 Hey friends, this is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're watching Behind the Scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio, live streaming by God's mercy out to EWTN's Facebook page. In a minute we're going to talk to a prolific writer, Patrick Hearn, on a very cool book, Courtship of the Saints, How the Saints Met Their Spouses. So I'm excited to jump into that in a minute. Related to marriage and saints, Stephanie and I lead a something called the Divine Intimacy and Marriage Retreat. We do it twice a year now on average. And this is our second one this year, November 3rd through the 5th at the Shrine in the Most Blessed Sacrament in Hansville, Alabama. Now, if you've never been to the Shrine, let's say you're not even interested in the retreat. You should sign up for the retreat just to go to the Shrine. I'm kidding, of course. The Shrine is amazing. Second largest monstrance in the world. Amazing monstrance. It's eight feet tall. So anyway, it's an amazing location. We have the nuns there, the cloistered nuns praying for us throughout the whole retreat. And it's transformational. It's really, so who is it for? So it's for people who we've had pre-marrieds, people engaged, mostly gifts given. And then newly marrieds who want to set things up right. Yeah. Yeah. Good. Well said. And then those maybe in later in marriage who are struggling or early who are struggling. And then those who are doing well, but want to do better, believe it or not. I mean, that's like a grand claim. How could it be that good? Absolutely. For all those people, but it really is. Yeah. I mean, we've had anything from 20 year olds all the way to, I think our oldest couple was in their 80s. It was so beautiful to see. Yeah. And it really is transformational. And, you know, for those that have been to other marriage retreats and they go, yeah, well, you know, it didn't do much for us or whatever. First of all, we didn't base this on any other retreats. We never even went to one. Yeah. This was an outgrowth of prayer, discernment, a mother religious that said, you will create this. Yeah. You're going to do it now. We love her. And so she was really God's instrument in pushing us forward in doing this. And it has been nothing but beautiful and incredible and transformational really. Which is not to point to us. It's to point to the work of the Holy Spirit. It's awesome. Can I tell you my opinion as to why? And then maybe you can tell you your opinion as to why? Okay. I think there's two things. One is transparency. So we don't talk down to people. We talk about our own brokenness and the stupid things that we did and the problems they caused and how the Lord rescued us out of our stupidity, so to speak. And the other is it's based on Catholic mystical tradition foundationally on what it means to come to union with God as the kind of overall backdrop. I think those are the two most unique things. Yeah. That's certainly central to it. There's just so much embedded into it and the Lord just keeps perfecting it and perfecting it. Yeah. What makes it unique? You can't escape this interview unless you answer my question. Well, you know, you and I are have the way we were brought together. We do have a very unique story. Yeah. But it's not unique anymore because there's so much brokenness in the world. And I think the beautiful thing is, is sometimes you can go to retreats and the speakers are, you know, practically by locating already. Or at least you pretend they are. Or something, right? It's all weird. But this is real. We get down to the real and the brass tacks of how do you love the person that God is interested to you that's sitting right next to you. Which may irritate the snot out of you. Right. So it's, it's really awesome. It's, it's filled with hope. And I have seen so many graces from this just couple after couple after couple. And I just want to say that at our last survey, all but one. And I mean, like. Out of 200 people. Yeah. All but one gave us a 10 out of 10. And I was just shocked because I looked at what, because I expected a little bit of feedback. And it was just like, wow, this, you know, whatever. So God be praised. Including guys. Yeah. Yeah. That's the big win because we, we don't actually even know this beautiful couple where the guy was just irritated. I'll talk it out. And, and he came back and he is now. On fire. Oh, right. It's so beautiful. Well, he left. He actually stomped out. Yeah, he did, but he's awesome. But he like, I'm just in love with this couple now. Anyway. Anyway, awesome stuff. So November 3rd, 2023 spiritual direction.com forward slash events. It's all of our events are there. All right. Well, let's jump in. Let's go talk to Patrick about the same kind of subject basically. Yeah. I'm excited about this courtship of the saints. Yeah. Okay. So let's go ahead and get started. Open up the show in your market set. Go. Welcome to divine intimacy radio. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. You're listening to your radio. Haven of rest. You're hermitage of the heart. Yeah. You're a monastery of the mind. Sorry. You can't make your ghost laugh. The beginning of the show doesn't work. Okay. Are you going to keep going or you want to redo that one? That was a mess. This is why, you know. This is why it's behind the scenes until it's post produced and put on every 10 radio. Okay. Let's go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome to divine intimacy radio. You're radio Haven of rest. You're hermitage of the heart. You're a monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints to navigate the two molds of this very challenging life. And we have a guest today that has given us a kind of laser focused, powerful, revelatory insight into particular saints lives that have something in common with us actually. And, but I'll let you reveal that secret. Who is this guy? We're going to interview today. Okay. We want to welcome Patrick O'Hearn. He is the brand manager for holy heroes and an author and freelance editor. He grew up in the Midwest and spent several years in a Benedictine monastery before discerning the call to marriage. He has written several books, one on the topic of miscarriage and infant loss entitled nursery of heaven. Along with parents of the saints, the hidden heroes behind our favorite saints. His first children's book and the, his first children's book, the shepherd at the crib and the cross was released in 2022. Welcome Patrick O'Hearn. Great to have you. Oh, thank you. It's an honor to be here. It's great to have you Patrick. And we're talking today with Patrick about a great book that can really inspire your faith. And whether you're premaried or married courtship of the saints, how the saints met their spouses, which I think it's very cool. I think a lot of people don't realize, I would imagine if you surveyed most Catholics, Patrick, and I wonder what you think about this, that they would, if you said, true or false, there are many, many married saints. What do you think they would say? I would, I would say they would say false. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think people are aware of how many, how many there are. And we have a couple that are, you know, hanging up in our dining room in the teres room, which is her parents. Yeah. Which are in this book. Yeah. So there are a lot and they have a profound effect and there's such a profound example. So the title of your book, Courtship of the Saints, might be something worth just diving into the first word of the title, which is courtship. What, what is courtship? Stephanie and I practiced it, by the way, deliberately. Maybe that's, I'm giving it away, the answer, but what is courtship and why is it different than dating and why didn't you name the book, Dating of the Saints? You know, courtship just, you know, it goes back to the biblical times, you know, even before the life of Christ, you know, and that's why in this book, I included the stories of, I wanted to include, even to the Old Testament, the story of, you know, the Great Strike Tobias and Sarah and then Boaz and Ruth. And then even I used some private revelation just for two stories, which was Joachim and Anne and then Mary and Joseph. And so this has always been in our tradition, this idea of courtship. And actually the term itself was, became kind of defined in the 16th century, it meant like an advisor to a king and a queen. And then as it progressed through the centuries, it meant this idea of wooing a woman with the end goal of marriage. So it always, and then as we moved into the 20th century and 21st century, you know, thanks to Fulton Sheen and Father Chad Rippinger, we see this idea of trying to find someone that's virtuous. That's the whole goal of courtship. And it entails, you know, the families involved in here. Like, you know, a young man is going to, when he pursues a woman, he's going to ask permission to court the girl and then to marry her. And then dating we see is more in the 20th century and it is more became a, actually a lower class slang term that was more on based on popularity and really didn't even have anything to do with sex. But as the automobile took off, again it was a social status. So I think the, I see the primary difference. Courtship, again, is just this, we're looking for someone that's going to help us get to heaven. It always keeps marriage in mind. It looks to heaven while dating is more concerned with the present moment and how much pleasure we can get. Good. So we're, we, we had a glitch. Is everything cool? All right. Yeah. And I think what's interesting is, you know, this question about why is it different from dating? I mean, nowadays even the word dating has gone by the wayside and like they don't, you don't even use the word dating. You use the word hooking up, you know, or whatever it just gets worse and worse. It's a, it's a more distance. So I love this idea of courtship. Again, Dan said we, we practiced it and this purposeful engagement of speaking to another, getting to know their heart and mind, looking for someone who exhibits the virtues that we seek in a spouse that would make a good husband, a good wife, a good mother, a good father. So we could get, both get to heaven. Right. And both live in a way. Like I, when I was, when I was, when I discerned marriage, I, like you, I had a, Patrick, I had an interest in monastic life when I was, when I converted to Catholicism, I was single, but I'd come out of Anglican seminary and, but once I discerned to be married, it was who will pray with me was my question. And, and the Lord gave me a woman who never, ever, we've been married a long time, but she's never said no to prayer. Never said no to pursuing Christ in virtue and living. Making Christ the center of her home. Yeah, exactly. So in this book, is your goal to promote that idea by reflecting how it works in the saints or, or was it just to draw interest to the holiness of saints in marriage? What was, what was, what was in view for you? I think, you know, in the first chapter, I define what courtship is and, you know, with Father Rippinger's permission, you know, I was able to use, he has these four stages of courtship and I have a whole chart in there. So I think it was to draw awareness, especially for young people discerning to see like, this is, you know, it's black and white, you know, often in dating we just, we don't know what's, you know, how far people ask like, how far can you go? What's, what's, and that's not the right question to ask. It's like, you know, what is, who is the person's going to help me become a saint and what virtues can I work on? So I wanted to define that right away. And so that was kind of laying the foundation, but I also, as I spell out in the intro, I don't really say that, you know, in every saint story, not every single one of them went through these four stages of courtship, you know, it looked different. So again, laying the foundation and then the other part was to show how they fell in love, how they prepared for marriage and how they stayed in love. So the courtship was the, the, you know, the whole purpose of the book isn't, I would say, just to dive into this courtship. But it's mostly, I think to reflect the saint stories and how they fell in love and stayed in love. When, when you speak about that, the first thing that strikes me is the difference about courtship is, is that it upholds the dignity of the, of the, of the person versus, you know, the use of someone else, you know, what can I get out of this, you know, what, my needs, my pleasures, my wants or whatever, but rather the dignity of the, of the other person and the dignity of the sacrament of marriage and its true purpose. You, you have a beautiful reflection on even just the purpose of marriage that I thought was just really beautiful. And you said on, on, and I'll just read a little bit of it. You said on earth, human love ought to marry ought to mirror the divine love, the external, the eternal exchange of love between the father, the son and the Holy Spirit. Only those couples who seek to resemble the trinitarian love and Christ's love for his church by holding nothing back from their spouse all the days of their life can obtain the perfection of love. It's just beautiful. It's just beautiful when we think about what is possible. And I think the, the current culture just looks at this dating or they just look at it in such a diminished, impoverished way, a very small way. And they don't realize what they're saying no to. So I love the stories of each of these saints, these couple saints where we can see what's possible, what can the Lord do if we will entrust our marriage. So was that a question? No, it wasn't. It was just more of a statement. So, okay, so let's get to this question of why is courtship so important? I think, you know, we look at our climate of marriage today and, you know, half of marriages are in divorce. You know, many people, even Catholics, cohabitating, people putting off getting married. And I think one of the things we don't look at, what's the root cause of this? What's one of the root causes? Obviously, you know, you have a lot of things, but I think we need to go back to that preparation time. And I think, you know, in fact, I think married couples, we had it pretty easy, you know, like when you go in a religious sister's preparing 10 years, you know, to be espoused to our Lord, and then you have a priest eight years and often, you know, married couples, it's, you know, it's a year to, you know, 18 months and, you know, they're getting very often it's poor preparation coming from broken homes. And that was another reason why I wrote this book to show the ideal, to show that this is how, like, St. Gianna prepared for marriage. And so you can see, like, even if you came from a broken home, this is, you know, the saints are our best teachers. And so my point is, going back, I think just the whole point is getting back to courtship and how that can really, I think the way we prepare for our marriage will in turn lead to, you know, more fruitful, more beautiful marriage, more lasting marriages, you know, because as Dan and I know in any man, like when you put on that ring on your finger, it doesn't take away the lust, you know, it doesn't go away. So it's, you know, it's now, it's, you know, our teenagers, you know, when they choose every, every sin that they're faced with now, they're choosing their future spouse, like, and that's a, so I think just going back to, that this, this preparation is so important. Absolutely. Good. So we're with Patrick O'Hearn, courtship of the Saints, how the Saints met their spouses. EWTN's Religious Catalog is a place where you should look for this book. You could also look for it at Tan Publishing. But when you get it from EWTN's Religious Catalog, two amazing things happen. One, they'll actually send you the book when you pay them. And then the second thing that happens is you're, you're participating in their great worldwide ministry of advancing the gospel and the kingdom of God. Strongly recommend the book. It's a great gift, you know, for for young men and women who have discerned they're called to be married. It'll give them, I think, a much better, you know, I think what's great about this text and we're going to head to a break, maybe I should say afterwards. Actually, when we get back from the break, I want to just talk about why I think this text, this book will be more effective than kind of a more didactic approach to training, maybe training or formation in marriage. I think this book is much more powerful than that. So, we'll talk about that when we get back from the break and we'll be ready for spouses. So, it's 1230, so we'll go to 13. For those joining us in the middle, if you want to know a courtship like the saints or a courtship like the saints or a marriage like the saints, a beautiful holy marriage. Divine intimacy and marriage retreat November 3rd through the 5th. Shrine of the most blessed sacrament in Lansville, Alabama. That's 2023, of course. Spiritualdirection.com forward slash events. Okay? All right, let's go. And your market said go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divine Intimacy Radio. We're talking with Patrick Gohern about courtship of the saints, how the saints met their spouses. The reason I think this book is more effective, will be more effective for folks in understanding what is courtship, understanding the value of it, understanding the seriousness and the glory of marriage is because it's offered through story, the stories of the lives of people that most of us revere or find interesting in some way. Or many of us don't even know exists out there. That's just to be honest. If you read them. Right. And it's so inspiring. It's beautiful. It's inspiring. I mean, one of the couple stories in here is Lewis and Zellie Martin. Of course, this is Therese's parents. Their picture, their portrait is hanging up in our dining room. It's the little flower dining room that we have here at the retreat center. And just so inspiring. It moves my heart to know that there's a couple out there. And this book is full of those couples that show us how to be holy in and through marriage in a way that makes our marriages flourish. You know, there's nothing boring. There is nothing just dead about this life. No, totally a lot. It is completely the opposite. Yeah. And it's just so life-giving. Can I say, can I make a personal comment? Sure. I mean, we say this on the show and we're both broken people and we've made a lot of mistakes in life. So I'm not saying this as sort of some lofty thing. I could not imagine it is not possible for me to conceive of a better marriage than being married to you than the marriage that we have in Christ. But I think one of the reasons why it has become that, because it didn't start that in the beginning, because we both have been through relationships in the wrong way really. We were very broken. Yeah. But then when we came and we both had this different perspective on how marriage conformed to God, then we did what Patrick is advocating through many of the lives of these saints in the sense that we were super intentional. We read a stack of books together before we got married. We prayed together every day. We studied together. I taught Stephanie Liturgy and we prayed the Liturgy the hours. So when we came into marriage, we came in with some of the hardest junk to deal with. But because Christ was at the center, that's what enabled us. The first five, three to five years was the toughest. And then since then it's just been what it improved from the beginning. But I don't know. I think what Patrick is advocating here through this lens of the saints is really vital for a healthy marriage. But I sort of cut you off there. I think you had a question. Well, yeah. So what I'd like to know is why were these married saints the greatest of lovers? Because some folks listening to this, they go, courtship's so boring and so blah, whatever. But it's quite the opposite. Tell us about these married saints and why do you consider them the greatest of lovers? And I didn't write this book just for, as you said, for people that are just discerning marriage, but also for married couples like myself and my wife and you guys. And I think you, all these men were supposed to court our wives until the day we die. And I think that the reason they're the greatest lovers is they love God above everything and the love that they had for their spouse that paralleled the love for the intimate seed. The more intimate we are with God, we will have the most intimate marriages. And I have a footnote in here and it's incredible. You don't see saints talking about this, but you have a letter between St. John and her husband. And he's recalling, I think he traveled to the United States on several occasions. I think right after they were married for six months and they wrote love letters every single day. And he said, one of the letters he remembered the intimate nights and caresses. And I think to myself, there was an article that came out that said Catholics, devout Catholics have the greatest, the best conjugal union. And I believe that when you read St. John and it's all flows from the love of Christ, from the Eucharist. And that's why these saints, they were the greatest lovers because they loved God more than their spouse and that love in God was overflowed. Like almost like you're like a monstrance to your wife in a sense like when your wife is looking in your eyes, it's like the husband if we're supposed to represent Christ, it's like Christ's love that gaze from our face is coming to our spouse. So I think that's why they're the greatest lovers. That's beautiful. You know, another one I want to make sure I get in here before because we're going to run out of time so quickly is what surprised you? So when you're studying these, obviously you knew only in a cursory level, some of them I imagine, but what, what, which surprised you impressed you the most or maybe that you learned from the most? I was, the one story, you know, there's, I think it's called The Hidden Life, but blessed Franz Jagenstager, right? He was refused to go into, to join the Nazis in World War II. And he, as a result, he was imprisoned and then martyred. And his wife could have like said, hey, I want, I want you to, you know, I want you to choose me. And he, she allowed him to choose God. And, and also the fact that he fathered a child out of wedlock before that lady and just his wife's name was Francesca. And so I just think in these stories, I include a lot of suffering in these stories. These aren't just glamorous to show that the marriage is the cross and the cross is marriage and the way that these couples that they could forgive from their betrayal and that they, ultimately they wanted God's will. They were striving towards union with God. And as you said, this whole program, I mean, like we're striving for that same union with our spouse. And I had an idea this morning, you know, how you talk about this whole union with God is like God wants us to love our spouse more like the every day, you know, than the previous day. So, so I think I was surprised by this level of forgiveness and that these saints experienced, you know, they showed to their spouses, you know, that's such a beautiful thing to bring up and point out. And I think it's important for our listeners to hear because, you know, I think sometimes people in their brokenness and we experienced this at the marriage retreat, they can read something like this and they can just feel like, but I made this mistake and this mistake and I committed this sin and this brokenness and part of that part of our marriage retreat is to go through the healing and the restoration of rooting out all that and to bring ourselves to this ascent to oneness, which is the secondary title of our marriage retreat. And I think it's just so important to understand that Christ makes all things new all things new. And when we turn our brokenness, we turn our marriages or relationships and we trust him in the midst of the mess that he he just restores if we will trust him and it's beautiful because it's a little bit like when you have a wound and it gets cauterized, it's even stronger that place where that brokenness was is even stronger and that love of Christ cauterizes that wound and then that marriage being rebirthed in that hope and rebirthed out of that brokenness to oneness can be even stronger and they can actually be a light for others. They can be a source of healing and hope for others. So I love that you have stories in here that aren't just pie in the sky, but this is really the reality of the painfulness of all this. So I thank you for putting that in there. I want to ask another question what or how can married couples grow in love based on these state stories? Like what this is beautiful, their wonderful stories but how can they help us grow in love with our spouse? I had a story of a St. Elizabeth of Hungary and when her husband King Louis would come back from being out of the country it said she would run to him and give him a thousand kisses and I often think you know as I don't advise making your kids but I think there's something to be said about that when the husband comes home from work the wife she should greet him if she can and give him a kiss or the husband's leaving when he goes out, I know the beautiful practice of a priest visiting the Blessed Sacrament before and after he leaves his home or he's got the chapel there that's like the same thing with our wife we should give a kiss. I love you before we go or when we're coming home just that level of affection we see it in St. Gianna's letters that even communication throughout the day sending a text to your wife I love you, how's your day going? and then I think the other thing is just that prayer life there was a couple in here I butchered their last name the quad trincos but they're the first blessed couple before the Martin family and they had several children that became priests but they would often spend 30 minutes in prayer every morning and so I think your prayer life will spill over to that relationship so those are a couple ways that I think couples can grow I think one of the powerful things about the Marriage Retreat 2 which parallels this book is like one guy said to his wife after he left the retreat I never knew there were so many different ways that I could love you and he's already a good man they have a good marriage already but when you read the lives of the saints it reminds me of the passage in the New Testament where St. Paul said follow me as I follow Christ the power of the lives of the saints is they sort of incarnate if you will or make real what it means to follow Christ in the various states of life and so your book is a series of stories of men and women who made real in all of their brokenness or their goodness what it means to follow Christ in marriage and in so doing they're changed and often these people change the world around them is there any example I'm guessing I know the answer but is there a single example of a couple who was holy in their pursuit of one another that didn't also have a huge effect on the world around them I mean I think to no effect on the world around them yeah it's just not possible is it no no it's not I mean I think you see you know and I even mentioned the life of Thomas Moore right his first wife died and then his second wife he married but I was doing some research on him and I talk about in my other book the parents of the saints he had several children that became one became a nun or grandchildren a nun a priest I mean it's like this whole lineage I call it saintly succession you know how we have apostolic succession God wants that from us he wants our children our grandchildren and you know to become saints and that's where you see like you know when you're following God's will and you're putting him above everything he wants to you know have a harvest of saints yes absolutely well thank you so much this is a beautiful book I encourage everyone to check out courtship of the saints how the saints met their spouses you can find it at tan or at EWTN religious catalog so 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