give me by

13:20

the time I get to the end of this retreat or the end of this thing. I

13:23

want my vocation, I want the

13:25

answer. And so I get to the end of retreats

13:27

and end of conferences and of mass and of prayer

13:30

and still wouldn't know and say, well, that was a waste. I

13:32

didn't get what I wanted. So kind of spoiled brat, kind

13:34

of a, but I want to oompa loompa now, daddy. Like

13:37

that kind of a situation where it was,

13:40

I missed out on all the graces God

13:42

was giving me. Every time you show up for prayer, God

13:44

is giving you a grace. Every time you show up for prayer, he's doing

13:46

something in your hearts, but he didn't give me what I

13:48

wanted.

13:49

I wanted an answer. He wanted me to

13:51

have him.

13:52

So be actively open at the same time to

13:55

not let discernment or pursuit of vocation

13:57

be. That's not the end. That's not the fulfillment. You will

13:59

never, ever, ever.

13:59

be fulfilled by your vocation. That's

14:02

simply your path to get close to Jesus.

14:05

But

14:05

you can get close to Jesus, even not

14:07

in your vocation. Or else you wouldn't

14:09

be here right now. The last

14:11

thing is, what do I do

14:13

when I don't know I'm actively open. I'm not

14:15

letting it dominate my discernment, but

14:18

dominate my prayer.

14:20

So what do I do? I say, don't panic. I

14:24

remember there was a young man who I knew

14:26

him in college. He left, graduated college,

14:28

went to seminary. After a little

14:30

bit of time there, he left seminary, started dating

14:33

someone, thought she's the one. She

14:35

broke up with him and he was like, no, what do I do?

14:37

Because he's still popping around. He's like, I tried seminary. I tried

14:39

this person. I thought was going to be the love

14:41

of my life, this whole kind of thing. And then

14:43

he just calmed down and he said, okay,

14:46

if God calls me to be a priest, I'm

14:48

going to need to be a man of virtue.

14:50

If God calls me to be a husband, I'm going to need

14:52

to be a man of virtue. If God calls me to a priest,

14:54

I'm going to need to be a man who prays. If I'm going to call

14:56

to be a husband and father, I need to be a man who prays.

14:59

Nothing's keeping me from becoming a man of virtue

15:02

now, because that's who I need to be no matter what

15:04

vocation I'm in. Nothing's keeping me

15:06

from being a person of prayer now, because no matter what

15:08

vocation I'm called to, that's the kind of person

15:10

I need to be. And so to realize that every

15:12

one of us,

15:14

whether we know what a vocation or don't,

15:16

whether we're in a vocation or not, we

15:18

all have to, whenever we show up, when

15:20

we show up, we have to be a person of virtue.

15:22

When we show up, we have to be a person of prayer.

15:25

You don't have to wait to start

15:27

being a person of virtue. You don't have to wait to be a person of prayer.

15:30

But in fact, do your future self a

15:33

big favor by becoming a person

15:35

of virtue and a person of prayer now. So

15:37

actively open. Don't let your

15:39

discernment, don't let discernment dominate your prayer. But

15:42

be a person of virtue now. Do

15:44

you know, Father Mike's such a good teacher. I noticed this in

15:46

your talk last night, but even here, several times,

15:48

he doesn't just, he's so clear and, and

15:51

by the way, you talk at like 2.5 speed, you know,

15:53

like, like, I

15:55

had to give a talk earlier yesterday and they shortened

15:57

my time by 15 minutes that says I have to talk

15:59

almost.

15:59

as fast as father Mike to get it all in. But

16:03

you're so good because you share. Here's the three things.

16:06

And then you share it and then you go back and you always repeat it.

16:08

That's a great pedagogy. So

16:10

that's funny. That's

16:13

funny you say that because my older brother, my

16:15

older brother during COVID, we had online masses. And

16:17

he was like,

16:18

dude, why do you always repeat yourself?

16:20

You said it, just leave it. I'm like, because

16:23

you won't remember. What did I say, Mark? He's like, you said

16:25

this. I'm like, yeah, because I said it nine times. That's

16:27

why you know.

16:28

I love it. All

16:30

right, I'll get by two points. Well, actually, one

16:33

of the points is something you always say. But then what

16:35

I was going to say was the third point he ended

16:37

with, which was grow in

16:40

virtue. Yeah, I think that

16:42

because you're going to use that in whatever vocations father Mike said.

16:46

And to learn about the virtues

16:48

and then try to live them in your friendships

16:51

with your roommate, with your campus

16:53

ministry on campus, with the people in your class,

16:56

with your family back at home. Because

16:58

the way you interact with the people

17:00

in your community right now is the

17:03

kind of way you're going to end up

17:04

interacting with your future spouse. And

17:07

so that's also a good thing as you're dating someone and

17:09

you're observing, how does this guy treat his mom? How

17:11

does he treat his brother? How does he treat his roommate? How

17:13

does he treat his friends? Because that's how he's going

17:15

to probably treat you. So it's good for

17:17

you on your run to be working on virtue, particularly

17:19

in your own community. But then

17:21

the second point, maybe I'll let you take this one because you always like

17:24

to talk about it, is Jesus is enough to

17:27

learn

17:27

that right now. Jesus

17:30

is enough. I alluded to earlier that many

17:32

people today, oh, I

17:34

just want my vocation. Because

17:36

I think they think a vocation is it does

17:39

something for me. Whereas a vocation

17:42

is a calling to give yourself away

17:44

like Jesus did, whether that's to the priesthood,

17:46

religious life, single life, or to

17:48

the sacrament of holy matrimony. You're giving

17:50

yourself away. And if I'm looking at this other

17:53

person is going to make

17:54

me happy, feel good about myself,

17:56

make me not feel so alone, I'm looking

17:58

at someone to fulfill my needs. That's

18:00

really, that's a dangerous thing to

18:02

bring into a marriage, no matter how much you love

18:04

Jesus and do Bible studies and go to adoration. If

18:07

you haven't really learned Jesus is enough,

18:09

you'll turn to your spouse to try to have

18:12

your spouse fulfill your needs. And that leads

18:14

to a lot of challenges.

18:15

And then you start chasing other

18:17

things. If your spouse isn't going to fulfill

18:19

your needs and maybe a new house or, you

18:22

know, all these other things, you keep kind of stockpiling

18:24

all the things you're grasping for. So

18:27

if you can actually just grasp for our

18:29

Lord. There are so many times where I would love to

18:31

be on the same page with my husband, you know,

18:33

and I'll make a bid and he will just,

18:36

it goes over his head, you know, and that

18:39

can happen and I can get frustrated and we can get into

18:41

a big fight about it.

18:42

Or I could just be like, I love my

18:44

husband, but Jesus, you're the one that

18:47

fills my heart. You're the one that fills my

18:49

needs. You're the one who knows me even better than

18:51

my dear darling husband. And

18:53

so it's you that I turn to over and over again.

18:55

It's you that are with me and all the

18:58

chaos of our family life, my

19:00

motherhood and all the things that we're trying

19:02

to do.

19:03

And you know, my heart, you see me and

19:05

just to rest in that. And it's

19:08

something that is very much

19:10

you continue to grow in over and over.

19:12

And then there's even deeper ways that you meet

19:15

him. But if

19:16

you can just grasp onto that, if I can just grasp

19:18

onto that, everything

19:20

becomes still and clear. Well,

19:23

this has been such a fun conversation to have

19:25

with both of you. Again, we want to thank

19:27

the Spoke Street Media folks for hosting

19:29

this year. And so great that I want to thank

19:31

all the students here at Seek 23. You're

19:35

amazing. Your faith, your witness is so

19:37

inspiring to all of us. We're praying

19:39

you have a great conference here. Again, if you want to

19:41

learn more about the podcast, you can text All Things

19:43

Catholic to 3-3- triple-7. All

19:46

one word, All Things Catholic

19:46

to 3-3- triple-7. Dear

19:49

wife, thank you for being on the show again. And

19:52

Father Mike, we're so honored you're

19:54

here, but so thankful for all that you

19:56

do for the church, for the world, but most of all, as

19:58

I said earlier,

19:59

fatherhood, you're living your vocation, that that's

20:02

what's most important. We're very grateful for that

20:04

too. Thanks a lot. Thanks so much.