What are the opening hours?

Monday 9am - 5pm Tuesday 9am - 5pm Wednesday 9am - 5pm Thursday 9am - 5pm Friday 9am - 5pm

http://eucharisticmarriage.org/

Building a Eucharistic Marriage, 4945 Riverton Road, Dayton, OH (2025)

09/02/2025

One of the great gifts of the Catholic church to the Catholic faithful is the Catechism (CCC) that guides us in many areas of our faith. When I teach my Building a Eucharistic Marriage course, we read from the Catechism and reflect on, as a group, that which we have read. I would like to read them to you now and will comment more on them over the next couple of weeks. This week, I’m quoting passages 1641 – 1642. They state:

(1641) "By reason of their state in life and of their order, [Christian spouses] have their own special gifts in the People of God. This grace proper to the sacrament of Matrimony is intended to perfect the couple's love and to strengthen their indissoluble unity. By this grace they help one another to attain holiness in their married life and in welcoming and educating their children.

(1642) Christ is the source of this grace. Just as of old God encountered his people with a covenant of love and fidelity, so our Savior, the spouse of the Church, now encounters Christian spouses through the sacrament of Matrimony. Christ dwells with them, gives them the strength to take up their crosses and so follow him, to rise again after they have fallen, to forgive one another, to bear one another's burdens, to "be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ," and to love one another with supernatural, tender, and fruitful love. In the joys of their love and family life he gives them here on earth a foretaste of the wedding feast of the Lamb.”

ACTION STEP: I encourage you to read passages 1641 - 1642 with your spouse and then both reflect on what part of it stood out to each of you and why and how you feel it applies to your life and your marriage.

08/27/2025

“Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33)

As we wrap up these passages in Ephesians 5, we are reminded about the Golden Rule – ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But I would like to take it to an even deeper level. I would suggest that we ‘do unto our beloved as they need done unto.” These, both together, indicate a need to treat another person in a way that we too would want to be treated but also, that we would specifically seek to meet the ‘needs’ of our spouse for whom we pledged our life to serving.

Every one of us has emotional needs and we look to those we trust and love to help us get those needs met. If the need is not met, our stress level goes higher, and we find that our relationship can become strained. If the need continues to be unfulfilled, especially if no attempts are even being made to fulfill them, then the stress and frustration continues to grow. If the need is met at any point, it can bring down anxiety and division, and couples can grow through the experience. But, if the needs go unmet for long periods of time, couples could start to experience, what I call, emotional starvation.

One of those emotional needs that both spouses have, is stated in the last sentence of this passage – respect. Without it, we can feel dishonored, unloved, and even unwanted. In our marital mission toward helping each other get to heaven, we need to love with sacrificial love, and treat each other as a child of God who is made in His image and likeness, and to remember that what we do unto others, we also do unto Christ.

ACTION STEP: This week, seek to treat your spouse the same way you would want to be treated, especially in those times of mistakes, disappointments, and misunderstandings.

08/06/2025

“Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband.” (Ephesians 5:33)

As we wrap up these passages in Ephesians 5, we are reminded about the Golden Rule – ‘Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.’ But I would like to take it to an even deeper level. I would suggest that we ‘do unto our beloved as they need done unto.” These, both together, indicate a need to treat another person in a way that we too would want to be treated but also, that we would specifically seek to meet the ‘needs’ of our spouse for whom we pledged our life to serving.

Every one of us has emotional needs and we look to those we trust and love to help us get those needs met. If the need is not met, our stress level goes higher, and we find that our relationship can become strained. If the need continues to be unfulfilled, especially if no attempts are even being made to fulfill them, then the stress and frustration continues to grow. If the need is met at any point, it can bring down anxiety and division, and couples can grow through the experience. But, if the needs go unmet for long periods of time, couples could start to experience, what I call, emotional starvation.

One of those emotional needs that both spouses have, is stated in the last sentence of this passage – respect. Without it, we can feel dishonored, unloved, and even unwanted. In our marital mission toward helping each other get to heaven, we need to love with sacrificial love, and treat each other as a child of God who is made in His image and likeness, and to remember that what we do unto others, we also do unto Christ.

ACTION STEP: This week, seek to treat your spouse the same way you would want to be treated, especially in those times of mistakes, disappointments, and misunderstandings.

08/06/2025

“For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh” (Ephesians 5:31).

I would love to focus on the beauty of the gift of husband and wife becoming one flesh through the gift of sacramental grace. However, I would instead like to address another issue I often see in marriage therapy. Part of becoming one with another person requires us to “leave our father and mother,” who (hopefully) have been our protectors, providers, and teachers throughout our childhoods. Because we are formed by our parents for the first 17-18 years of our lives, we usually become very attached to them. Even if our homes were chaotic or dysfunctional, most of us feel a certain loyalty towards our parents and have some desire for connection to or healing with them.

Because of this loyalty, though, in-laws sometimes have a reputation for being “meddlers” or for having more of our spouse’s attention and dedication than we do. I often remind couples that a healthy marriage involves spouses making ‘each other’ the first priority (after God, of course). This is because of the vow we all make in marriage as well as the warning we are all given by Christ Himself in Mark 10:9: “Therefore, what God has joined together, no human being must separate.” This isn’t just about not having affairs; it’s also about not allowing anyone to destroy our unity.

I am certainly not advocating that you neglect your parents. We are all called by God to honor and care for our parents (Matthew 15:4), and we must always strive to do this when possible. However, if our parents start to create division or animosity between us and our spouse, we must work as a team to safeguard each other’s emotional, physical, and spiritual wellbeing by setting boundaries with the in-laws.

ACTION STEP: This week, spend time talking with your spouse about any family connections or friendships that you feel are creating struggles for your marital unity. If needed, start setting some boundaries for these relationships (Examples could be something like: Only talk on phone so you can end the bad interactions that can’t be redirected, or defend your spouse when there is unfair or demeaning interactions with family, or build a list of “things to not discuss, etc.).

07/22/2025

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that she would be holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:25-27).

This tip goes out to all the husbands, but wives can certainly learn from it too. Men: as I stated last week, we are called to have a mission, or end goal, for our marriage. By “end,” I mean the goal(s) towards which we strive and which we hope to reach at the time of our death. At the end of our lives, we will face one of two outcomes: heaven or hell. God’s design for marriage involves a man and a woman uniting themselves fully and committing to helping one another reach heaven. Because of this, guiding your wife and children on the path to eternal life ought to be the central focus for your marital mission.

How might such a lofty goal be achieved? This week’s passage of Ephesians 5 gives us a few pointers. It sets out two main directives: Love our wives as Christ loves us and build a home that nurtures holiness. This may seem like a tall order, but all things are possible when we work hard to cooperate with God’s grace. In the action step for this week, I have included a few questions intended to help you reflect on practical ways in which you can foster faith in your home.

God will judge us on how we loved those entrusted to our care. We are called to lead our families to Christ. That is done not through command, manipulation, or anger, but rather through building a home that exemplifies God’s love. May we work tirelessly towards this goal so that, when we see Christ face to face, we will hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant. Thank you for caring for my beloved children whom I entrusted to you!”

ACTION STEP: Consider the following questions and spend time in prayer asking God how you can increase your efforts to bring His love into your home.
1. Do you have a strong relationship with Christ, or are you actively working towards building one? Are you first drawing on His strength so you have the wisdom to lead your family towards God?
2. Do you lead the charge for keeping Christ and prayer as a central part of your family’s life? How can you bring prayer more fully into your home?
3. Do you support your wife in her efforts to cultivate faith in your children, or do you undermine her work through your words or example?
4. Do you model gentleness, patience, understanding, truthfulness, unity, and compassion in your home, or is it a place of chaos, yelling, and division? In what ways can you better lead by example in these areas?
5. Are you willing to die to yourself, meaning that you will sacrifice your “wants” in order to meet the needs of your wife and children? Have you been selfish with your time and energy, consistently prioritizing yourself over your family?

07/15/2025

“Be submissive to one another out of reverence for Christ. Wives, be submissive to your husbands, as to the Lord” (Ephesians 5:21-22).

Many people, when they hear the word “submissive,” immediately associate it with terms such as “slave,” “serf,” or “doormat.” Living in a world where people have treated one another as objects to use, rather than persons to love, we often connect “submissiveness” with weakness and the objectification of a person. Because of this, we may miss the authentic meaning of this word in the context of this beautiful scripture passage. To re-discover the message of Ephesians 5, I would like to break this word down into its roots and unpack what St. Paul intended to convey. As we explore this passage, please also keep in mind that women were not seen as equals in Jesus’s time. St. Paul’s writing in this passage reflects Jesus’s message of salvation, which challenged the idea that women were lesser persons and which affirmed their inherent dignity.

Submission means to be “under (sub) the mission” of someone or something else. Ephesians 5 first calls spouses to be “submissive to one another,” then goes on to instruct wives to be “under the mission” of their husbands. This includes honoring and respecting their husbands as well as setting an example for their children in this regard. Today, though, many women are not willing to be under their husband’s mission. A wife may feel this way for many reasons: She doesn’t trust that her husband’s mission is life-giving, she doesn’t believe that he has her best interest in mind, or perhaps she has been wounded by so many men that she believes all to be unworthy of trust.

Because of this, it is important for the husband to know his part in this equation if he wishes to inspire his bride to freely, whole-heartedly submit to him. In order for our wives to be under our mission, we actually have to HAVE a mission, a truly good one that seeks the best for every person in our family (and most particularly for our wives). St. Paul spells out how husbands should do this in the last nine verses of the Scripture passage, and I will be reflecting on these over the next several weeks. Until then, though, I will sum up his message in this way: Marriage is a Sacrament of sacrifice and service. Christ is the perfect model for men in how to live that out. If we want our spouse and family to follow our lead, we must first submit ourselves to Christ and His will for us.

ACTION STEP: This week, read Ephesians 5:21-33 with your spouse and pray that God will guide you in living this passage out in your marriage.

07/09/2025

“If anyone says, “I love God,” but hates his brother, he is a liar; for whoever does not love a brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.” (1 John 4:20).

I have counseled countless couples who emphasize the importance of their Christian or Catholic faith yet proceed to describe a treatment of their spouse which does not reflect those beliefs. Husbands who pastored large churches have confessed affairs with other women. Couples describing heated arguments have admitted using foul words and threats of divorce to undermine one another. I am truly grieved at times by how people can claim to love God but yet treat their “pearl of great price” with such contempt.

1 John 4:20 minces no words about this type of behavior. How can we truly love God while treating one of His beloved children as if they were an enemy? This is especially egregious when directed towards our spouse, whom we vowed to love and honor. In Matthew’s gospel, Christ goes so far as to say, “Amen, I say to you, what you did not do for one of these least ones, you did not do for me” (Matt. 25:45). God places people in our life to lead us closer to Himself, and loving our spouse well, is often the most challenging and fruitful way of growing in love of God.

Anger has a way of getting the best of us for many reasons. However, I often tell my own children, “No one can make you angry. That is an emotion you choose to have in response to their actions.” Rather than choosing anger, we need to start choosing to take a break, pray, and pursue a peaceful resolution. Nothing good ever comes from a heated exchange. We need to treat our spouse as the valuable gift that they are.

ACTION STEP: This week, take a pause from any arguments you may have with your spouse. Seriously consider how you would act if, instead of your spouse, it was Christ to whom you were speaking (remember Matthew 25:45). Pray, cool down, then seek understanding through patience and charity.

07/01/2025

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear because fear has to do with punishment, and so one who fears is not yet perfect in love” (1 John 4:18).

I once heard a fellow Christian say, “You can’t live in fear and faith at the same time.” Why? Because true faith in God’s grace, mercy, and love should give us the incredible confidence of fearing nothing except offending God. Being human and thus broken by original sin, though, we all continually struggle with cultivating this kind of faith.

Similarly, our relationship with our spouse should be one of great love for and confidence in one another. We are called to be each other’s “helpmate,” not each other’s persecutor. Unfortunately, because we are in such an intimate relationship with our spouse, we see one another’s flaws and can find ourselves criticizing each other’s habits, quirks, and choices, becoming increasingly irritated by these things. Instead of gently requesting changes or graciously accepting constructive criticism from our spouse, we engage in verbal battles, with phrases like, “Would you knock it off,” “You’re so annoying,” “I’m so disappointed in you,” and other impatient jabs. Instead of being a helpmate to each other, we slowly start to build an emotional divide and increase the other person’s fear of annoying, disappointing, or angering us. One common negative result of this, can be an increase in lying to one another in order to avoid these ‘punishments’ from our spouse. Unfortunate and misguided, lying only makes things exponentially worse.

Just as our relationship with God needs to be built on a constant striving to love and trust Him more deeply, our relationship with our spouse needs the firm foundation of mutual respect, a self-sacrificial desire to promote the good of the other, and a firm commitment to help our spouse be his or her best self. There will always be fear in a broken world, but the more we practice self-giving love in marriage, the more we build faith in one another as well as in God. This faith, in turn, can greatly calm our marital fears.

ACTION STEP: This week, work on being a helpmate that is gentle, understanding, open to suggestions, and willing to be more self-giving.

06/24/2025

“No one has ever seen God. Yet, if we love one another, God remains in us, and His love is brought to perfection in us” (1 John 4:12).

My years of listening to stories in marriage counseling sessions have shown me the worst of what two people can inflict upon each other. Two people, sadly, who once promised to love one another. Their actions have destroyed their homes, children, and personal lives. Early in my carrier, I would sometimes, in thought only, find myself demonizing one of the spouses for their particular choices, nearly giving up on the couple as a hopeless cause. Through the grace of God, though, my heart began to see these couples differently. Instead of two failures, I instead saw two children of God, made in His image, who had been duped and broken by Satan. In this moment, they didn’t need reproach or chastisement. They needed compassion, firmness, direction, and most of all, hope. Often it takes this loving vision and guidance from another person to put couples on the path to healing and wholeness.

God is love. When we practice a true, self-denying love, God dwells within us and shines through us. This habit of sacrificial love for others, especially for our spouse, can help others concretely experience the love of God in a unique and personal way. We, His beloved children, are called to be instruments of His charity. As we grow in compassion, kindness, and joy, God’s love is perfected in us, transforming how we relate to our heavenly Father and to His children. We begin to see others through the eyes of Christ.

Speaking for myself, the more I have worked to love my wife and children with sacrificial love and humility, the more I have received that love and respect back from them. With every word of love and gratitude I hear from my wife and children, I am slowly starting to see the face of God more clearly.

ACTION STEP: This week, love your spouse and children for who they truly are: Children of God, made in His image.

06/17/2025

“(7) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is of God; everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.”

Saint Augustine once stated, “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 seen and loved for who we truly are. We long for someone to see our hopes and fears, our beliefs and values, our gifts, and shortcomings, and to embrace all of these things without ridiculing us or, worse yet, rejecting us. We want someone who is willing to walk with us on this tough life journey and who is committed to holding us close, especially when difficulties and tragedies arise. We crave a relationship with someone who sees our true selves and, instead of demeaning us for our faults, cares enough to help us overcome these weaknesses and to become even better than we might have been on our own.

At its very root, this desire goes further than seeing another person more completely. Ultimately, it draws us towards discovering our Creator Who already loves us in this way and from Whom we received this sense of longing. Saint Augustine also said, “Our souls are restless, until they rest in You, Oh Lord.” In the beginning of creation when God made man and woman, He blew His very breath, His very love, into the heart and soul of both of them (Gen. 2:7). God’s love is at the core of each human being, giving us life, worth, and meaning. Since we have the love of God in us, we feel driven to share it with others. This is how God’s love works; because He freely gives it to us, we must also share it with others. Since the fall of man, it is that love of God which we are all longing to rediscover.

ACTION STEP: This week, see your beloved as a gift of God, made in His image and likeness. With that view in mind, thank God and your spouse for the gift your spouse is to you.

06/03/2025

“So faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

As we wrap up this series on 1 Corinthians 13, we see one final truth: Love is the greatest, because it is eternal. Faith and hope are only needed to sustain us during our time on earth, but love will last forever in heaven. This last line sums up everything we’ve been talking about over the past several weeks. If our love is to imitate the eternal love of God, it has to be the compass which guides the direction of our journey, the salve that heals our wounds, the law which challenges our sinfulness instead of tolerating it, and the cord that binds us together, especially with our spouse.

True love calls us to care for each other out of a heart that wants the very best for our spouse. It calls for us to be “slow to anger, rich in kindness” as we walk together in becoming better people, better parents, and better lovers. It calls for us to decrease in our worldly view of each other and to increase in our Christ-centered view of each other.

Striving for power, prestige, and possessions can cause us to lose sight of the souls entrusted to us in our spouse and children. “What profit is there for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” (Mark 8:36). The only thing we will carry with us into eternity is the love, which our acts of kindness, love, and compassion helped us to grow, during our time on earth. These acts make us holier people, shape and heal the hearts of those who receive them, and increase our ability to face the world unhindered by the brokenness of sin around us. Love is truly the greatest!

ACTION STEP: This week, reassess the amount of time you spend on things that will bring power, prestige, or more possessions. Ask God to change any desires towards these things, into a desire to spend time building connections with, compassion for, and charity towards those we love.

05/28/2025

Who has ever hated being loved, besides Satan? Pride and anger may blind us to it for a time, but love is what can eventually pe*****te a stony heart. Many great Saints have learned the profound lesson that hate begets hate, but love softens the heart, and heals the soul. One example of this is found in John 8:1-11, in which the Pharisees try to use the woman caught in adultery as a pawn to trap Jesus. Jesus, in his love for both the Pharisees and the adulteress, challenged each to see and to turn away from the sins that ensnared them. When He said, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her,” the Pharisees were forced to turn, reluctantly, away from their evil intent. Turning then to the adulteress, Jesus saved her from her deadly lifestyle with the words, “Neither do I condemn you. Go, from now on do not sin anymore.”

How often in marriage do we speak condemningly toward each other, even in little ways, rather than with a loving challenge, as Christ did? We may ‘accuse and speak harshly’ at our spouse, in order to force a change in our beloved’s heart and mind. Often, however, we get the opposite effect: they become angry and withdraw from us rather than changing a hurtful or difficult behavior. Then, eventually, when we desire reconciliation, we are faced with dealing, not only with the original problem that began the conflict, but also with the destruction caused by our harsh words.

To love another person in “good times and bad” (sound familiar?) is the medicine needed for two people, broken from birth by sin, to eventually find healing, as they become each other’s helpmate toward heaven. Love will never fail us because it flows from the heart of God. When we address issues with our spouse, we must speak the truth in love, even if it is a difficult truth (like Jesus’s words to the adulteress). This requires patience and wisdom, and it can have a profound healing effect in our relationships. We must also be prepared to let the truth reach our own hearts. Though it can cut us to the quick (like the Pharisees), it is ultimately the remedy for our failings.

ACTION STEP: This week, pray to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for your heart to be more loving. When the opportunities arise, seek to respond to your spouse with gentleness and truth, not harshness.

Building a Eucharistic Marriage

09/02/2025

08/27/2025

08/06/2025

08/06/2025

07/22/2025

07/15/2025

07/09/2025

07/01/2025

06/24/2025

06/17/2025

06/03/2025

05/28/2025

Address

Opening Hours

Telephone

Website

Alerts

Contact The Practice

Shortcuts

Share

Monday	9am - 5pm
Tuesday	9am - 5pm
Wednesday	9am - 5pm
Thursday	9am - 5pm
Friday	9am - 5pm