A Word from Our Outpost, with Joseph and Crystal Gruber

Interrupting the flow of the Joseph narrative at the end of Genesis is this one-chapter interlude, telling us how it came to be that Judah has descendants. Onanism and prostitution are mentioned, so not exactly an episode that would make sense for younger ears. Levirate marriage is also discussed, but that probably isn't as big of a deal for younger listeners... And yes, this is another story in s...

Lectio Divina, or the prayerful reading of scripture, is often mentioned in Catholic circles. We've found, though, that many times people will talk about lectio divina without really knowing what it is or how to do it. In fact, that may well be the story of one of us podcasters...but we don't go into that. Instead, we talk about the steps, or movements, or rungs, or stages of lectio divina. If we...

Bad homilies. Scandalous public figures. Awkward teachings, hypocritically taught. Most Catholics have had to face these aspects of being in the Catholic Church, and it has left many wondering why they should stay. We interview one woman, Mallory Smyth, who has written a book devoted to explaining why she stays Catholic when confronted with the same reasons many others have had to leave.  I had ma...

Marriage is beautiful, marriage is under attack, and marriage can be remedied. Those are the principle messages of Casti Connubii, and in this episode, we consider the final part of Pope Pius XI's encyclical.  After all of the problems presented in the last episode, you might expect a specific solution to each particular problem. Instead, Pope Pius XI shows that the solution is a mix of personal,...

It might have been when we first pressed record that we realized that all of the attacks on marriage listed by Pope Pius XI's encyclical Casti Connubii are all hot-button issues. Who knew? When people talk about moral problems, 90-95% of the time, they're talking about issues relating to the nature of marriage. So, in some 37 minutes, we try to address: contraception, sterile sex, abortion, eugeni...

As we approach a new year, some resolutions we may have could be to be more organized, more disciplined, more routine, more productive, etc. We talk to Lisa Canning about an approach to living more intentionally called the ideal week.   Full disclosure-- we recorded this a while back, so we didn't have New Year's Eve Eve in mind for publication. But it seems fitting!   If you'd like to buy Conquor...

What's so good about marriage, anyway? Three things, in fact, according to people like St. Augustine, Pope Leo XIII, and Pope Pius XI, the last of whom wrote Casti Connubii, an encyclical on marriage. These three blessings, or marks, of matrimony are offspring, conjugal fidelity, and the sacramental character of marriage (including its indissolubility). Here's a handy outline of Casti Connubii, if...

Pope Pius XI wrote Casti Connubii in 1930, detailing what marriage is, what attacks it is suffering, and then he discusses remedies for marriage. One of the remedies he proposes is (in the opinion of Joseph, at least) a little cheeky-- do a better job picking a spouse.  For those of us are married, it's too late for us-- we're stuck. For everyone out there in single-dom, listening to what he has t...

There are those who tend to treat the story of Noah as a kid's story. While we don't use explicit language, the content we will be discussing is not child-friendly, and we don't recommend listening to it with children around. Because the end of the story of Noah is not child-friendly. It is filled with drunkenness, rebellion, nakedness, incest, cursing, and a baby born into a very broken family. ...

"I'd like to think I'm a good listener. In fact, let me tell you a story about me being a great listener...rather than actually listen to you." It's an oft-experienced phenomenon-- we start to think maybe genuine sharing of selves is about to happen, and then out of nowhere, we throw up a roadblock to real intimacy.  It's good to know about these roadblocks, and why they hinder real, meaningful co...

It's vulnerable to share with someone. It's also vulnerable to be the one receiving someone, and to avoid that discomfort, we tend to practice poor listening skills. Actually taking the time and energy to hear someone may take practice, but it's effort that is worth it. Also, we talk at the end about how a certain Catholic practice tells us what receiving people should look like, ideally. As alway...

We invited our friend and philosopher Josh Taccolini to join us to talk about what it is to be human, and how our emotions are essential to a full human life. A prior episode, episode 37, called A Basic Christian Anthropology, was sadly lacking in an account of the emotions, and we were so glad to have been able to discuss them with Josh! We reference Dietrich von Hildebrand, who can be wikipedia'...

What is most vulnerable about you? Probably what is most vulnerable about me, or any other human. We know each others' weak spots, because we know where we are weak. We name a fair number of them, though we don't pretend to having the exhaustive list. These are the things we talk about amongst people we trust, and the things we hide from people we don't. As always,  support our work by going...

Being human means we stand in relationship with others. In so standing, we are capable of being hurt. That capacity to be hurt is the risk we take in being in a relationship.  This isn't to say that the reason to be in a relationship is to get hurt, but if we were un-hurt-able, we'd also be untouchable, and ultimately un-love-able. Here is the link to the Brene Brown TED talk: https://youtu.be/iCv...

Every couple has a story, not every couple has a podcast to tell it on. Well, 73 episodes in, we did it-- we told our love story, with approximately 75% of the awkwardness and  ?% of the charm.  We can't say we lived at every moment by every principle we talked about in  parts 1-7, but we can say that when we made it to the altar, we were free and clear about what we were getting into!   As always...

Some popular questions about dating that have come up (or that we made up...) are questions about dating non-Catholics/non-Christians, and dating people with addictions/mental health issues/family of origin issues/relationship baggage. So we took a bit of time and addressed them.  I'd like to stress the 'little bit of time' part here, because these podcasts are meant to be conversation starters, r...

Sometimes, it seems that our culture gets  things out of order. In matters of romance, it seems especially liable to do so. We talk about when and why to get engaged, and a bit about how engagement is not a time for less freedom and clarity, but rather time for even more freedom and clarity. Also, we make a few bold claims, such as co-habitating prior to marriage makes an engagement nonsensical, a...

How many of us have had a messy break-up? How many of us have let the idea of a messy break-up keep us in a relationship longer than we should have been, or kept us from starting a relationship in the first place? We talk through some of the reasons break-ups are messy, and what to do instead.  Breaking up is hard, because it involves vulnerability, but so does all of life, so we know you can do i...

How do Catholics view Scripture? Where is the best context for hearing the word of God?  Why is Scripture the opposite of dry, boring, sentimental, or irrelevant? We talk with Dr. Scott Powell, co-host of the Lanky Guys podcast, a weekly podcast in which he and Fr. Peter Mussett discuss the upcoming Sunday readings. Rather than diving into any particular passage with Scott, we talk about a Catholi...

"How far is too far?" some people have asked us. That seems a less-good question, in part because Joseph struggles to see how distance plays into the heart of the question. There are better questions to ask, and we explore one of them in this episode.   As always,  support our work by going here ! join the monthly marriage membership here ! join our email newsletter list here ! catch our othe...

We talk about conversations that could happen in order to keep dating someone. There's an expression, 'define the relationship', or DTR-- this episode is sort of about that, except we don't use that term, and think that it's less about defining, and more about describing what is going on from each person's perspective. Let's say the first date went well, in your estimation. Literally, let's say it...

Beginning anything can seem intimidating, especially if we don't really know where we're going or how to get there. In our three-part series on Catholic marriage and the apostolic life, we tried to describe where romantic relationships should be leading to. In this series, we're trying to talk about how to get there. And the first step to beginning is, well, in this case, all the work that precede...

Have you ever noticed that people don't know how to date anymore? Well, we realized that 1) we were never taught how to date, and 2) nor did almost anyone else. So we'd like to share some of the lessons we've learned. We're not experts, but we give what we have! We'll be doing a series on dating, and we start with two principles that Joseph really stressed while we were dating-- freedom and clarit...

There's nothing like a podcast on summertime vocations...That pun is for Crystal... Seriously, though, there are those that take the notion of vocational discernment out of the larger context of the calls God places on our hearts, and out of context, discerning things like marriage or religious life is well-nigh impossible. Having a well-ordered understanding of God's calls, and discerning them pr...

Two episodes ago, we painted a picture of the apostolic life that married Catholic couples are called to; last episode, we talked about common obstacles to leading an apostolic life as a married couple; this episode, we talk about taking next steps toward that vision from where we are right now. We reference the book The Anatomy of Peace , as well as the book The 3 Big Questions for a Frantic Fami...