Building a Eucharistic Marriage

Building a Eucharistic Marriage Building a Eucharistic Marriage is a 7 part online program for Catholic couples. The Discovering Our Deepest Desire (D.O.D.D.) The D.O.D.D.

curriculum is not just about strengthening marriages, but it is also about building Marriage Education teams in our church that provide marriage support and encouragement to those in need. It seeks to encourage ongoing support versus a “flash-in-the-pan” approach. Too many people wait too long to get help for their marriage, out of fear of what it will look like to others. Often, couple’s wait until their marriage is in extreme crises or at the end-of-the-rope before finally seeking help; and often, at this point, it is too late. concept is built upon creating ongoing support for couples and for reducing the stigma of marriage education being only for those in trouble. Rather, it should be readily available in our churches in order to help couples grow in and work at their marriage, ongoing, with the support of their faith community.

I’ve said to my children on many occasions that unless we are willing to do what is challenging or uncomfortable in life...
01/13/2026

I’ve said to my children on many occasions that unless we are willing to do what is challenging or uncomfortable in life, we will always limit what God can do through us. He can make us so much more than we could ever imagine, through His Grace & love, yet it is when we hide away in our comfort zones and don’t seek to stretch ourselves, that God is limited in working through us because of our resistance. Our marriage calls for us to seek to create a life together that takes the best of who we are and magnify it; that takes the worst of who we are and, with help from our spouse and God, reshape it into something that is life-giving and of value to our family, or maybe even to get that pattern out of our life altogether. For the most part, we are not called to deny or change the “in-born” parts of who we are, but with aspects, such as our personalities, for example, we certainly can seek to control aspects to benefit our spouse and our families.

By nature, I may be a person who needs organization in my life. That’s fine as long as it doesn’t always rule my family by forcing them to be so organized that it stifles their creativity or time to relax. On the other hand, these skills can and should be used to benefit the physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing of the family as a whole. As a couple it would be important to see the value of the organizational skills in things like finances, home order, or even event and time management. If a person has a personality of being more playful, it may be important for them to not always use their jovialness to avoid dealing with problems, but rather consider utilizing humor, at appropriate times, when life seems overwhelming. Their playfulness could also be used in planning vacations or events like family time or date nights.

Too often our differences attract us to each other before marriage and then annoy us during marriage. It is important as a couple to work together in making our individual qualities an asset to our marriage versus a burden. This has much to do with our perspective and desire to open our hearts to the value of what the other person brings to our life, not just before marriage but ongoing throughout.

ACTION STEP: This week, consider both spouses taking a personality assessment and utilizing the information to learn more about each other’s strengths and areas for growing in.

01/07/2026

Marriage Matters Video #84 -- New Year's Pattern

Coming out of years of putting my foot in my mouth in conversations with my wife, I have developed a saying in response ...
12/30/2025

Coming out of years of putting my foot in my mouth in conversations with my wife, I have developed a saying in response to my wife’s frustration, “Listen to what I mean, not what I say.” The first time I used that, my wife was not too happy, and it led to a long discussion. Now that our relationship is much more in sync with each other and we have worked at a better communication style, I use this phrase only to joke around and to get her to laugh when I actually say something without thinking it through and know it was not well received. Then I try again.

What I’ve learned through many mistakes in my marriage is that we need to develop patience and gentleness in our ‘more lively’ discussions. Numerous couples, that I have counseled over the years, have expressed regret over many things that were said in their marital spats and readily admit that it was due to being caught up in the emotion. These thoughtless responses, accusations, and sometimes foul words, mixed with an angry tone, only become memories that spouses find harder to forgive than the original offending actions.

So, my recommendation, first and foremost, is to take a time out when conversations get heated. Calm down and pray for patience, gentleness, and a spirit of understanding. Then when you go back (hopefully not days later) to discuss the issue further, take time to truly hear what is being said and to try to understand your spouse’s intent or meaning behind their words. Take time to think through your responses, and at all cost, say things with gentleness and a desire to build up and not tear down.

ACTION STEP: This week, work at patience, gentleness and a spirit of understanding whenever possible.

12/17/2025

Marriage Matters Video #83 -- Parenting 103

Our office will be closed on Wednesday, December 24th and Thursday, December 25th.
12/16/2025

Our office will be closed on Wednesday, December 24th and Thursday, December 25th.

I was talking to a co-worker today, and they asked, “Why is it that we pray for so many people in our life but often for...
12/16/2025

I was talking to a co-worker today, and they asked, “Why is it that we pray for so many people in our life but often forget to pray for our spouse?” This also led to a further discussion about how, when we do pray for our spouse, often we are not specific in our request for them, unless something traumatic is happening in their life. I’m sure this might have been an over-exaggeration and that many husbands and wives probably do pray for their spouse. Yet, I have met many couples who have admitted to regularly forgetting to pray for their spouse, or at least just simply adding a “Please help my husband also” at the end.

God knows our prayers before we even ask them, but Christ still stated to all of us, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks receives; everyone who seeks finds; everyone who knocks will have the door opened”(Matt. 7:7-8). Christ is calling us to love one another as He has loved us, and he prayed continuously for His beloved. (John 17:9,15,20) “I pray for them...the ones You have given me, because they are Yours…I do not ask that You take them out of the world but that You keep them from the evil one…I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe me through their word…”. So, too, as helpmates to our spouse, we are called to pray and fast for our spouse and their specific needs.

Don’t ever underestimate the power of your prayer for them and don’t expect God to do what you want, but rather to do what is needed for their greater good. Consider also the power of fasting, proclaimed by Christ, as another form of prayer for your beloved. Consider fasting once a week from something that you desire, offering it up as a prayer for your spouse and your marriage. The beauty of our prayers for others, especially our spouse, is learning a deeper form of loving those costs us time and intentionality.

ACTION STEP: This week, specifically pray every day for your spouse and their needs, great or small.

(Matthew 16:24) “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross...
12/10/2025

(Matthew 16:24) “Then Jesus said to his disciples, ‘Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.’”

All of our problems in life are our crosses to bear. We either bear them alone, or we bear them with God’s grace. God has also given us our spouse, out of grace and love, in order to give us companionship in helping us bear life’s burdens together. This is what true love does. It sacrifices for another in order to help them on their journey and to deepen their experience of love. This is true even when we have been the cause of the cross for the other person. Jesus is calling to us to share in His cross so as to learn deeper love through sacrifice, forgiveness, and love for each other.

This is illustrated so powerfully in the crucifixion scene when Simon of Cyrene reluctantly helps Jesus carry the cross. If you think about it, Simon was reluctant and even indignant about the idea of having to help carry a cross for this criminal; yet it is the sins of Simon, as well as each one of us, who placed it on Christ’s back in the first place. Yet, tradition teaches that, this event utterly transformed Simon’s life.

We shouldn’t begrudge having to walk through these challenges with each other. Nor should we find pride in helping each other. Rather we are called to love as Christ loved and humbly walk this journey together as a sacrifice of love for each other.

ACTION STEP: This week, seek to be more joyful as you bear one another’s burdens and offer this up as a prayer for your spouse.

The ‘meaning of life’ from the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that it is “to know, love and serve the Lord in t...
12/10/2025

The ‘meaning of life’ from the Catechism of the Catholic Church states that it is “to know, love and serve the Lord in this life and to be happy with Him in the next.” So, what does this have to do with my marriage? Everything! We are here to discover what St. Augustine stated as the “deepest desire” of every human being, to discover what is at the heart of every human relationship, and to discover what gives each of us a deeper purpose for not only making our marriages good, but the best that they could be! St. Augustine stated that: “The deepest desire of every human heart is to be seen and to see another in that same way.”

Every human being desires to be loved and to be seen for whom we truly are; seen down deep, past the bodily imperfections, the bad breath, the aging spots, and such. We long for someone to see our dreams and hopes, our fears and sadness, our beliefs and values, our talents, and our humor; and to see it all and not mock us, ridicule us, laugh at us, or worse yet – reject us. We long to be seen and loved despite these. We long for someone who will walk with us on this tough life journey and who is committed to “holding us close,” especially when life gets vicious and when tragedies happen.

We want to know that someone cares enough to see our faults and yet still loves us enough to help us in overcoming them and become something better than we could ever be on our own. That is what marriage is about: becoming something better than we could ever be on our own. One great way we can grow in knowing, loving, and serving the Lord is by knowing, loving, and serving our spouse.

ACTION STEP: This week, seek more ways to know your spouse deeper and more ways to show them love and serve them.

12/03/2025

Marriage Matters Video #82 -- Parenting 102

Our office will be closed on Thursday, November 27th and Friday, November 28th.
11/26/2025

Our office will be closed on Thursday, November 27th and Friday, November 28th.

As a friend of mine used to say to me all the time: “Do what you’ve always done, and you’ll get what you’ve always got.”...
11/26/2025

As a friend of mine used to say to me all the time: “Do what you’ve always done, and you’ll get what you’ve always got.” Simple, yet so true. How can we ever hope to rebuild broken trust in our relationship, which is extremely vital for our love to grow and for us to stay connected, if we keep doing the same old destructive patterns? We need to make a choice to change, for our good and the good of our marriage. We need to stop putting Band-Aids on our problems (they come off when you sweat anyway), and instead work harder at stopping the destructive patterns. Trust is not something we can demand to have back from our spouse. It takes time and demanding trust only frustrates things more. We also can’t just expect our spouse to “let go of the past and move on.” Why? Because without changes in behavior, there is continuing fear that the behavior is going to keep happening long into the future.

Trust can only be earned back little by little with every attempt we make to keep the lines of communication flowing and with the changes we consciously make to improve our relationship and to change our unhelpful patterns. Sometimes the more ingrained these patterns are, the more time it will take to not only change them but to prove to our spouse that we are serious and dedicated to this cause.

There are five fundamentals for change to truly happen, and I use the acronym S.H.I.F.T. to spell out each step:

1) See the problem as a problem! We need to see each issue as important, and we need to see our individual role in the problem and be willing to accept responsibility.
2) Have a desire to change and make things better. We need to want to change it and want to seek to make things better out of love for our spouse.
3) Information on what needs to change. We need to get new information about what kind of changes will be helpful to our spouse and to the marriage.
4) Faith in God and His Grace to help us!
5) Time to build a new pattern.

ACTION STEP: This week, explore areas of your relationship where trust is lacking between you and your spouse and seek to find ways to change your patterns in order to regain trust.

How often in life do we find ourselves slipping into a state of complacency in any one area of our life: our job, our fa...
11/12/2025

How often in life do we find ourselves slipping into a state of complacency in any one area of our life: our job, our faith, our friendships, and our marriage. With everything we have going on in our life and with all the stress we have coming at us, we often find ourselves going into ‘auto pilot’ in any one, or most of these areas of our life, out of routine or out of necessity. We trust that our boss, our friends, our spouse and even God will understand the lackluster effort I am able to give right now because I have been so faithful for so long. Or so we think.

Then we start to realize how other people seem to be taking us for granted and not putting a lot in their relationship with us: no praise at work, no calls from our buddies asking how we are doing, no flowers from or no date nights with our spouse. In time, we feel like life is ‘stuck in a rut’ and our frustration with this often leads to discontent and agitated interactions with each other. Where this is most dangerous is when complacency happens in our marriage and our faith. If our marriage and prayer-life is suffering, it will affect every other area of life. Why, because these two are (or should be) the most intimate of relationships.

I challenge all who are reading this to consider striving harder to be more intentional and aware in understanding and refreshing those areas of your marriage and faith life that have become routine or commonplace. Seek to find new ways to intentionally think about your spouse and plan dates and fun things to do together. Put more effort into special day like their birthday or your anniversary. Consider getting off of your phone more or off social media more and just spending time walking and talking together or playing games.

With your relationship with God, seek more times of silence where you can just pray and have a conversation with Him. Make more time for going to church, reading Scripture, or doing works of mercy and love for your ‘neighbors’ and the world around you.

ACTION STEP: This week (and this year), spend time recognizing the areas of complacency in your life, and set a plan in motion to change that behavior!

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Dayton, OH
45414

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Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

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