 Hey friends, this is Dan Burke, Dan of Stephanie Burke, and you're watching Behind the Scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio, and the camera's not out of switching, beloved producer. There we go. And um, the uh... They just thought maybe my voice had changed. Yeah, right, right. That's a little weird, isn't it? Hey, Stephanie's got a beard. Her voice is kind of low. Well, I didn't have it, but they couldn't see me, so they just saw you. No beard. Okay, that's right. So welcome. You're watching Behind the Scenes, Divine Intimacy Radio. But I want to make a note. The vast majority of the books that we recommend on this show can be found at EWTN's Religious Catalog, so make sure you check that out there. One thing that's cool about EWTN's Religious Catalog is that they are... All the books are vetted there, and so you can trust them. And then when you buy a book from EWTN's Religious Catalog, two things happen. They actually send it to you, which is amazing. And then... And then the other thing is, is that you are participating in the important work of EWTN. Instead of the evil empire. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did say it. Okay. So before we jump into the show, as usual, I want to tell you about a few things that you might be interested in. One is, we're going to do a webinar. Me, Father Matthew McDonald, and Eric Sammons, who's the editor of Crisis Magazine, on how to attend the Latin Mass. Why do that? Well, a lot of folks after COVID and all the goofiness that's gone on with the abuse of the Lord and the holy sacrifice in the Mass have just said, you know what? I've had it. I'm going to go to the Latin Mass, or I'm not going to stay in the church or whatever. You know, they're frustrated. And we're not, you know, as I say this, what I'm not doing is putting one mass over the other. I'm just saying there's a huge transition of people from the ordinary form to the extraordinary form, just due to frustration. And there are many beautiful extraordinary form masses, don't get me wrong. But for those who are making that decision, this isn't a bash any mass. It's not a critique of any mass. It's not anything negative about secondary. None of that. We're just telling you, if you want to go, we're going to tell you how to go, you know, because it's a very different experience. We've had friends go and just like, wow, this is very hard, you know? But it's just because if you don't have the right mentality and you don't know what to do, it's so different. The way of participation in the extraordinary form is very different than in the order. Well, the way it should be is the same. The way it normally is is very different. So if you want to sign up for that webinar and go to spiritualdirection.com forward slash events, all of our events are out there. The other thing, and then we'll jump into the show is we have our Avala summit coming up. It's been full for like, I don't know, how many nine months? A couple years. It's been full with a wait list for a couple of years. But we've added a very cool thing in this, you know, world of COVID or post COVID is that we're adding a live stream. A virtual part of it. Now those that are still attending in person, those seats are filled and they're still attending in person. Yeah. But now we've added extra seats as it were virtual seats. So it's a great way to participate in an enormous, amazing. The lineup is quite it's it's remarkable. Yeah, it's called Fire from Above and Bishop James Wall, Father Boniface Hicks, Dr. Kevin Bose, Dr. Ralph Martin, our own Dr. Joseph Holtcraft, just talking about the Holy Spirit and and Carmelite spirituality, Charismatic and Carmelite spirituality. And how do you live these two? What is this? Or are they compatible? And so how? And when I speak of Charismatic, what I mean by that is the gifts of the Holy Spirit. So so if you want to join that again, it's spiritsdirection.com forward slash events. And if you sign up, if you've never, you know, become a subscriber to spiritsdirection.com, I suspect that someday we're all all faithful Catholics are going to be kicked off social media altogether. And if you want to make sure you don't miss what we do and make sure you sign up there and you'll always get our emails and that sort of thing. An awesome, you know, articles, all kinds of things that help you on your journey. There you go. So today we're talking about marriage spirituality. So if you have any questions before we even jump into the show, after the show is formally over in terms of the recording of the radio show we do for UWTN, if you want to ask some live questions, then we can do that right after the show. Just make sure you type those in. I guess they can, they can just type them in anytime. But we have plenty to get through the show. So you're ready to get rolling? I'm ready to get rolling. Okay. And your markets that go. This is Dan Stephanie Burke. Welcome to Divined Intimacy Radio, your radio haven of rest. Your hermitage of the heart. Your monastery of the mind where we lift our hearts and minds to heaven to draw on the wisdom of the saints. And today we are talking about marriage spirituality. Why are we doing that Dan Burke? Because we just came back from we've been on the road for three weeks. Wow, I'm tired. Me too. Wow. And the last event we did was in Farmer's Branch, Texas at Mary Immaculate. Was that right? Right. And we did a marriage retreat. It was, it was like 10 and a half days, Friday sat all day, Friday, all day Saturday, and then a big chunk of the day Sunday on how to know divine intimacy. A lot of people think divine intimacy radio is about marriage in general, but it's a divine intimacy is a general term related to the interior life, the mystical life of grace in Christ. But sometimes we do talk about marriage and in this case today that's the topic. Well, and it can be realized in marriage. That's the beauty is that we can discover the divine intimacy that we are called to with the Lord in, in and through our marriage. It's actually a primary means of discovering divine intimacy. Our marriages. So what is in terms of marriage, what is divine intimacy in marriage? What does that mean? Oh, there's so many facets. It's like talking about all the different facets of a diamond. So, you know, how the subtitle of our retreat, which I love that we came up with was ascent to oneness, you know, and it's both a little O and a, in a capital O. Oneness with a little O and oneness with the big O. Right. Capital O, that oneness with the Lord, the oneness with one another. And so as we grow in holiness, please Jesus, then we grow in oneness with one another. And so that divine intimacy, you know, comes emotionally, spiritually, physically, all those ways, you know, how we, how we talk and live together, how we pray together, how we raise our children together, how we go through this journey of life as a couple, the way God intended us to go together. Yeah. And so it's, it's, it's a mystery. It's a challenge. It's also glorious. And it's really, really, really important. Yeah. It's, it's so incredibly important that that's the reason we do it. You know, we had, we've never really intended, honestly, we'd never intended to have marriage retreats. And when you see all of the attack, you know, against marriage, all, if you look politically, socially, culturally, that marriage is demeaned and torn down, then you see, okay, there's something going on, because if the culture, the world, the flesh and the devil goes after something, you know that there's, there's something behind that and you need to pay attention. And so all of the world, the flesh and the devil goes after marriage. They want to destroy it, they want to demean it, they want to flip it on its head, they want to redefine it, they want to annihilate it and make it irrelevant and unnecessary. Whereas it is, it is the very image, it's living out the very image of the triune God, you know, the triune, the relationship between Christ and God and the Holy Spirit and this beautiful Trinitarian love is what we're called to in marriage, in complete self-giving to one another, and that love that generates between the two is the essence of what it is to live in divine intimacy. And really, if we backed up and I said, what is the, what is the sacrament of marriage all about? You just gave a good summary of the same answer. I think back to your note about one, sent to oneness, the reason we use that title is, a sent is an illusion to John of the Cross and Carmelite spirituality, but also Jesus, speaking of the narrow way, is difficult. So this is sent to the cross, to the resurrection and oneness, as you noted, being oneness with God and with one another. And so one of the ways that we approach this, it's very different, is most of these kinds of events are approached, or even this topic is approached from a purely psychological standpoint, like what do you think about? How do you deal with your emotions between one another? We're not taking that approach necessarily, although those things are good. Our approach is that if you draw near to God, if you think of a triangle, right, and you're on the bottom left side of the triangle, and I'm in the bottom right, and God's at the top. And the base of a triangle is wider than the point at the top. As we ascend, if both of us ascend together, we're moving closer together. And it's not a straight idea. It's a really beautiful, powerful idea. Yeah, and it's more than an idea. It's necessary. You know, I heard someone recently say, you know, you cannot achieve oneness in your marriage without achieving oneness with the Lord. Right? It's there. Well, none other than Bob Shoots, right? Or was it the guy who does his podcast with him? Oh, Dr. Jake Kim. Yeah. Both psychologists. Yeah, they're both, you know, preaching the same thing. I just found out they're also doing series on this. And it's incredible. You know, when you think about, okay, it's not just this isn't just an idea. This is actually truth. This is the truth that the church teaches. This is the truth that you see in reality being lived out. As people, you know, the people that I know that have the holiest, most beautiful, most free, most joyous marriages are those that are holding hands and running to the Lord with all they've got. You know, they're just like chasing after the Lord. And in that suffering that the self-denial, the self-giving, the prayer, the sacrifice of what does it mean to be one with God? They're holding one another accountable, they're helping one another on the path. And in that, they find freedom and beauty in their marriage, this true oneness. Amen to that. And you know, what's interesting is when I first, when we first were recording, we studied the theology of the body together as a way of getting to know one another. We did it via Skype. I think I sent you a camera for Christmas. And we did that over Skype. One of the things that I found difficult to understand at first, which I think is very powerful and important to convey, is the idea of a sacrament. And the marriage is a sacrament, you know, so just like baptism and confirmation and the Eucharist and reconciliation. And in terms of reconciliation and the Eucharist, we have a theology that's, I think, relatively easy to understand, not that everybody knows it, which is that for me to receive the greatest grace as possible in the Eucharist, then I need to be properly disposed, right? So there's a thing that we do in order to correspond our hearts and minds to God and open ourselves to the heart. One is, you know, getting rid of making sure we don't come with mortal sin, which is a grave, grave, grave sin. And there are other things we can do, you know, just even studying to understand what the mass is, that we're more fully engaged so that the, so that the graces that one person receives in the mass is very different than the graces of another person, depending on the disposition of soul, was always really confusing to me or hard to understand is how do, how does, how does marriage, because how does that apply to marriage? Yeah, because the Eucharist and reconciliation are things that we do over and over. Baptism is one time confirmation is one. Sacrament of marriage is, there's an event, right? But then there's this, but it also has a similar characteristic to the Eucharist and reconciliation in the sense that the graces that can come are not just the one time, not just the first time, right? Not just that first event. Right. So how do those graces flow in the sacrament of marriage? Yeah, and it's just such a huge idea. And the beauty of it is when you think about the beginning graces of that sacrament, you know, you come together and your beautiful gown, and he's looking dapper and everybody smells good and looks amazing and all that stuff. That's all applied to you. But not necessarily to me. So anyway, you know, you come together in that sacrament and it's like, you know, until death do us part and for richer, for poorer, for, you know, all those things, right? The issue is, is that when you move into that marriage, is that we can often forget those promises, we can forget those vows, and then we can start to look at one another through the lens of our brokenness and our failings and, you know, that sense of everything's wonderful. You know, people say, oh, the honeymoon's now over. Well, when the honeymoon's over, when you start to see each other in the reality of who you are, as you truly are, right? That's where true vulnerability comes in. And that's where the graces of the sacrament can then just be explored and really take an advantage of as it is, because then if we start to approach our marriage with, not, what am I going to get out of this? But rather, how am I called to love the other when they're no longer perfect on their best behavior and without sin? There's no longer, you're not on a high. You know, it's similar, interestingly enough, the way that you're letting that out. It's similar to just the normal interior life, which is why we call it a scent to oneness, in that when you first begin on your journey to God, and this means that, you know, you may be a cradle Catholic, but a lot of cradle Catholics don't know the Lord, and they don't know this really powerful conversion that the saints know. And so, but they come to it somehow, you know, you go to an event or you read a great book or you have a crisis, whatever. So you say yes to God in a bigger way. And then what happens is he often pours out a lot of graces on us that are experiential in nature. So we experience this new or renewed love for the faith. We experience this joy or maybe even a freedom from sin and that sort of thing. But where the rubber really meets the road in terms of whether or not we're going to be an authentic disciple of Jesus is not that moment, because those moments are actually kind of easy. You know, I think, I think Father Altier said, the easiest, you know, I think the easiest moment in the marriage is the wedding day, you know, when all of the emotions are high and all of that, the harder part is when it's sort of the luster wears off, we see each other in our sin and brokenness. We see all the, we're no longer putting the best foot forward like we were when we're recording, trying to win one another. And then, and then there's, there are challenges and difficulties and you got to show up whether you like it or not, and you got to stay in whether you like it or not. And that's when the, when you're saying the graces flow because it's difficult. And so when you get back from the break, I want you to answer the question, why is it the graces flow more fully in that time than when everything is feeling great? So we'll be right back. So 12, 15. That was when we ended that. 13. Okay. All right. Reset. Mark, it's at go. This is Dan and Stephanie Burke. Welcome back to Divinity and Mercy Radio. We're talking about marriage, spirituality, the progress of the soul, the progress of union to God, and how it is that we can come to know, increase sacramental graces. I mean, maybe why should we care is another question. But before the break, I asked, why is it that there are more graces that come when things are difficult than when they're easy? Well, if we think about who we're called to be, we're called to emulate Christ, to become other Christ on earth. And through that, that means we're going to live through his life, right? All the beauty and glory of it, but also the suffering, the agony, the scourging, the, you know, all of it, the passion. There is no resurrection without the crucifixion. And so that plays out in our marriages as well. Because I don't know anybody, I honestly don't know anybody that just got married and they just continued to ascend without any stumbling, without any suffering, just straight stratosphere all off to heaven, right? We all experience this challenge, we experience challenges and brokenness in one form or another. One of the greatest disappointments is this moment when you look at the other person and all the sudden, you know, as it were, the veil comes off or the shine and polish comes off and you see somebody in the fullness of who they are in their humanity, as it were, in their brokenness. And you have to make a real choice at that moment to say, I love you anyway. I love you. I love you as you are, not when you're perfect. You know, I choose to love you every day. And so in that act of self-denial to stay in the battle, it's really, really important. You know, I was just speaking to a young wife and her husband is suffering deeply. And, you know, he said to her, when you love me, and he's really, really suffering right now, and I won't go into the details, but he says, when you love me, it's painful because I don't deserve it. I don't deserve your love. You know what's crazy about that? And she said to him, it's a gift. Right. My love is not because you've earned it. My love is a gift and it's just incredible. So that, that self-giving at that moment, huge graces are flowing through that. And it's so healing. And if he can learn to receive it, then it'll change everything for him. So, funny enough, I went through that with you in some ways. Like, I was so broken by the time we met in terms of relationships. It was, you know, pretty devout and, you know, heading the right direction spiritually, not perfect in any way, but, you know. But if you remember, I told you, it took me about five years. And in many ways, I have that, I had that same sentiment. It's like, I, why are you with me? What is wrong with you? I mean, how is this possible that I have this beautiful woman who's loving me? And even in the brokenness, even in your brokenness, I struggled with it. I always, I, you know, I've always had such high esteem and love for you and just thought, what are you doing with me? You know, what are you doing hanging out with me? But interestingly enough, I'm working on this book, The Devil and the Castle on St. Teresa of Avila and the Spiritual Warfare and the Progress of the Soul. And in the first mansion, it's like early on, there's this, I'm doing this reflection on how painful it is when we first begin to see God for who he is and who we really are and, and, and, and how it hurts because we're like, oh, we're like Peter when Jesus fills the boat and Peter's, you know, I can just see his eyes going. You are, you're the Messiah. You're, please, no, please don't come to hear me. I'm not worthy. You know, it's just, gosh, the emotion just hit me, but it's this sense of you're so good. You know, I don't, I don't deserve your love. I'm a sinner. You, you are, you are special. Please stay away. It's not good. I'm not good. You know, and I think that the beauty of that, that's, that's not a problem as long as we don't stay there, right? That we really come to this process where we say, you know, then he says, follow me, right? And then so what do you do then? Do you sit there and say, no, no, no, no, you can't, I, you know, when you said, I love you, I didn't just resist you for years, you know, or, or, or, or, you know, stay in my brokenness of not feeling comfortable with, well, how could you love me? But when Jesus says, follow me, you get off your knees and you go, you allow, yes, go ahead. You know, yeah, I mean, he, you allow the love in and I, you know, that's where that true self-denial and self-giving becomes transformative, right? Because in that moment, you know, if we can love our spouse in their brokenness and stay with them when they're at their worst and not leave them, don't desert them, don't run away, but, but pick up your cross, keep your eyes on Jesus, try to be holy and love so sacrificially that it builds that bridge over which truth can pass. And the truth of that, of your spouse's dignity and their worth in the eyes of God can break through and they can be transformed. Because I can tell you that it is remarkable how many marriages are unequally yoked. We talk about unequally yoked in that, and it's just, it's incredible. It's a praise that Jesus used, or that's used in the New Testament, I should say. So, so often people go into their marriage and there's, it's a little bit of pie in the sky and they get married because, you know, this person smells good and they're cute and whatever, right? So they end up getting married. But then one of the spouses has a, has a remarkable transformation. They have a conversion, but the other spouse doesn't. And, and so then it's, it's in that moment when you're dealing with those kind of situations that is so difficult, because you're looking at your spouse, you're on fire for the Lord, they're not, they're mired in sin and they don't understand what you're talking about and they feel often betrayed and abandoned or condemned or condemned and judged, criticized, whatever, whether it's true or not, because they're faced with this light of Christ and the other and the sacrificial love and this amazing, you know, gift that they have in their spouse. So when you come to that unequally yoked place, that's where the, the gift and the, I think the most divine graces flow, often in a marriage that are transformative, because if you can stay in that situation, be Christ to your spouse and not give up and not run, but remember your vows for better or for worse, right? And help them, love them into heaven. That's what we're called to do and, and the Lord can do amazing things. I've seen it time and time again. You know, when we were first married, you talked about our marriage and how radical, you know, radical the transformation was in the first five years or so. And I remember being so grateful for you, like I was just, you know, because I came from a place of darkness. You came from a place of darkness. We had both had, you know, unions with others that were, that were annulled and broken and, and there was tremendous darkness and, and injury and woundedness in that. So to have a spouse that was willing to fight towards heaven, right? With each other. With each other. We talk about fighting towards one another, towards Christ and one another. That was so life giving to me that I remember praying to God, please love Dan through me. Love him through me. Help him to see your love. Help him to see what I see. It worked, by the way. Yeah, you know, well, so it both ways. It worked. It did. And it healed me in a lot of ways. I mean, our relationship, and this is part of that sacramental grace flowing is your love for me and desire that God used you to love me has healed me a lot of wounds in relationship to what it means to be in an authentic marriage in Christ. I don't want to get too far into this final segment before I tell people about it, some resources that are very powerful. The most we have are out on apostolyva.org and if a producer could put up the address on the screen, but all for those who are live stream, but also say it for those who listen on radio. It's A P O S T O L I V I A E dot org apostoly va. It's basically spelled the way it sounds. Or and out on that site, you can find blog resources on unequal yoke marriage. We've written a few posts together on that inside the site. If you become a member, it's free. There's no gimmicks. It's all free. We did a 14 part series with Father Timothy Gallagher on discernment of spirits and marriage, which I, it's a game changer. I loved doing that series with him. It was awesome. And that's free. It's bundled as what we call a mini course. And then out on spiritualdirection.com, which is easier to spell and remember sometimes we have a marriage spirituality series there that you can check out. Right. Right. And, you know, if you want to join us for these marriage retreats, because what, what I have found, if we can talk a moment about the fruit of this, of this part of our ministry that, that we've been encouraged and kind of grabbed by our lapels and jumped into. Thanks to Mother Louise Marie. Yes, we love you always. Thank you for the push and the tug and the, the, encouragement, encouragement. So the fruit that we're seeing it is just remarkable because these couples come from all different walks in their marriage from those that are newly married, that are adjusting. We've even had engaged couples to those that have been married for 40 and 50 years. We have seen those that are on fire together and those that are unequally yoked. We've seen people that are struggling and the verge of divorce on the verge of divorce, some that have been completely renewed and had their marriage restored. And it's, we're just seeing all kinds of fruit from it. And the truth about every one of those is it, all it takes is to stay and fight. It was one of the things we tell couples is you only lose when you quit, right? You only lose when you quit. If you stay in and you stay in the right way in terms of, if you, if you stay in and you are orienting your heart and mind toward God and toward redemption and giving yourself away to the church, giving yourself in mental prayer, giving yourself in daily exam and going to get healing if you need it, deliverance ministry if you need it, whatever. When you do that, you will grow close to God. And if you both do that together, you, it is inevitable that what you struggle with will be healed. Everyone can be healed. Everyone, no matter where you are, how bad you are, we're coming to the end of the show. And I want to remind everybody that if they want to join us for the divine intimacy and marriage retreat, our next one's going to be in February of 2022, February of 2022. You can find it out at spiritualdirection.com, divine intimacy and marriage retreat. I guarantee, sorry, spiritual event, spiritualdirection.com forward slash events and make sure you take a look at the divine intimacy and marriage retreat in February of 2022. It will fill up, so don't miss it. Very good. Okay. Until next time, it is time to go. 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. Amen. Any questions we can address? All right. Is love a feeling or a decision? Both. Love is both a feeling and a decision. And in fact, you could think of duty and devotion when you do those. So the church, as an example, recognizes in the traditional act of contrition, I'm sorry for the loss of pains in hell, which is more of a duty apology. And then it goes on and then it basically causes you harm, Lord, which is a little bit more of a devotion side. There's one that's, you know, technically I should go to hell. The other is I really love you and I don't want to harm you. So authentic love is both a commitment and a feeling. But if you get up every morning expecting to feel elated and impassioned by your spouse, that's not reality. You know, those feelings ebb and flow, but the more that you live out of the decision to love, the more that the feelings continue. And I have to say that because you have to nurture that and stoke that, that feeling of oneness with your spouse. And what's beautiful is when you start to feel the oneness of Christ in your marriage, he fuels that he fuels this drawing together of one another. And we've talked about being each other's best friend. There's nobody else that we'd rather spend time with than one another, working and talking and struggling and being together. So that feeling of love, of oneness that we have shared is the oneness of Christ. The only qualifier I will say to all of that is, is everything you said is true. Feelings don't matter. You know, in the end, your commitments have to be stronger than how you feel. Otherwise, you won't stick. And that's in the spiritual life. That's in relationship to God. That's in relationship to your spouse, anyone. So feelings really don't matter. But we can attest that you can have a beautiful marriage with the mutual increasing love for one another, which is both commitment and feeling if you're oriented to God and all that you do in relationship to marriage. Yeah, absolutely. We have another question. Do you recommend a specific prayer to pray over your spouse? Kim, that is such a good question. I guess it depends on what the issue is. But yeah, I don't have deliverance prayers, obviously. You can pray. In fact, probably if we go to what have we prayed most, we won't use the word over because there's some technical issues there. But one of the things we prayed for the most in terms of touching one another, sign of the cross in the forehead, holy water has been the Lord's intervention for spirits to warfare that either of us are suffering. Right. I mean, all of our prayers for our spouse or even our children is we're supplicating heaven to pour down blessings on our spouse, right? So Lord, I ask you to bless my husband. I ask you to strengthen him in his role as the head of our family. I ask you to strengthen him in the leadership in our home or in his ministry or in his work and his ability to persevere and to die to himself and continue to be strong for our family. And then hopefully Dan would pray that I would be strengthened in our vows and in all of that. So I think the most beautiful prayer for one another is supplicating heaven extemporaneously for all the blessings that you want on your spouse. Extemporaneous means prayer of the heart. Right. Prayer of the heart. Very good. Yeah. I think we do one more. Yeah. What are the differences between a justice of the peace marriage and a marriage to the church? Well, of course, one is in some sense inconsequential. There is no true marriage just because a justice of the peace gives you a marriage license doesn't mean it's a sacramental marriage. It isn't a sacramental marriage. Right. So the, well, it could be depending on how things are done. But yeah, just the justice of the peace is. In and of itself, it can't be a sacramental marriage. It has to be within the, it has to be recognized by the church. Yeah. So yeah. But regardless of the technicalities of those things, right? A marriage in the church means that you are, that your church is being blessed inside the marriage, that it's in the context. Your marriage is being blessed in the church. Yes. Not the church being blessed in the marriage. I think my beloved is tired. Yeah. I am very tired. It's been a long week. Holy marriage is blessed in the church. Yeah. Well, that's true. That's true too. Yeah. So bottom line is justice of the peace is not sufficient to have to have, it does not in and of itself define or note that there's a proper sacramental reality to the marriage. There has to be a sacramental reality to the marriage for it to be a true marriage, which is the, and we only get one of those. Just Jesus said there's one true, authentic sacramental marriage and that can, you know, you need to do that inside the church. Right. So if you've been marriage, if you've created a civil union with the justice of the peace and you are free to marry, which means you don't have prior marriages. That have not been annulled. Annulled. Yeah. Yeah. Then it's important that you go to your parish priest and ask him to bless your marriage. Yeah. You know, and then it becomes sacramental and blessed by the church, by our Lord, so that you can get all the graces that you want from it because you want to make sure it's strong. Yeah. And just a side note about that. You may, when they go, you know, you may hear, well, you have to have get an annulment or something like that. Here's the thing. We've both been through the process and in some cases it's abused and that's a whole nother discussion. But in both of our cases, we were not free to marry and it's really, it's very, very clear. The first time around. We were not free. We were civilly married, but we were not sacramentally married in both cases. Yeah. And don't be afraid of the annulment process. It can be very healing. You have to be submissive to it. And you know, I mean, I remember when we were in our process, one of the hardest things you ever heard, I think you've said is when I said, you know, we're friends right now, because that's where we were. I said, and I can't go any further beyond friends. If my marriage is not annulled, then I, then we can't be married. We can't have a relationship beyond friends. Yeah. Yeah. So we, I was pretty dead serious about, you know, living within the teachings of the church and the graces and God has, by his mercy, poured out his graces upon our marriage. Yeah. Annulments are incredibly, you know, all the, all the drama and, you know, controversy aside, when it's properly done, it can be incredibly healing because it forces you as an individual to look back and figure everything out, to look what, why is it not sacramental? So that when you do the one true marriage, it's done right. Amen. All right. Thanks for hanging out with us. Thanks for, thanks for EWTN allowing us to live stream this on their Facebook page and airing our show. We're grateful to that great ministry and may Jesus Christ be praised now and forever. Amen.