Ted and Kristin Reilly, PreCana presenters and parents of 5 children, join Frank and Kim to talk about what a gift (and challenge!) being open to life has been. They'll share what it's like to prepare couples for marriage and share their great experience praying a family rosary every night with their children.

Kim and Frank turn the tables and interview one of our most popular hosts, Father Greg Sakowicz. Father Greg discusses his vocation to the priesthood, the priests and pastors that mentored him in his growth as a priest, Renew My Church, and his future as the new Rector of Holy Name Cathedral (and you may be surprised to hear why he is the rector, not the pastor!).

Kim and Frank talk to Sister Rosemary Connelly, the Director of Misericordia Home, Heart of Mercy, about the challenges facing families taking care of children and adults with developmental and other significant physical disabilities, and how Misericordia has provided for these vulnerable family members. She talks about her years as a Sister of Mercy working at Mis, the efforts of some groups to shut down Misericordia, her trip to Springfield to advocate for the residents, and how her faith in God has helped her work. Kim and Frank share their Misericordia experiences.

Frank interviews John and Teri Bosio from happy–together.net about resources parishes can use to help couples strengthen their marriage. John and Teri are the former Family Life Coordinators for the Archdiocese of Kansas City and develop marriage–strengthening programs based on books John has written. John and Teri produced Six Dates for Catholic Couples based on John’s first book: Happy Together: The Catholic Blueprint for a Loving Marriage. His second book, Blessed is Marriage: A Guide to the Beatitudes for Catholic Couples has a video series: The Beatitudes: A Couple’s Path to Greater Joy. John also wrote Why Get Married in the Church and they will soon be releasing The Virtues: Four Dates for Catholic Couples.

Kim and Frank talk with Brian Topping from Paradisus Dei, a lay Catholic ministry dedicated to finding God within the context of marriage and family life. They’re launching a new program, The Choice Wine: 7 Steps to a Superabundant Marriage, for couples and have a unique way of offering this to parishes no matter what their financial situation is.

Kim and Frank talk with Deacon Keith Strohm, Director of the Office for New Evangelization of the Archdiocese of Chicago about the Jubilee of Mercy and gives practical suggestions of how to incorporate aspects of mercy into our daily lives, and into the life of the parish.

Kim and Frank talk with Kelley Long, a personal financial planner, CPA, and newlywed, about money and how working together to handle finances can bring couples closer together and enrich their marriage.

Kim and Frank talk with Father Chuck Dahm, a Dominican priest who is the Associate Pastor at St. Pius V in Pilsen in Chicago, about his work in the field of Domestic Violence. They discuss the causes and what the church outreach to families dealing with this can be. (Note: the National Domestic Violence 24 hour hot line is 800-799-7233.)

Kim interviews Frank and Sister Emily Brabham, Sister of St. Francis of Clinton, Iowa, and Youth Ministry Director at St. Francis Xavier parish in LaGrange, Illinois about their pilgrimage to Philadelphia to the World Meeting of Families and the Papal Mass. Learn what it was like to be with 22,000 families at the WMOF and then with 1,000,000 people trying to attend the Papal Mass. Sister Emily also shares what it’s like to be the youngest sister in her order and how we can support vocations.

Kim interviews Frank about his 31 years of marriage ministry in the Archdiocese of Chicago: the changes he’s seen in marriage preparation due to the declining number of marriages, the prevalence of divorce, cohabitation, and other factors, and his vision of the future of marriage in the Catholic church. He shares the changes in PreCana over the years, how technology is being used in marriage preparation, and how this ministry has affected his own marriage.

Join us for a wonderful program with guest, Steve Angrisano, composer for Spirit and Song. Steve and his wife, Jenni will be talking about the Catholic Family Celebration that will take place on Saturday, September 5 from 10am-4pm at the Shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Des Plaines. There will be keynotes in English, Spanish and Polish as well as a keynote for teens and workshops for the children. Steve will be talking about his keynote and his work with teens and their parents.

Willie Cobb, the Director of Campus Ministry at Notre Dame High School and Jacinta Warnie, the Minister of Youth at St. Sabina Parish will be with me talking about the adaptation of the Strong Catholic Family, Strong Catholic Youth initiative to the African American Community. You will learn what this initiative is about and how it will help parishes around the Archdiocese become more family friendly.

Join us for a look at the resources that are offered for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing in the Archdiocese. Fr. Joe Mulcrone and Margaret Swatek from the Catholic Office of the Deaf will be sharing about their work with this community.

Alice Heinzen, the Director of the Office for Marriage and Family Life for the Diocese of Lacrosse, Wisconsin talks about the amazing experience of being chosen to be a delegate with her husband, Jeff, at the Extraordinary Synod on the Family. She will share information about what the Extraordinary Synod was, their experience of being with families from around the world and meeting Pope Francis!

Steve and Kathy Beirne have been involved in marriage and family education for many years. They are the editors and publishers of Foundations Newsletter, FACET premarital resource and Catholic and Newly Married, an award winning book published by ACTA publications. They will be sharing their insights on the trends they have seen in marriage and family as well as their wonderful resources.

I am joined by Matt Brooks the founder of The Marriage Group and our partner in Marriage Ministries. Matt joined with Marriage and Family Ministries to create an outstanding online Marriage Preparation Class specially designed for couples who are separated by distance because of a job, the military or other life circumstances. This class is offered in English, Spanish and closed captioned for the hard of hearing. Matt will share with us the wonderful resources for couples and those that work with these couples as well as their testimonies about their experience.

Robert Adams and Paul Santucci join me on a show about the Knights of Columbus. Robert works for the Knights and will tell us about how the organization came to be and what they do now to strengthen the faith of the men in the parish community and help those who are most in need. Paul joined the Knights a year ago and is a father of two young children and a baby on the way. Find out why Paul joined the Knights and why he encourages all young men in parishes to do the same!

The Pope is coming to Philadelphia in September! Would you like to go? On this month's show, we will be talking about the Archdiocesan pilgrimage Marriage and Family Ministries is preparing with the pilgrimage company, Faith Journeys. Frank Hannigan, the Director of Marriage and Family Ministries will talk about his experience at the last World Meeting that took place in Milan. Kevin Lee, the General Manager for Faith Journeys will be discussing the details of the pilgrimage.

Do you want to have a parish that is more family friendly? Listen to Kathleen Laffey, Marie Claire Mastri and Julie Servaitus talk about their experience of reviving the Family Association at St. Mary of the Woods Parish. They invited parents from the Religious Education and School to form a committee to find out what families needed and respond to them. It has been a huge success, find out what their secret is!

Life coaching is a means to this end: clarity, peacefulness, joy - and the ability to live a life that feels purposeful. Bridget Chambers is a speaker, writer and certified Life coach and we will learn what she does and how she can help you or the children in your life make sense of your experiences and become more confident people.

Join us for a fantastic program with our guest, Naomi Schaefer Riley. Naomi is a weekly columnist for the New York Post and the author of several books on religion including "Til Faith Do Us Part". We will be discussing her research on interchurch and interreligious marriages and the impact they have on families and our wider culture.

Rosalind Wiseman is an internationally recognized author and educator on children, teens, parenting, education and social justice. Her work aims to help parents, educators and young people successfully navigate the social challenges of young adulthood. She wrote the books "Masterminds and Wingmen" and "Queen Bees and Wannabes" to help parents support and understand their adolescents. We are excited to have her on the show, so tune in and learn about her work and the resources she has created for schools, parishes and parents!

We will be talking about the Golden Wedding Anniversary Mass that will take place on Sunday, September 14th at 2:45pm at Holy Name Cathedral. Larry and Fran Sporh are a wonderful couple celebrating their 50th anniversary this year and they will share some wisdom from their experience of what makes a successful marriage. They will also talk about their work with the deacon couples and some ideas for how to do marriage enrichment in parishes.

This show will highlight the Pre-Cana classes that an engaged couple takes before they get married. My guests, Don and Nancy Malek, trained facilitators for the classes, will talk about what a couple does during the class and why they think it is an enriching process. Join us and learn more about this fantastic marriage preparation class!

Retrouvaille is an international program that is available here in Chicago to help couples who are struggling in their marriage. The program offers tools needed to rediscover a loving marriage. Our guests, Robin and Phil Kain are trained facilitators for the program and will talk about their own experience going through the program and how it has helped thousands of couples to build better relationships.

I am delighted to be interviewing John and Teri Bosio for this show on strengthening marriages. John wrote the books Happy Together and Blessed is Marriage. Out of these books, John and Teri created the Six Dates for Catholic Couples program, that was developed as a way to use the book. As well as the Beatitudes: A Couple's Path to Greater Joy program to continue the journey with couples. They will talk about these wonderful resources for parishes.

We are blessed to have Lisa Hendey with us for a fantastic interview about her work with and for Catholic Moms. Lisa is the author of The Handbook for Catholic Moms as well as other books and the creator of the website Catholicmoms.com. We will be talking about celebrating Easter with the family and other ideas for passing on the faith in the family.

Sarah Reinhard, the author of the book, Catholic Family Fun: A guide for the Adventurous, Overwhelmed, Creative or Clueless as well as the creator of the blog, Snoring Scholar. Sarah will share wonderful ideas on how to keep your family focused on prayer, fasting and almsgiving during Lent at home and in your parish.

This month I will be talking to Maryvel Torres, the Divorce Ministry Coordinator for Marriage and Family Ministries. Maryvel will share the resources available for couples who are in the process of getting a divorce and annulment as well as the resources available to help couples who are struggling. She will talk about ways to keep a marriage healthy and how to handle situations when divorce in inevitable. Join us to learn about this valuable resource.

Join us for an exciting program with Catherine O'Connell-Cahill, the Senior Editor for US Catholic and the Managing Editor for the publication At Home with Our Faith. We will be discussing the ways that faith can be passed on in the homes and the ways that parishes can help parents articulate their faith to their children.

Join us for a wonderful show about "Keeping the Holidays Holy". Tom McGrath, the Vice President for New Product Development for Loyola Press, author and speaker is our guest. He will be sharing his wisdom about the holidays and family as well as practical ways of passing on the faith in the home.

This month you will be hearing about Natural Family Planning and the Billings Ovulation Method from three guests, Maria Garcia, Tessa McEwen and Jelani McEwen. Maria is the Coordinator for NFP for Marriage and Family Ministries. Tessa and Jelani are a married couple who are using Natural Family Planning and the Billings Ovulation Method. Tessa is a Women's Health Educator and Certified Instructor for this method. Maria will share her many years of experience in helping couples understand and use NFP. Tessa and Jelani will share their amazing testimony on how this method has brought them closer as a couple and provided a more natural and safe way to postpone or achieve pregnancy.

Every year Marriage and Family Ministries hosts an Archdiocesan Mother Daughter Tea. This is an event coordinated by Maria Garcia, the NFP Coordinator for Marriage and Family Ministries, as well as two wonderful parents, Denise Wassermann and Monica Cassidy. Listen and learn about what the Tea is and how it works to open up communication with moms and their daughters about God's Incredible Act of Creation and the changes their bodies will be going through.

This month's show will focus on marriage. Dr. Jim Healy, the Director of Family Ministry for the Diocese of Joliet, will talk about his message for married couples. During this Year of Strong Catholic Parents, parishes will be offered the opportunity to purchase Jim's practical and informational CD on marriage called "When the Cake is Gone: How to Be Married and Stay Married". Listen and learn more about Jim's work with couples and those who minister to couples.

Join us as we talk to Michael Terrien, the Project Director of the Office for Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and married couple, Ken and Rebecca Devlin about passing on the faith to children in an inter-church marriage. Michael will talk about the trends of marriage today. Ken and Rebecca will talk about the challenges of passing on two faiths and ideas on how to do it well.

Welcome to a new show on Relevant Radio called "Made for Life" and sponsored by Marriage and Family Ministries. Amanda Thompson is the new coordinator of Marriage and Family Initiatives and the host of the program. She will be discussing topics for married couples and parents. Join her this month as she interviews the Youth Minister, Christine Collins, the Catechetical Leader, Colleen Walery and a parent on the Strong Catholic Family Team, Amy Stanislawski about the initiative at their parish, Our Lady of the Woods in Orland Park. You will learn about the initiative and the response of the parishioners as well as the impact on the community.

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