 Dan and Stephanie Burke, you're watching Behind the Scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio. You might notice a little difference in this set today because we have a guest and we don't often have guests here and so we're not quite set up for it. So it's going to be, it'll be fun for you to watch because we're going to be flipping back the back and forth the mic between Stephanie and I so we can make sure that you can hear the most important person in the room which is Father Altier. So we'll start the show in just a minute but what we're going to be talking about today, I think you really want to pay close attention to. I think all of our shows are important but I think this one, and you'll find out why, is one of the more important shows we've done and one of the more important resources that we've ever promoted for the church. If you know anything about our ministry, it's about healing the church and helping the church to recover from a very difficult period and one of the most devastated corners of the church is marriage and family. So we're going to be talking to Father Altier about a remarkable book, a very different book, a surprising book called God's Plan for Your Marriage and Exploration of Holy Matrimony from Genesis to the Wedding Feast of the Lamb. If you're getting married or you are married and you want to really understand the heart of the matter, this book stands alone and I am not in any way exaggerating in my in my own estimation of having read many many books on marriage because I've never been good at it and thank God I have a resilient wife but so I've had to I know and seriously I came from a broken family and I had no formation on how to have a good marriage and so I have a stack of books that I've read and and of course all of them have been helpful to some to a greater or lesser degree. Never have I read a book anything like this and so we're super excited to have Father Altier here to talk about that. Before we jump in I want to tell you about something that's very timely and really important that you need to hop on with and that is that the Abba Summit which is on spiritual warfare is of course in Washington DC this year Bishop Strickland, Father Dennis McManus, Monsignor Rosetti, the author of The Diary of an American Exorcist, Kathleen Beckman who leads the Deliverance Ministry for the Diabetes of Orange in California, Stephanie and I, Spiritual Warfare Conference, Dr. Father McManus by the way I mean I'm sitting across from one of the best speakers you know his father Altier is and definitely in the top ten list Father McManus is one of the best speakers I've ever heard and of course very experienced in the realm of exorcism, spiritual warfare but the event is July 15th to the 17th and and even if you so we filled the event basically I imagine we have a you know there's always a few seats there's but 500 seats okay so that's a big deal but because of that we're now offering it there's an online version of it that people can participate in so or they can access the videos after whatever it is go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events to sign up and you can benefit from the conference even if you can't make it to Washington DC. Steph did you want to say anything else about that? Well it's very cool because you know sometimes people can't get there because it's difficult or cost restrictive but this gives them the opportunity to listen live you know virtually while it's happening and then the added bonus is that they'll have the videos for access later so they can go back and re-listen because often we're sitting there in the audience going wait wait what was it that he said I want to hear that again so the cool part is you know you've got that extra added benefit of being able to rewind re-listen to and just absorb all the great material that's going to be talking about and interestingly enough you and I will be speaking on spiritual warfare in marriage which of course there's none of that so we can talk about that today too so anyway we're excited about today's guests oh spiritualdirection.com forward slash events to sign up for either the in-person if there's any seats left or the virtual version of that so don't miss it all right so let's go ahead and get the show on the road mr. producer man are you already you can't that's going to get knocked around so all right and your mark get set go this is danna sephidy Burke welcome to divine intimacy radio your radio haven of wrath your hermitage of the heart your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw upon the wisdom of the saints to help us to navigate this tumult called life life is a preparation for a longer journey in heaven and it's a difficult preparation but our goal is to help you on that preparation on that pre-journey if you will and we have a guest today that I think can going to knock your socks off or is that a good good analogy your sock I don't even know what that means like how do you get your socks knocked off I don't know anyway Stephanie's going to introduce father Altair okay we want to welcome father Altair dear dear priests in our life and we're so happy that he's here with us in person this father Robert Altair is a priest of the diocese of St. Paul Minneapolis he's a third order Carmelite so that's one of the connecting lines between us all and a teacher of the well-known EWTN series fundamentals of Catholicism he also is the writer of the best examination of conscience I've ever read in fact I give we give them out at events and he which it through which 300,000 copies have been sold just so 300,000 of these examinations of conscience are out there in the world please Jesus let them be used you can find those at leafletmissile.com and we're here today with him to discuss his new book which is called God's plan for your marriage an X exploration of holy matrimony from Genesis to the wedding feast of the lamb and it is truly an amazing book so we're excited to have him in studio so welcome father Altair well thank you very much great to be here it's great to have you in person before we jump into the book I think I'd like to start with something about the book that I think is really important and that involves Cardinal Burke talk to us a little bit about so this book came about in an unusual way but it was vetted by Cardinal Burke and so we're really comfortable knowing of his theological prowess and also trusting you know your own theological mind but talk about the source of the book and why is it important that Cardinal Burke gave such a glowing endorsement of it well first of all with Cardinal Burke I had asked him if he'd be willing to to read the book and give an endorsement simply because there is so much brand new stuff in it and he was the church's highest authority on marriage and on canon law as the head of the Apostolic Signatura and so on over in Rome and so so who better to look at it and if he would approve it you know then that speaks volumes because you know like you said I mean maybe I have some theology in my background but not like Cardinal Burke and I don't have the kind of expertise that he would have so if he's saying this is good and in fact just a total side point but but he was at a conference back a couple of weeks ago and actually endorsed it publicly and told the people that they ought to go out and buy this thing so that's that's huge endorsement coming from somebody of his stature and his background but what I did though was I had to write to him and explain to him how this book came about because this is not something I can take credit for and I had to write it but but it was originally I was awakened in the middle of the night in February of 2019 and and and just told here's what you're to do for couples preparing for marriage which startled me because number one nothing like that has ever happened since before or since and also the fact that at that point I had been preparing couples for marriage for 30 years so that wasn't even on my radar screen as to what I ought to be doing to prepare couples for marriage and and so it's like well beautiful stuff that I can do that that's fine and then every day after that for the rest of the month of February with three exceptions every day when I would sit down to pray my mind would just be flooded with these beautiful thoughts about marriage that I've never thought about it wasn't why I was there to pray and I would apologize to our Lord and say I'm sorry I didn't mean to be thinking about marriage I'm here to pray but I said this is so beautiful if I don't let me write it down otherwise I'll spend my whole time praying thinking about this so I would write it down and then no sooner than I put the pen down and another beautiful thought about marriage totally different would pop into my head I'd write that down so by the end of the month the 28th of February came it stopped as quickly as it began and and and at that point I typed everything up it was 16 pages of single space notes and and I said to our Lord I said well this is way more than I could sit down and talk to a couple about in marriage prep what am I supposed to do with all this and said write a book said yeah right I have dyslexia I said that's like write a book sure yeah well our lady gets what she wants and so a book was written I think I used the backspace key just about as many times I used the space key but but that's okay and and it got written and and I was personally blown away by it and you know just the stuff is so beautiful and it's the spiritual foundation of marriage it's it's not a how-to book obviously you know you might not think that you know much about marriage Dan but obviously you know way more about it than I do because you're living it and and so I'm not trying to write a how-to do married life book but it's the spiritual foundation of marriage and you know we have to understand with marriage is that there are there really four aspects of marriage there's the communications there's the relations there's the physical intimacy but there's the spiritual part and any marriage counselor will focus on those first three they never focus on the on the foundation well the foundation is broken the marriage isn't gonna work and and so so we're living in a time where for the first time in history marriage is what's under attack and so this is the beginning of God's way of coming to the aid of marriage and and providing this so that that that we can deepen our understanding about marriage yeah you know the timing so important and you know with so Dan and I have these marriage retreats divine intimacy and marriage that with that that we do and part of what we do is we talk about the importance of marriage which people don't really understand that they think of it's something that I do or it's my vocation or it's my choice or it's how I live choose to live my life but they don't understand the spiritual importance of marriage in the divine economy right and so we were discussing how you know back when Cardinal Kaffaro was working on the JP to instant to for family and marriage you know it was an institution for the Vatican for the church in in Rome and which has now been dismantled sadly enough he wrote to Sister Lucia you know one of the three children of Fatima and said you know I want to ask for your prayers he expected no reply he just said you know I just want to ask for your prayers for this important project and this is what she she wrote him back and he was you know flabbergasted that she would spend time to write him back he was very moved by it and this was what the letter said she said father a time will come when the decisive battle between the kingdom of Christ and Satan will be over marriage and family and those who work for the good of the family will experience persecution and tribulation but do not be afraid because our lady has already crushed his head so the timing of this book the timing of the difficulties that we're seeing in the church of the attack on marriage the attack on family there just couldn't be a better time for this book to come out well in the fact that this is the time that are that our lady has provided this and and even you know you look at the way Dan introduced it you look at what but you were just saying Stephanie we have to remember that yes we have this this major problem in the church but the family is the domestic church and so what we see happening in the church in general we're going to see happening in the family because they're they're reflective of one another and and they're completely connected and and so so this is the time I mean throughout history you know we have well marriage just has always been the foundation of both the church and society and nobody ever questioned it it's just always been there it's always been solid and and that was great well now it's under attack and what happens in the church is that anytime something's under attack God will raise people up to come to the aid of that area and he's doing something now that has never happened in the history of the church and that is Lathialogians these are mostly married people thankfully both males and females because in marriage the difference is so tremendous in the in the male perspective in the female perspective that now we can actually have people with doctorates in theology writing about their own sacrament and really developing this because really in two thousand years there's very very little written officially on marriage because there's never had to be you know john paul i think uh really saint john paul the second uh i think um was also a pioneer in that area on on sexuality and theology of the body but this is a whole another dimension of that of the reflection on marriage that you've you've provided the one thing i want to emphasize that is is profoundly different about this book than any other book on marriage that we've ever read is is that it deals with it almost seems uh i don't know uh trite or oh yes of course easy to dismiss but if the spiritual heart of the marriage is sick the the the rest of it isn't going to is it can make minor progress in areas like functional progress but if the spiritual heart of the matter isn't resolved isn't strengthened isn't nurtured then the marriage is never going to be all that god called it to be and what we do in divine intimacy in marriage you know where we start in our program as we start with the interior castle and asking the question what is the progress of the soul look like fundamentally now how does that play out in marriage was one of the reasons we're so excited about your book because when we look at your book it's it's it's hitting that fundamental reality the heart of the thing that without which the rest can't be healthy or improve when we get back from the break i want to start going through some of the fundamental principles as much as we can get through on this broadcast make sure folks know y'all can order the book now through sophie institute press god's plan for your marriage an exploration of holy matrimony from genesis to the wedding feast of the lamb by father robert altair so head out to sophie institute dot com and purchase it and you will not be sorry and we'll be back in just a minute to dig dive deeper into the book okay um so 13 on the next it's 12 12 and a half does that work i don't know anything more okay um did you want to do those yeah you want to do one of them just okay real real quick folks before we go back into the interview we want to tell you about a couple of uh or one option for you out at avala institute dot org we have a course in the school of spiritual formation that's called introduction to saint tares of this year if you think you know what she's all about or if you love her and you know a lot about her little or a lot this would be a great course for you taught by deacon collin colman um that class starts july 4th that's 2022 if you're listening to this outside of this broadcast and you can find more at avala institute avala dash institute dot org avala dash institute dot org i will say collin is a member of the community the attitudes and they're very developed devoted to saint tares so he and he's and he has a new zealand accent which just makes the course sound amazing whether or not it's you know the content's rich i'm kidding but it's great you know i just as you were saying that i look down and i saw old dr elizabeth michel is teaching on the the life and thought of st edis stein dr michel is extraordinary so july 8th is that course begins um at the school of spiritual formation so if you really want to grow spiritually there's no better place than the avala institute so check that out avala dash institute dot org back to the show and what i'll do as we enter in i'll i'll bring it back in and kick it to you for the next question or would you rather do it i'm ready to go okay i'm ready i'm ready okay on your mark it's it go hey folks uh welcome back this is dan and stephanie berk with divine intimacy radio with our guest um father robert altair talking about his amazing book god's plan for your marriage and before the break we were talking about getting right the core of marriage in order for it to flourish and that's what we're missing in our society in our culture today the one part that everybody should be talking about it's the last thing they talk about they don't deal with it and what i think is so fascinating about this book and the intersection of our lives and all of that is that the reason dan and i are sitting here is because that was the core of what we focused on from day one you know i prayed i prayed before the lord i had wrecked my life and i said lord if you will take over my life i will do whatever you ask of me and he brought me dan berk right and dan in another part of the world was praying and with the with a another seat next to him with a little reserve seat reserve sign on that seat saying lord bring me the woman who will make christ the center of our home right i need somebody who's going to pray with me and make christ the center of my home so when we came together that promise that we had both those prayers you know that we had uttered and that commitment to god i want to make you first and i know i'm called to be married and i want you at the in the center of my marriage is been our complete focus and it's been painful and it's been difficult but we are here today thriving leading retreats running this ministry because of that because of him because he's at the center so it just can't be any more important it's it yeah it is the most important thing and and for our listeners to understand when you say it's been painful and difficult understand that is not necessarily a negative thing in fact it's very positive you're going to take up the spiritual life god is going to purify you he made you in his image and likeness he wants you to be more and more perfectly the person he created you to be and our sins and all of the things in our society have covered that up and and so god has to peel all of those layers off and sometimes we don't like that too well you know detachment is a very painful thing sometimes and yet once it happens the freedom is amazing and and so so it's i say that so that anybody listening understand that you do not have to be afraid of this you know it's it's like well if i take up the spiritual life it's going to be painful it's going to be difficult you're looking at jesus you're going through it with our lord and with our blessed lady they don't abandon you and sometimes it might feel that way but they don't abandon you and they're going to be with you through all the trials that's one of the beautiful things about married life is that at the moment you're married all of the grace is necessary for everything in the course of your marriage is given to you all you have to do is call upon him ask him for that grace and and so it is it's all there for you but again god being as as merciful and gentle as he is is not going to force it on you we have to open our hearts to receive it we have to be willing to cooperate with him and and that's that's what he has for every married couple he wants you to be saints and married life is about making saints beautifully said another endorsement we talked about cardinal berks endorsement which was a big deal because of how this book came to you another big endorsement is from dr bob shoots who's a friend of ours we love his ministry at the he's the founder of the john paltrow healing center and he has really been i think at the forefront of helping priests and lay people and religious to get healed and understand how to how to heal the church he said this about the book and i don't know if you have a comment about it but everyone who is married or planning to marry needs to read this it will save them much heartache this book will also be a source of healing for those who have gone through the pains of divorce or broken relationships finally this book should be required reading for marriage marital therapists and for everyone who helps prepare couples for marriage what do you what you know do you have a sense of his passion for this i don't know if you had a chance to talk with him or or if he wrote the endorsement separately yeah he actually wrote it separately it's um but but it's um it the book starts with with the foundational points of the dignity of the person and the purpose of our of our creation and what we're supposed to be doing and then builds from there into marriage and and so so that just follows with what doctor shoots is trying to do healing the whole person while you have to know who you are and what you're created for before you can heal and then again it comes back to some of those points we were talking about with it with the the spiritual foundation of a marriage and with without that spiritual foundation you're trying to build on sand essentially and the lord makes very clear in the gospels when you build a house on sand it's going to collapse so when he talks about saving yourself a whole lot of heartache yeah there's there's it's it's a struggle if you're going to build a spiritual foundation if you think about the house that you build or a building it's fascinating to me and watching construction workers the vast majority of the time of building a house takes place before any building starts it's digging the hole it's preparing the the foundation it's getting all those things laid into the ground and and it takes longer to put in the basement than it does to build the house on top of it and but that's the foundation so so when stephanie talks about some of the difficulties and struggles yeah there are spiritual difficulties and struggles you're digging out all that stuff you're laying the foundation then you can build a house on top of it that's not only sturdy and stable but beautiful and and so i think that's what he's getting at is this helps the couples to to to prepare that foundation so that what they're trying to build in their marriage their dreams their desires all these things that they want in their marriage now they have a foundation to build that on and and so rather than trying to build and have it collapse and build and collapse and build and collapse which is just going to be heartache after heartache after heartache you do the hard work of of laying the foundation and then what you're trying to build doesn't collapse yeah you know it's it's just really important to to say that you know there is no resurrection without the crucifixion right and and dan is my best friend he's my best friend and through all the pains and struggles you know we we joke in a divine intimacy marriage retreats that you know your spouse is your cross you know my spouse my cross tends to be shaped like Dan Burke and have a beard you know and and i embrace that cross and i carry him and in all of his fullness and all of his weakness and all of his strengths with me along my road to get to heaven and it purifies me but it also is just such a means of joy and it's just so beautiful so i just want to encourage people that again that the the idea of this being difficult the option is is just way worse right because Dan and i've both been through that i think that's part of the testimony of wanting to endorse wanting to write a forward in such a book wanting to make sure that it's carried at all of our events that we we make sure that we make this available to everybody that we become very passionate about it is because we know what it's like to build your house on sand we've been there and that's painful right but there's always hope and the lord is he makes all things new he restores all things new so if these this book can get into the hands of those who are beginning their journey together for those who are helping couples who those who are doing what we do which is trying to build it up and walk with people who are in difficult situations to help them find hope and restoration in christ then you know then we're doing what we're supposed to be doing this is just so important so i don't know if we want to transition now i'll let you let's do that so the title of the book just as a reminder god's plan for your marriage you can pick it up at sophia institute press we're going to do a second segment of this show if you're watching live stream on ewtn's facebook page we'll head out to spiritualdirection.com once this show concludes if you want to hang with us and keep listening but we talked about a little bit about from the beginning the initial chapter and the foundations you lay from there and then we move on to i guess more application of that reality or deep deeper dive why don't you describe the journey as you've laid it out in the book well first of all we start with our lord's words you know this is not god's intention from the beginning you know so these talk about you know the questions about divorce you know can a man divorce his wife and he said you know this what god intended from the beginning so that's why we start there you know pope john paul is the one with that insight to be able to say look jesus said go back to the beginning or from the beginning that's if we want to know what god's intent of marriage is we have to go back to the beginning what happened in the garden what was god's intention and people need to understand that marriage is a blessing from the very beginning and even in the nuptial blessing for a couple in the marriage it says the one blessing that was not forfeited by original sin or washed away in the flood is marriage and and so that has been there from the beginning obviously it has been you know what adam and eve did with original sin hurt marriage if you look at the punishments for the man and the woman it turned the relationship upside down and and so so part of our christian life particularly for married people but just for any christian person as we strive to overcome the effects of original sin as well as our own is to be able to turn all of that the right way that's again how god is making married people into saints by turning this back the way god intended it so it has to begin with our dignity you know and and this again as steving was saying earlier what what our society has done to us and what it has done to marriage people do not recognize they do they have no clue about their dignity you know and so we go to the first chapter of Genesis and not only does it say that god created us in his own image and likeness which is huge by itself then you take it to the next point you look at what god did in those first days of creation it was good it was good it was good he looked at what he made it was good only on the sixth day that he stopped halfway through he made the animals he stopped it was good the second half of the sixth day he created humanity and then it says he looked and it was very good that is who you are and that cannot change and that point cannot be stressed strongly enough it cannot change your dignity remains as god created it and that has to be the foundation of your marriage the foundation of your marriage and also the fundamental basis of hope right absolutely been through like what Stephanie and I have been through there's hope because our fundamental design right leads us to god right if we will understand it and yield to it and give ourselves to him so we're coming to a conclusion on this show head out to sophia institute press and pick up this fantastic book by father Robert Altier god's plan for your marriage an exploration of the whole of holy matrimony from genesis the wedding feast of the lamb and i promise you you will be deeply blessed if you know anyone who's getting married give them the book if you know one who's struggling or anyone who's really working on their marriage get get the book for them and they will thank you for it and with that until next time may the god of peace make you perfect in holiness may he preserve you whole and entire spirit soul and body irreproachable at the coming of our lord jesus christ amen so hey folks jump out to spiritualdirection.com to our facebook page to our facebook page at spiritualdirection.com where we're going to continue our conversation with father Altier and this beautiful book