Turning Ownership into Stewardship: Marital Finances (4 Keys Downloadable Worksheet)

This is number five in a series of downloadable worksheets to use at home, in small groups, or during break-out sessions with our Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love. TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT, CLICK HERE.

Chapter 5

Turning Ownership into Stewardship:
Six Tips for Trouble-Free, God-Centered Finances 

Marital finances are a hot-button issue for many couples. But frequently couples are fighting over who’s in control and who gets to make the decisions as much as they’re fighting over the money itself. It helps for them to commit fully to the idea that what’s mine is yours and what’s yours is mine. It helps even more for them to realize that everything that is theirs has been given to them by a God who loves them.

We are not so much owners as we are stewards, caretakers of God’s blessings. As Manny and Karee say in Chapter Five of The Four Keys, “An attitude of stewardship can set us free. Good stewardship recognizes that everything we have comes from God, even the talents and opportunities that enable us to earn a living. God gives us these things so we can use them for his glory, not just accomplish our own personal goals.”

In Chapter Five, Manny and Karee use Scriptural quotes and stories to detail six tips for trouble-free, God-centered marital finances:

• Talk to each other
• Establish joint financial priorities
• Plan wisely
• Save for your family’s future
• Tithe (or donate a fixed percentage of your income)
• Pay your taxes (yes, really!)

Conversation Starters

You can use the following conversation starters to get a discussion going among yourselves or in a small group. If it helps, think it over on your own time, take it to prayer, and jot down your answers before talking about them.


1. Do you and your spouse have different spending and saving patterns? How different are they?





2. Are you comfortable discussing finances with each other, or does it sometimes cause conflict? Which financial issues have the most potential for conflict?






3. How important do you think donating to charity is? Which charities do you (or would you like to) support?






4. How often do you pray about any financial worries you might have?






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Turning Meaningless Drudgery into Meaningful Work (4 Keys Downloadable Worksheet)

This is number four in a series of downloadable worksheets to use at home, in small groups, or during break-out sessions with our Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love. TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT, CLICK HERE.

Chapter 4

Turning Meaningless Drudgery into Meaningful Work:
How to Prioritize God, Family, and Work

Whether you work at home or in an office, nobody wants to feel like a gerbil on a wheel. Work is meant to be more than that, and deep inside we all know it. Even in the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve worked. Our Blessed Mother Mary worked in the kitchen, and her husband Joseph and son Jesus worked at the carpenter’s bench. Work has always been a way that we humans find fulfillment and purpose in life, a way that we can make a visible difference in the world around us.

A lot of effort can be poured into finding a “dream” job or career, and that’s certainly a worthy goal. But sometimes we’re called to bloom where we’re planted and to recognize that all work has value in the eyes of God.  As Manny and Karee say in Chapter Four of The Four Keys, “The value of our work can be measured by the love and care we put into it. Even the smallest, most mundane task can be a kind of offering to God. Just look up from your work and think silently, ‘My Lord, this is for you.’” Realizing the supernatural worth of our work will help us to prioritize correctly: first, God; then, family; and last, work.

In Chapter Four, Manny and Karee show how hard work can enhance our reputation and self-esteem and how God’s will always has a place in our career decisions. They describe a uniquely Catholic work ethic and explore the special challenges women face in crafting a work-life balance. In addition, Chapter Four will help you to:

• See work as a blessing, not a burden
• Make family-friendly career choices
• Fairly distribute chores at home
• Work for a higher purpose with God as your ultimate “boss”

Conversation Starters

You can use the following conversation starters to get a discussion going among yourselves or in a small group. If it helps, think it over on your own time, take it to prayer, and jot down your answers before talking about them.



1. What priority does work have in your life?





2. What led you to choose your particular work or career?






3. Do you struggle to balance home life and work life? What strategies have or haven’t helped you find that balance?





4. How did your parents balance home life and work life? Will that model work for you?





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Winning Essay on Mercy as Lifelong Married Love in Sickness and in Health

With this moving tribute to her grandparents' lifelong married love, tenth-grader Allyson Swartzberg won second place in the Jubilee of Mercy Essay Contest sponsored by the Department of Catholic Studies at Seton Hall University. I'm proud to know Allyson and her parents, Pam and Mark!

When most people hear the word “sick”, they experience many emotions, including sadness, sympathy, and compassion. Sometimes sickness even causes us to be patronizing. Because of my grandparents, those are emotions I no longer feel when I think about visiting the sick. My grandfather, Jim, was an amazing man, perhaps the best man I’ll ever meet. For as long as I can remember, my grandpa had Alzheimers disease. I’ve heard it said time and time again that when someone has Alzheimers, he becomes a different person. In my experience, the opposite is true. When I think of Alzheimers, I will always think of love, mercy, and compassion, and that’s all thanks to my grandma and grandpa.

My grandmother, Diva, cared for her husband at home as long as she could. When that was no longer possible and he moved to a nursing home, my grandma went to be with my grandpa every day. She never once complained that he had forgotten her, nor did she ever decide to stay home and let someone else take care of him simply because it was easier for her. She could just as easily have let the nurses care for him in her stead, but she wouldn’t dream of it. Diva would go and feed my grandpa, even if it took hours. I remember days that my mom would take me to see my grandfather at the nursing home, only to find my grandma leading my grandpa in a slow dance, just as he had once led her. She was never impatient with him, nor was she spending time with him out of pity or to give herself a sense of fulfilling her duties. My grandma went, not out of duty, but because she wanted to be with him. Up until my grandpa’s death, Diva and Jim were the definition of “relationship goals”.

I may have been young when my grandfather passed, but when I think of love, Jim and Diva are the first people that come to mind. Love is selfless, it is entirely self giving, and that is what my grandparents had. From the first time I watched my grandma care for my grandpa, I knew without a doubt what it meant to love someone completely. I learned that love isn’t jealous. It isn’t self serving, nor is it a give and take. True love for others is a complete and total giving of oneself, without worry about what you may or may not receive in return. When you put someone else’s needs before your own, you free yourself from the pain of expectation.

My grandpa spent his life helping others, first as a helicopter pilot in the army and later as a working father of five and loving husband. Not once did my grandpa ask what he would get in return for his support and charity, and because of his selfless love, he was anything but alone at the time when he was most vulnerable. For the years that he was totally dependent on others because of his disease, he didn’t need to rely on paid caregivers to nurse him through the pain; everywhere he turned, there was another family member or friend waiting to help him. He never asked for anyone’s help, but because he had been so loving and selfless to others, he found himself surrounded by compassion, kindness, and tender care.

My grandparents have shown me what mercy really is; love for your neighbor. To show mercy to another is to love another, regardless of whether you’ve known the person for a day or a decade. When you truly love someone, you care not about what you might get, but rather what you might have the chance to give. Jim and Diva showed me what I could only dream was real; they showed me that true love does exist. I know now that true love isn’t just something you see in the movies and that it can exist between more than just a “cute couple”. True love is the ability to know that you may get nothing in return, and still want to give all that you have to another, whether he be a stranger or someone you’ve known all your life. Mercy is love, and if we all show mercy, we can change the world.

Turning Union into Communion: Loving Your In-Laws (4 Keys Downloadable Worksheet)

This is number three in a series of downloadable worksheets to use at home, in small groups, or during break-out sessions with our Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love. TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT, CLICK HERE.

Chapter 3

Turning Union into Communion:

Extending Your Love to Your In-Laws and Beyond

Marriage is more than the union of just two people. It’s also a union of two families. A married couple needs to craft a delicate balance between two Biblical priorities. First, they are called to leave their father and mother and cleave to their spouse, as it says in the Book of Genesis. Second, they still have the duty to honor and respect their parents, according to the Ten Commandments.

Many couples struggle with learning to love their in-laws. It helps to remember that in most cases what the in-laws really want is for your marriage to be successful, long-lasting, and happy. By loving our in-laws and extended family members, we follow Jesus’ command to love our neighbors as ourselves. The more differences there are between the two families of origin, the more difficult it can be. As Manny and Karee say in Chapter Three of The Four Keys, “The two of us have extended families that include Sevillanos, Madrilenos, Colombians, French-Moroccans, Poles, Argentineans, Egyptians, and Virginians. Our family members’ religious affiliations range the gamut from Catholicism to Episcopalianism, Judaism, Coptic Orthodox, and former Muslim.”  When we join our families in a new community of life and love, we fulfill Jesus’ desire that all the peoples of the earth may be one.

In Chapter Three, Manny and Karee show how marriages have a powerful ability to draw relatives closer together and how respectful communication techniques that work for the two of you also work with in-laws. They recount fascinating and amusing stories about relationships with in-laws from the Bible’s Old Testament. Chapter Three also teaches you how to:

• Draw appropriate boundaries between yourselves and your in-laws 
• Respectfully listen to your in-laws ‘advice, even if you don’t ultimately follow it
• Negotiate trouble spots like wedding planning, gift exchanges, and hosting the holidays 

Conversation Starters

You can use the following conversation starters to get a discussion going among yourselves or in a small group. If it helps, think it over on your own time, take it to prayer, and jot down your answers before talking about them.



1. How would you describe your process for deciding how much involvement your in-laws have in your married life?





2. Can you remember a time when the two of you reached an impasse on this issue? How did you resolve it?






3. How do you handle holidays? Do you see room for improvement?





4. What do you believe is your responsibility toward both sets of your parents as they become elderly?





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Turning Good Marriages into Glory: Opening Yourself to Grace (4 Keys Downloadable Worksheet)

This is number two in a series of downloadable worksheets to use at home, in small groups, or during break-out sessions with our Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love. TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT, CLICK HERE.

Chapter 2

Turning Good Marriages into Pathways to Glory:
It’s a Sacrament; It’s a Vocation; It’s a Road Map to Heaven!

Marriage can be good. With effort, it can be very good. But it takes God to make the union glorious. The graces of the Sacrament of Matrimony are a powerful aid to couples in their everyday struggles and in times of great crisis.

Nowadays, fewer Catholics are choosing to get married in the Church than at any other time in recent history. Many people don’t realize what a wonderful treasure Catholic marriage is! As Manny and Karee explain in Chapter Two of The Four Keys, “couples united in the Sacrament of Matrimony have been blessed with the grace to take natural love to a supernatural level.  … [T]hey are called and empowered to love to the highest degree, the degree that Christ loved us – to forgive seventy times seven times, to do the humblest chore out of love, and to die to self in order to live and love for others.”

In Chapter Two, Manny and Karee describe marriage’s role as one of the seven sacraments, the difference between a valid and invalid marriage, and the importance of the vocation of marriage. They also reveal how the saints, our cheering section in the next life, are willing and eager to help husbands and wives get each other to heaven. From this chapter, you will learn how to:

• Seek help from the sacraments
• Seek help from the saints
• Discern God’s voice
• Be faithful in little things and let God turn them into glory

Conversation Starters

You can use the following conversation starters to get a discussion going among yourselves or in a small group. If it helps, think it over on your own time, take it to prayer, and jot down your answers before talking about them.



1. Why did you choose each other? How did you know you had found the “one”?



2. Why did you decide in favor of (or against) getting married in the Catholic Church?



3. How have you seen the graces of the sacrament at work in your lives and in your relationship?




4. Who do you think has an exceptionally good marriage and why? Do you have a favorite married saint who would be a good role model?





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Turning Two into One: Overcoming Personality Differences (4 Keys Downloadable Worksheet)

In our Catholic marriage advice book, The Four Keys to Everlasting Love, my husband and I promised a series of downloadable worksheets to use at home, in small groups, or during break-out sessions. This is number one in the series. TO DOWNLOAD AND PRINT, CLICK HERE.

Chapter 1

Turning Two into One: How to Overcome the Differences that Divide You

Whether you’re newly engaged or long married, congratulations on embarking on the experience of a lifetime! Marriage is quite an adventure, and somehow never exactly what we expect. Our God, after all, is a God of surprises, as Pope Francis is fond of saying.

The first bump in the road that many couples encounter is overcoming personality differences. Opposites really do attract, and that adds to the excitement but can also create conflict. Manny and Karee were very different, as they explain in Chapter One of The Four Keys. When they met, Manny was a “first-generation Spanish American, longtime New Yorker, Catholic, Republican, extrovert, and optimist.” In contrast, Karee was “a Virginian born and bred Episcopalian, Southern Democrat, and introvert with a slight tendency toward gloom.” They overcame their differences through respectful debate and reliance on God who loved them both equally.

In Chapter One, Manny and Karee describe their courtship, the early years of their marriage, and their dramatic struggle through Manny’s four brain surgeries to remove recurring tumors. Along the way, they will show you how to:

•       Appreciate your personality differences
•       Find common cultural and religious ground
•       View disagreements as opportunities for growth
•       Stand by each other in troubled times
•       Overcome fear through faith

Conversation Starters

You can use the following conversation starters to get a discussion going among yourselves or in a small group. If it helps, think it over on your own time, take it to prayer, and jot down your answers before talking about them.


1.       What personality, cultural, or religious differences do the two of you have? How have you handled them so far?




2.       How often do you discuss important and difficult topics? How often do you apologize if what you say hurts or angers the other person?




3.       Think of the biggest crisis that has hit your relationship. What character strengths or weaknesses were revealed in each of you?




4.       Which friends and family members can you rely on to support your marriage?




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Why I Stand With the 15% of Catholics Who Believe Contraception is Immoral

Today, I welcome Bette Russo, a good friend who just celebrated her 50th wedding anniversary last year, to talk about why she stands with the 15% of Catholics who believe contraception is immoral. After receiving her Master's of Science in Education from Hunter College, Bette taught in NYC elementary schools before having her first child. Her daughters Kristin and Liz have both contributed to the blog before!

Artificial birth control (i.e., contraceptives) is a major moral issue even though only a small number of Catholics (15%) and only 6% of non-Catholics agree with the Church's view of contraception as morally wrong. My husband and I are two of those 15% of Catholics who fully agree with our Church’s teaching and have never used contraceptives. We’re married 51 years with 7 children and 33 grandchildren.

I believe that natural law (& God’s law) views the primary purpose of sex to be procreation. The pleasure a couple experiences with sexual intercourse is an additional blessing from God which also strengthens the love between a husband and wife, as well as mutual respect and a bond of intimacy, all of which strengthen the family setting required to nurture and raise children.

The basic purpose of sex is clearly procreation. God’s gifts to the husband and wife of pleasure and intimacy in intercourse should not be violated or abused by preventing unnaturally the primary purpose of procreation. This has been the clear teaching of the Catholic Church for 2000 years and indeed has been the teaching of most Protestant churches until about 1930. The Church’s first Council of Nicea (325 AD) proclaimed this, as did Augustine in 419 AD. Christian leaders such as Martin Luther, John Wesley and John Calvin all stated the same view as the Catholic Church describing the evil nature of contraception.

After having 6 children by age 33, we decided to use Natural Family Planning (NFP). The techniques of NFP are pretty clear and straightforward, but I must admit we occasionally chose to “take a chance” at a time fertility was possible. And so, yes, we had a 7th child, who now himself has 3 kids of his own. And, in all candor, we could not be happier having this wonderful son and his family, who would not exist if we had not “taken a chance.” But our experience with NFP was that it was very, very reliable. Of course, it meant abstaining from sexual activity for about a week every month. How terrible!

But NFP, in our view, is as reliable, and possibly more reliable, than the use of artificial contraceptives. It involves the use of several bodily signs given by nature to a woman to recognize the few days each month during which the chances for conception to occur are indeed quite high, with most other days having chances that are very, very low.

When we got married in 1964, divorce rates were half what they are today. Without question, divorce has serious adverse impacts on the children of such couples. Several studies show a significant correlation between high divorce rates and artificial contraceptive use, while NFP couples have far lower divorce rates.

Contraception has obviously promoted “free love” behavior and other sexual behavior that violates marital fidelity. Women who use NFP, studies have shown, more often have happier marriages, have higher rates of marital relations, have a deeper intimacy  with their husbands, are personally happier, are more religious and attend church more often, are less likely to have an abortion, less likely to have cohabited and less likely to have sex outside of marriage. This greatly benefits not only the couple, but their children and society as well.

Since the continuation of the human race depends on procreation, God clearly intended sexual activity to be viewed as something special, combining love, pleasure and procreation in a special set of actions by married couples intended to also positively affect the raising of children by a loving and caring mother and father.

3 Rocking Resources for Catholic Brides

I've said it before, and I'll say it again, that one of the best things about the Catholic blogging and writing world is the wonderful people you meet. Today I'm featuring fellow author Stephanie Calis, who wrote the recently released Invited: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner (Pauline, 2016). I'm honored to be an endorser of Stephanie's book and thrilled to give you a peek into how this young mama of two survived launch week, plus links to her book, free eBook, and new image-driven website for Catholic brides!

1. Congrats on the launch of your beautiful book Invited: The Ultimate Catholic Wedding Planner.  How do you feel now that you can actually hold the results of all your hard work in your hands?

Thank you so much!  It's wonderful to hold my own book after three years of working on it.  Pauline Books and Media sent me a box of 20 copies tied together with lace and sprinkled with flowers!  But seeing the actual book is also a little unfamiliar, as strange as that sounds -- I've been so accustomed to sharing the cover image and talking about the content on social media over the last few months, but honestly, it's hard not to flip through and reread what exactly I wrote about certain topics while imagining what people's reactions might be to the way I've presented things.  In that sense, having Invited out there is so exciting, but also makes me feel so vulnerable!

2. What were the highpoints of launch week?

The weeks leading up to the launch felt insane.  My husband Andrew is working towards a PhD in English, and his comprehensive exams, which were 12 hours long and determined whether he'd be eligible for official doctoral candidacy, were two weeks before my book's April 1 release date.  I'd put off a few projects, like writing a supplemental eBook and creating a promotional video, until after the exams so we could prioritize Andrew's studying.  I was glad I could make that sacrifice for my husband, but he didn't really get to relax afterwards because of all the catching up I needed to do!  Even though that was crazy, it made it possible for the actual launch week to be more peaceful, because everything was done.  My favorite project was the eBook, Full of Grace (you can download a copy here), which features meditations for engaged and married couples to pray for each mystery of the Rosary.  Andrew helped, and since the Rosary has been one of our favorite ways to pray together from early on in our relationship, we loved getting to share some of our spirituality and offer marriage-related prayers specifically for couples.

I hadn't really thought to look at my book on Amazon before the release, after which I figured I'd be eager to read reviews and things, and was completely surprised when a few friends told me via Facebook that Invited reached #1 in the category of New Wedding Planners in the week before the release.  Naturally, that felt wonderful, but my prayer after seeing the ranking, and up through now, has been that I might thankful for those quantifiable measures of the book's success, but that at the same time, I can also be appropriately detached from them and focus my prayer on asking the Holy Spirit to bless the couples who will encounter what I wrote, that they might be inspired and challenged to radical love.

3. How did your husband react? And are your kids old enough to understand what's going on?

Andrew is amazing; such a man of praise, awe, and affirmation while somehow still helping me to feel little--that's a good thing!  He's consistently told me how proud he is of me and of my writing, and shows it in his willingness to take over our chores and caring for our kids during deadlines for the book.  Yet he is also so good at reminding me that God, not me, is in control.  As happy as I've been with the experience of writing Invited and working to spread the word and create an exciting release, I've also had so many instances of anxiety about whether I'm doing things right, whether I'm doing it too much for myself, and whether anyone will even care.  Every time I've gotten upset, he lovingly tells me all will be well and tells me to place everything in the Father's hands.  How I need that reminder, and how thankful I am for him.

My son Aaron is two and a half and my daughter Lily is five months, so they don't have a huge sense of what's going on, but Aaron does know that when his mama goes out to do work, it's for writing, and I showed him the book when I got the box in the mail.  He was more interested in the flowers that were in there and ran to put them all in a dump truck.  Perspective.

4. What was it like to work with a publishing house run by religious sisters? Did your editor wear a full habit?

Pauline is run by the Daughters of St. Paul, and their charism is evangelization through the media.  They do wear a full habit, and their joyful spirit was so evident through our correspondence.  My editor, Sr. Marianne Lorraine, particularly impressed me in her ability to critique my work with charity, and to hear out my responses to her suggestions as we worked through the text, also with great patience and kindness.  I worked with several laypeople whom Pauline employs, as well, on things like permissions and marketing.

Even though I'm joyfully married and knew for a long time that I was called to marriage, my friends in college and I used to ask each other what religious order we'd most like to hypothetically join (hashtag Catholic girl problems…).  I used to say I'd want to be in an order that specialized in a handicraft or food product (I'd explain it as "like Mystic Monk coffee, but with nuns"), but maybe after this experience I'd change my answer to an order like the Daughters, so I could write and edit!

5. What's next for you?

Two friends, both Catholic wedding vendors, and I are incredibly excited to launch a new ministry for Catholic brides and newlyweds, Spoken Bride, at the end of this month.  We've been talking for almost a year about the deep need to combine practical wedding advice with awe-inspiring images from beautiful real Catholic weddings.  Our goal is to create a resource that rivals secular wedding sites in beauty and creativity, while also emphasizing the unique truth and richness of our faith. In a major way,

I think planning a nuptial Mass with amazing prayer, music, and your witness as a couple, alongside a reception that's stylish, fun, and creative, lets the beauty of Catholic marriage speak for itself.  It serves as an invitation to your guests, meeting them where they are, drawing them into the sacred, and sparking a desire to share in the authentic freedom and joy experienced by the bride and groom.  We are currently accepting submissions from real weddings, membership in our vendor guide, and written contributions, and would love to feature you!  You can read more about us and our mission here.