The John-Henry Westen Show - The Secrets to a Happy Marriage that the Devil Wants to Keep Hidden

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00:02:02.060 This is really the remedy to original sin.

00:02:05.880 He's addressing the areas that, as males and females, we struggle with.

00:02:11.820 Women have very little trouble loving. 1.00

00:02:13.940 They have a lot of trouble allowing themselves to be loved.

00:02:17.840 Men, we have no trouble allowing ourselves to be loved.

00:02:20.540 We'll soak it all up.

00:02:21.980 But we have trouble loving.

00:02:23.940 And so St. Paul is saying,

00:02:25.580 Okay, men, love your wives. 0.99

00:02:28.380 Ladies, you have to allow yourself to be loved. 0.90

00:02:31.540 That's what that submission is, you know,

00:02:33.800 to be able to allow yourself to be loved.

00:02:36.880 Do you know that Satan's number one weapon to drag people out of heaven is around destroying marriage?

00:02:49.000 I kid you not.

00:02:49.860 In fact, it's a quote from the message that Sister Lucia received from our Lord

00:02:56.740 and then communicated to Cardinal Kephara, and he made public.

00:03:00.480 And it was this from her letter.

00:03:02.600 The decisive battle between our Lord and the reign of Satan will be over marriage and the family.

00:03:09.160 To unpack that for us, we have a great priest with us.

00:03:12.060 His name is Father Robert Altier,

00:03:13.800 and he's just written a book called God's Plan for Your Marriage,

00:03:17.300 which goes deep into marriage and how to have a great marriage.

00:03:22.660 This is The John Hinnerreston Show.

00:03:24.300 Stay tuned.

00:03:51.800 Father Altier, thanks for coming on the program.

00:03:54.040 Well, thanks for having me, John Henry.

00:03:55.640 God bless you.

00:03:56.680 We always begin with the sign of the cross.

00:03:57.960 If I could get you to lead that for us, please.

00:03:59.860 Absolutely.

00:04:00.900 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

00:04:05.440 Amen.

00:04:06.200 Tell us, first, maybe you can just start with a little bit about your background

00:04:09.860 and why you wrote this book.

00:04:11.720 Well, I've been a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul, Minneapolis, in Minnesota,

00:04:15.880 since 1989, and I'm in a parish in South St. Paul, Minnesota, at Holy Trinity Parish.

00:04:25.200 And so I've been a priest for going on 34 years now and worked with lots of people in marriage,

00:04:32.520 but never, ever thought of writing a book, never considered the possibility.

00:04:37.180 But back in 2019, I was awakened one night in the middle of the night and just simply told,

00:04:47.640 this is what you're to do for couples preparing for marriage.

00:04:50.640 I wasn't thinking about what I was going to do for couples preparing for marriage

00:04:54.440 because I've been doing that for 30 years at the time.

00:04:57.400 And then what happened after that, I mean, nothing like that's ever happened before or since,

00:05:02.580 but what happened after that, in my mind, is even more astounding.

00:05:05.460 So that was in the first or second week of February, somewhere in 2019.

00:05:11.220 And then every day, with three exceptions until the end of the month, I would sit down to pray.

00:05:17.380 So the first day, I sat down, and this idea about marriage popped into my head.

00:05:24.980 Well, I wasn't there to think about marriage or pray about marriage.

00:05:28.060 I was just there to be with our Lord.

00:05:30.560 And I know myself well enough, and I apologized to our Lord, and I said,

00:05:34.380 but I have to write this down, because if I don't, I'm just going to sit here and think about this

00:05:39.980 for the rest of the time of prayer, because it's just so beautiful.

00:05:42.520 I've never thought of this before in my life.

00:05:44.800 So I wrote it down.

00:05:46.620 No sooner had I set the pen down, and the next thought was in my head.

00:05:51.240 And it was jaw-droppingly beautiful.

00:05:54.280 And this happened now, like I said, until the 28th of February.

00:05:57.500 It ended as quickly as it started.

00:06:00.100 And when I was done, I typed it all up.

00:06:03.920 I had 16 pages of single-space notes in no particular order, just different thoughts, ideas.

00:06:11.320 They were just beautiful.

00:06:12.940 Most of them I had never thought of in my life.

00:06:17.320 And so then I said, well, okay, if this was for couples preparing for marriage,

00:06:22.420 now what am I supposed to do?

00:06:23.500 This is way more than we can cover in pre-marriage.

00:06:26.440 And as I prayed about it, it became evident that you're supposed to write a book.

00:06:31.900 So our lady gets what she wants, and so I wrote a book.

00:06:35.940 And I personally, of course, I'm the only one who has to believe this stuff I just told you.

00:06:40.600 And so I believe this is heaven's response to the crisis in marriage right now.

00:06:45.040 There is, like I said, there's a lot of stuff I have never thought of, I have never heard of.

00:06:51.580 So there's a lot of brand new stuff in this book.

00:06:54.400 And it's covering the spiritual foundation of marriage.

00:06:59.240 It's not so much a how-to book about marriage.

00:07:02.740 It's about looking at the spirituality.

00:07:05.860 It's about looking at the spiritual union and then what follows from that.

00:07:10.560 What is it that makes marriage holy?

00:07:13.680 And are we truly living marriage as a sacrament?

00:07:17.680 And I think that's one of the areas where we've really slipped up.

00:07:22.840 But part of that, you know, you stop and think about it and you say, okay, in the 2,000-year history of the church, marriage has always been solid.

00:07:32.400 The church tends usually to address things when they get attacked, and that's when the theology gets deepened and so on.

00:07:42.020 And I just look back and I say, during the reign of John Paul II, the church's magisterial teaching on marriage doubled during his reign because of the writings that he did.

00:07:54.500 So that tells you how little was officially written about marriage because it never really needed to be.

00:08:02.420 It hadn't been attacked.

00:08:03.720 It never had to be developed because everybody lived it.

00:08:07.020 You know, they were married.

00:08:08.060 Everybody grew up in a family.

00:08:09.520 They got married.

00:08:10.560 And but now things have changed.

00:08:13.140 And so the beauty now, we have these lay theologians, which we have never really had very many of them before, but more than that, both male and female, considering that we approach things so differently as males and females, and they're writing about their sacrament.

00:08:32.000 And so then my question, of course, you've got all these people with all this education that are living this sacrament.

00:08:38.800 Why do you want me to do this?

00:08:40.520 Yeah, I'm a priest.

00:08:41.400 And it became fairly clear to me that sometimes what happens is somebody on the outside looking at it objectively can see some things a little differently.

00:08:52.280 And since it's not a how-to book, you know, which obviously I couldn't write, but a spiritual point of view, that's something that I could present.

00:09:02.320 And my hope is then some of these theologians can pick this up and run with it.

00:09:06.340 Now, saying that in case any of the reader or the listeners might think, oh, if it's a heavy theology book, it's not.

00:09:14.220 It's got some profound theology, but it's written at a level that the average person can understand.

00:09:20.440 You don't need to have an advanced degree in theology to understand it.

00:09:23.640 And my hope is that the theologians will be able to pick it up, but this is not written for theologians.

00:09:30.120 This is written for the average person who is married or preparing for marriage.

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00:10:00.400 Thank you and God bless you.

00:10:02.720 If you wouldn't mind, share with us one of those inspirations, one of those ones where you were sitting down to pray and this thought occurred to you that you thought was just so beautiful, you had to write it down.

00:10:12.920 Give us one that you think has helped more people, more married couples that you've worked with.

00:10:21.300 The central point in the book, actually, is the one that everything else follows from.

00:10:26.540 So I'll touch on that one.

00:10:28.420 And that is the question, you know, when you look in the Gospels of St. Matthew and St. Mark, you know, the Pharisees come to Jesus and they ask him, can a man divorce his wife for any reason, whatever?

00:10:42.140 And, you know, he asked them about it and they say, well, Moses said we could.

00:10:46.460 So, yeah, that's from Deuteronomy 24.

00:10:48.940 And then he says, but that was not God's intention from the beginning.

00:10:53.620 So Pope John Paul had picked up on that and said, OK, that means you need to go back to Genesis.

00:10:58.440 You know, this is where you need to go to understand what God wants with marriage.

00:11:02.500 But then he explained it a little differently, because then he said, all right, this is our Lord saying, look, you know, from the beginning, God made the male and female.

00:11:12.460 Therefore, man should leave his father and mother and cling to his wife, that you become one flesh. 0.97

00:11:16.860 And then Jesus added a line that is nowhere else in sacred scripture.

00:11:24.080 And it simply says, what God has joined, let no man put asunder.

00:11:29.520 So the question is, what does God join in marriage?

00:11:35.780 That's the real essence of it.

00:11:37.700 And because as I was preparing for this, to write the book, I would ask people, what happens to your soul when you get married?

00:11:46.880 Oh, you get all these graces.

00:11:48.560 I said, yeah, that's true.

00:11:50.220 But I said, you get graces in all the other sacraments, too.

00:11:53.840 And well, yeah, but, you know, there's sanctifying.

00:11:56.200 Yeah, you get sanctifying grace, but you get sanctifying grace with the other sacraments, too.

00:12:01.180 What actually happens to your soul?

00:12:03.180 I went through the other sacraments.

00:12:04.900 I said, look, you get baptized.

00:12:06.680 Here's what actually happens to your soul when you go to confession.

00:12:10.980 Here's what happens to your soul when you receive communion.

00:12:14.080 Here's what happens to your soul.

00:12:15.520 I said, what happens when you get married? 0.79

00:12:18.220 What happens to your soul?

00:12:19.520 Oh, you receive all these graces.

00:12:21.120 I said, no, there's got to be something more than that, because otherwise, why would this be a sacrament?

00:12:27.200 So my focus then was, what is it that God joins?

00:12:32.180 And the principle, the point, is the two souls of the persons who are getting married.

00:12:38.180 That is, that's the central point of the book.

00:12:41.780 Everything else follows from that.

00:12:44.060 You know, then, you know, we looked then at marriage.

00:12:47.120 You know, God started in creation with marriage.

00:12:49.800 He starts then a new creation.

00:12:51.800 St. Paul says, you're a new creation in Christ.

00:12:54.300 He starts the new creation with marriage.

00:12:56.180 And that's, of course, the marriage of Christ and his church.

00:13:00.220 And that's, therefore, the example that married couples are to follow.

00:13:05.820 And so everything follows from that.

00:13:07.820 But that's the central point.

00:13:09.820 That was the thing that, you know, when you look at it, Cardinal Burke, God bless him, was willing to read the book.

00:13:17.500 Because I had told him what had happened and just asked him if he could look it over.

00:13:21.800 He was the church's top authority on marriage and of canon law.

00:13:26.360 And so the question is, is this correct?

00:13:28.860 You know, where else are you going to go?

00:13:30.400 So you go to Cardinal Burke and you ask him, is this correct?

00:13:34.320 Because if it is, then this is going to change the way we understand marriage.

00:13:39.180 And if it's not, I'm going to throw this thing away.

00:13:42.320 And, you know, because I only want what's in line with teaching of the church.

00:13:45.260 And the cardinal signed off on it.

00:13:47.500 And I said, praise the Lord.

00:13:49.200 This is where we're headed then.

00:13:51.260 That's the central point.

00:13:53.480 And, you know, some of the, I mean, there's just so much in there that's just, I think is so beautiful.

00:14:00.260 And it's just, it's packed.

00:14:02.080 It's just, you know, I tend not to waste a lot of space.

00:14:05.640 And so, you know, I tell people, if you're going to underline, underline the parts that aren't important, you'll save a lot of ink.

00:14:11.440 You're going to get asked by scripture scholars, all sorts of people, when they hear you say that.

00:14:17.500 Well, how does that square up with scripture?

00:14:19.900 Do you remember the story?

00:14:20.700 Of course, you know it.

00:14:21.800 But the story in the scripture where the Pharisees or the Sadducees, I can't remember which, but they come to Jesus and they talk about the story about the woman who was married by seven husbands.

00:14:32.440 And they all go through.

00:14:34.060 And then in the afterlife, whose wife is she going to be? 1.00

00:14:37.200 But then there's a new part of that because we know that marriage changed into a sacrament by Jesus.

00:14:44.140 But then you come up with this concept of the two souls united in marriage.

00:14:50.580 But then he told his apostles, or not his apostles, it was, again, disciples coming to ask questions about the afterlife.

00:14:57.500 And he says, in the afterlife, there will be no giving in marriage and so on.

00:15:05.640 And so it was always assumed, I guess, that, you know, there wouldn't be marriage in heaven, but that we would be sort of in relation with everybody there as close as we are here in our married lives.

00:15:14.860 Well, actually, I've got a whole chapter dedicated to that.

00:15:18.560 And that's because heaven is a marriage banquet. 0.88

00:15:22.760 And so Jesus not only mentions that, but it's most clear in the book of Revelation, you know, blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

00:15:32.500 And so it's for the Jewish people, they didn't have a wedding and then a reception like we tend to do today.

00:15:41.240 Back at the time of Jesus, a marriage feast was a week-long thing, and the marriage kind of took place in the midst of it.

00:15:50.480 So when he's talking about a marriage banquet, he's talking about the wedding, and it's the marriage banquet of the Lamb.

00:15:56.980 So Jesus is the bridegroom, and the mystical body is the bride. 0.77

00:16:03.220 So marriage in this world, even in the sacrament, ends at the moment of death, the death of the first spouse.

00:16:14.940 So in that particular example you're talking about, even with this, you know, if somebody is married to seven different people because each one died,

00:16:24.280 that woman in that case would have been free to be married to each of those guys because her husband died. 1.00

00:16:32.160 So even if that happened today, she could still get married seven times if she wanted to, as long as the husband had died.

00:16:39.880 But then whose wife will she be? 0.97

00:16:43.840 It won't be, because in heaven, the union is even more profound and more intimate than the union that a couple shares in marriage.

00:16:54.100 By intimate, I don't mean the sexual part.

00:16:56.580 I just mean every single person.

00:16:59.040 St. John says, we will know even as we are known.

00:17:02.400 And so you will know everybody.

00:17:05.340 Not just, oh, yeah, I recognize that person over there.

00:17:08.500 No, you know them.

00:17:09.860 You will be looking right in the essence of the person because you're looking at God who is looking into the essence of that person.

00:17:16.860 And so you will know them to the degree of your ability.

00:17:20.700 And so all of us together, whether we're male or female, we're a member of the bride.

00:17:25.880 And so for married couples, they would be united not only with one another, assuming both go to heaven, but with every other person in the mystical body.

00:17:34.580 And so there's not marrying and being given in marriage, but rather there is a union.

00:17:42.880 And again, think of what we were talking about a minute ago, the souls being united.

00:17:47.980 In heaven, our soul will be united to God.

00:17:51.660 And we will be united with one another.

00:17:54.600 It's an accidental union, not a substantial one.

00:17:57.200 And, you know, so when the two become one, you don't become the other one.

00:18:01.040 That would be the substantial union.

00:18:02.800 So it's accidental.

00:18:04.660 But even our union with God in heaven will be an accidental union, not a substantial one.

00:18:10.160 Marriage is a prefiguration of heaven. 0.56

00:18:13.020 So they won't be married per se in heaven, but they will actually be closer than what their marriage is because of the union that they will have with one another, with all the members of the body of Christ, and, of course, with Jesus, who is the bridegroom of our souls.

00:18:32.740 Now, you said something extremely interesting there, Father.

00:18:35.020 You said marriage in that sense is a prefigurement of heaven.

00:18:40.020 I think a lot of couples might often think that their marriage might be a prefigurement of another place, sometimes, especially in the midst of difficulties in marriage.

00:18:51.460 That's always the challenge.

00:18:53.040 What are you doing to make your marriage look like what you want heaven to be?

00:18:57.520 That's actually a very good question.

00:18:59.740 What has been for you the advice that you've given to married couples that you feel helps them most?

00:19:09.360 Again, if you look at the book, the first chapter is about the dignity of the person who God made us to be in his own image and likeness.

00:19:18.760 And our society has just destroyed people in their understanding of their own dignity, particularly women.

00:19:26.520 We've made women into objects and just treat them sometimes like things. 1.00

00:19:30.840 And so the first chapter is just simply dedicated to that.

00:19:35.160 If we can see one another's dignity and treat one another with that, respect that dignity, then the second chapter goes into love.

00:19:43.840 That married people should be the experts in love.

00:19:46.580 After all, they're making a vow to love.

00:19:48.800 And yet, we don't even know what love is in our society.

00:19:53.280 Of course, we use the word love for just about everything.

00:19:57.200 I love ice cream and I love this and I love that.

00:20:00.140 And of course, it's all about now making love or whatever, which most of the time has a little or nothing to do with love.

00:20:08.360 And so there's an explanation and discussion of love and what real love is.

00:20:16.880 And if couples can understand that and begin to live that, that's, you know, but that can really, I mean, you can grasp with your mind, but you have to have a prayer life.

00:20:27.780 That's the thing that's most important, because if you are beginning to develop that love for Jesus, you're going to love your spouse whom Jesus loves.

00:20:38.920 And that's the greatest way of getting rid of sin, of changing your own life, of being able to bring greater healing to the marriage and to be able to build that marriage up.

00:20:52.580 You know, one of the points that's made in the book is love never remains the same.

00:20:56.440 It either increases or decreases.

00:20:58.820 And so you either love your spouse more today than you did yesterday, or you love your spouse less today than yesterday.

00:21:05.040 What are you doing to make it more?

00:21:07.420 So the first chapter, as I mentioned, is about our natural dignity.

00:21:11.740 Every human being on the face of the earth is made in the image and likeness of God and has dignity, which, by the way, cannot change.

00:21:20.060 You know, we can be treated in a way that violates our own dignity.

00:21:23.480 Other people can violate our dignity.

00:21:26.240 But even with that, our dignity cannot even be reduced in the slightest because it is given by God.

00:21:31.840 So that dignity is there no matter what.

00:21:34.600 Then, for those who are baptized, now we have a supernatural dignity.

00:21:39.380 We have been elevated to a supernatural level of acting and being, and we've been given sanctifying grace where we've been made sons and daughters of God.

00:21:48.620 And so how can we accept that and live that if we can't even accept our natural dignity?

00:21:55.360 And so that's the piece that I try to really work toward with people, to understand their own dignity so that they can understand their spouse's dignity so that they can truly love that person more.

00:22:09.640 I'd love your take on this.

00:22:11.080 One of the books, I think it's by Dr. Dobson, he talks about the best thing a husband can do for his children is to love his wife.

00:22:19.320 And there's a corollary to that, though.

00:22:21.100 The best thing that a wife can do is respect her husband.

00:22:25.520 It's funny that he doesn't use the same love back.

00:22:29.200 Do you have any comment on that or thought about it?

00:22:30.680 When you look at St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians in chapter 6, it's one of the most beautiful, in chapter 5 rather, one of the most beautiful passages in Scripture, and yet it's one of the most hated because people don't understand it.

00:22:44.220 You know, husbands love your wives, wives be submissive to your husband. 0.99

00:22:48.620 And, you know, then talking about how the wife must respect her husband. 0.64

00:22:53.640 I'm assuming that that's where he's getting that from.

00:22:56.020 But the problem is, and by the way, we go into that whole passage in the book and explain it, and people miss the fact that that begins a verse earlier.

00:23:07.380 It doesn't begin in verse 22.

00:23:08.860 It begins in 21 where St. Paul says, be subject to one another out of reverence for Christ.

00:23:16.120 And so he is not asking anything of one that he isn't asking of the other.

00:23:21.320 But the thing that I point out with that passage is that this is really the remedy to original sin.

00:23:29.140 He's addressing the areas that, as males and females, we struggle with.

00:23:35.380 Women have very little trouble loving. 1.00

00:23:38.160 They have a lot of trouble allowing themselves to be loved.

00:23:41.380 Men, we have no trouble allowing ourselves to be loved.

00:23:44.080 We'll soak it all up.

00:23:45.360 But we have trouble loving.

00:23:46.840 And so St. Paul is saying, okay, men, love your wives.

00:23:51.860 Keep doing what you do well, but do what you don't do well.

00:23:55.420 Ladies, you have to allow yourself to be loved. 0.90

00:23:58.600 That's what that submission is, you know, to be able to allow yourself to be loved.

00:24:04.940 And so keep loving, but allow yourself to be loved.

00:24:09.040 So if that proper respect is there, which, again, goes both ways, man has to respect his wife, a woman has to respect her husband. 0.88

00:24:18.060 If that proper sense of respect is there, then that love can be there.

00:24:22.960 So I would agree with you that, you know, I think he should have used the same word, you know, but it may be that the way that a lot of women would look at it is, well, I love my husband, but I don't have a lot of respect for him, or I roll my eyes, or I sigh, or whatever.

00:24:40.340 And kids pick that up, they watch their parents, and you can talk till you're blue in the face, but your kids will do what you do.

00:24:47.860 And they'll pick up those cues, and they'll look at it and say, well, this is how dad treats mom, I can too.

00:24:53.860 And if this is how mom thinks of dad, well, I can too.

00:24:56.920 And so there has to be that proper respect.

00:24:59.480 There has to be the proper charity, that kind of love that St. Paul talks about with regard to marriage.

00:25:06.000 In fact, in that point, every single time in the New Testament, when love is spoken of with regard to marriage, the word that's used in Greek is agape.

00:25:16.400 So there are four different Greek words for love, and agape is the highest kind of love.

00:25:21.920 It's the way that God loves us.

00:25:23.420 It's a selfless kind of love.

00:25:25.540 That's what St. Paul is asking married couples to do for one another. 0.88

00:25:29.860 And so, obviously, if love, my definition of love that I put in the book is doing what's best for the other person.

00:25:37.600 So it's understanding that dignity, treating the person that way, which obviously is going to require the respect that you brought up.

00:25:46.080 But then it goes just beyond the respect.

00:25:48.460 I mean, you can respect somebody.

00:25:50.660 You can respect their dignity.

00:25:53.020 But, you know, you're not going to have necessarily that selfless kind of love.

00:25:58.560 So that's what couples have to have for one another. 0.91

00:26:02.000 The Church has experienced, especially over the last eight, nine years, a sort of internal falling apart with regard to what's going on, particularly around the age of marriage and family.

00:26:15.560 You know, early on in his pontificate, Pope Francis made headlines everywhere, talking about cohabitation, being real marriage, having the grace of real marriage.

00:26:26.620 He was talking about couples he saw in northern Argentina who were cohabiting.

00:26:30.400 And he said because of their fidelity, he said that's a real marriage, not the grace of real marriage.

00:26:34.940 You had this new, not new, actually, it's quite old, but his promotion of Father James Martin, who's known throughout the Church for wanting to change the Church's teaching regarding homosexuality, promotes homosexual unions, etc., etc.

00:26:50.400 And yet this is going on in the Church.

00:26:55.940 And, of course, as you might know, it's progressing.

00:26:58.580 It's not only, you know, it wasn't a one-off.

00:27:00.880 He was first invited to speak at the World Meeting of Families, which is a Vatican event, then asked to be a consultor on the Pontifical Council for Social Communications.

00:27:07.800 He was then met with the Pope privately, not once, but twice now, and uses those endorsements from the Pope to back what he's doing, which is literally to change the Church with regard to homosexuality. 0.52

00:27:21.840 If I can have your take on that, please.

00:27:23.480 First of all, the Church's teaching cannot change.

00:27:27.000 So we need to start with that.

00:27:29.540 And marriage is, the sacrament of marriage is between a baptized male and a baptized female.

00:27:36.160 And the purpose of marriage is, first and foremost, procreation, education of children.

00:27:43.260 Secondly, the unity of the couple.

00:27:46.100 So you look at some of these things and you can say, well, if you just look at, you know, a natural marriage as opposed to a sacramental marriage.

00:27:56.100 Yeah, so a couple goes to a judge and the state says that they're married.

00:28:00.280 There's a natural marriage that's there, provided that they intend that this is going to be for life and so on.

00:28:08.520 It's not sacramental.

00:28:10.020 And so if you have two people living together and they're trying to play house, essentially, acting like they're married, but they're not, you can have goodwill toward one another.

00:28:22.960 You can, you know, but you actually don't have true charity because charity seeks the best of the other.

00:28:29.060 You don't sin against another person.

00:28:31.040 You know, if there's something that's true charity, you want to build the other person up, sin pulls the person down.

00:28:38.100 So to even try to suggest that that's a real marriage, it's not even a natural marriage.

00:28:43.360 The state doesn't even recognize that as a civil marriage, as a legal marriage.

00:28:49.400 And so that just is not possible.

00:28:53.540 And so we need to begin with that.

00:28:56.320 But then when you look at the point of the homosexuality, I remember when there was all these votes back a number of years ago in the United States about these marriage amendments.

00:29:07.560 And there was a book that came out and it was written by a woman who was one of the leaders in the pro-family, pro-marriage and family movement.

00:29:17.440 And the guy who was the leader in the pro-homosexual marriage, marriage idea. 0.62

00:29:24.760 And the point that they made right at the beginning is whoever wins this battle goes to the center and whoever loses goes to the periphery.

00:29:34.060 So this is a political game that they're playing and that we need to be clear about that.

00:29:39.480 And so, again, when you when you look at it, you can, for instance, you can you can look at what they're trying to do with the priesthood and say that, well, we should have women be priests.

00:29:48.820 Well, being male is part of the essence of the priesthood.

00:29:53.040 It's not possible.

00:29:55.020 It's not just a matter that, well, yeah, we could allow this or that.

00:29:59.040 You know, well, we've allowed married men to be ordained deacons.

00:30:02.320 Well, celibacy is a discipline.

00:30:04.480 It's not it's not of the essence of the marriage.

00:30:06.760 But being male is part of part of the essence of the priesthood.

00:30:13.420 Well, part of the essence of the sacrament of holy matrimony is a male and a female.

00:30:20.700 And and so two males, two females or even two or three or four or five, as they're trying to do these days, that doesn't work.

00:30:28.480 It cannot work because for a marriage to be valid, there also has to be the intention that not only would it be permanent, but that it will be faithful and that it is open to life.

00:30:41.860 The two become one.

00:30:43.200 And that's exactly what Jesus said.

00:30:45.720 The two become one.

00:30:47.380 And so if that's the case, you can't have three or four and you can't have two men or two women.

00:30:53.320 You know, I had a brilliant philosophy professor who wrote lots of books and so on.

00:30:59.460 And when it came right down to it, somebody asked him about this question.

00:31:02.780 He's going off on all the philosophy.

00:31:04.980 And finally, he stopped.

00:31:05.880 He just said, the parts don't fit.

00:31:08.160 It's like, OK, that's about as simple as you can get.

00:31:11.500 It's like, no, God made us complementary.

00:31:14.640 And when he started, he started with Adam.

00:31:17.300 The fullness of humanity was in Adam.

00:31:19.800 He created Eve.

00:31:21.140 And now when the male and the female are united together, there is a fullness of humanity again.

00:31:28.340 Two men don't have that.

00:31:30.000 Two women don't have that. 1.00

00:31:32.160 Only a man and a woman united together have the fullness of humanity. 1.00

00:31:37.500 And that's what God intended once again from the beginning.

00:31:42.020 So, again, you look at what Jesus tells us to do.

00:31:44.700 Go back to the beginning.

00:31:45.840 What did God intend?

00:31:47.360 We see a male and a female.

00:31:48.660 And but what you have to understand here from a deeper perspective in what's going on, the church is the bride of Christ.

00:31:57.880 Now, the church has not yet consummated her marriage with her bridegroom.

00:32:07.460 Jesus consummated his marriage, St. Augustine said, on the marriage bed of the cross 2,000 years ago.

00:32:15.880 The church still has to consummate her marriage because this is a spiritual thing. 0.99

00:32:20.260 So, obviously, in a regular marriage, yeah, you can't have it at two different times.

00:32:24.480 That's not going to work.

00:32:25.720 The two are united together.

00:32:27.980 But when we're talking about Jesus and the church, we're talking about spiritual.

00:32:32.800 So, time and space don't matter.

00:32:35.120 So, the church, the saints tell us, the fathers of the church tell us the church is going to be crucified at some point in history.

00:32:42.760 I personally think we're going to see it, but nonetheless, that will be the church's consummation of her marriage to her spouse to show her fidelity, her charity, her love for her spouse, Jesus Christ.

00:32:57.880 The church is going to be crucified as her spouse was.

00:33:02.020 She has to consummate her marriage. 0.99

00:33:04.860 That is, I think, where we're headed.

00:33:06.820 So, as heinous as these things are that are happening, if we can see it in that spiritual way, this is the attempt to be able to get the bride away from the bridegroom, to bring, to sully the bride, to try to do something to cause infidelity or whatever it is they're trying to cause to make sure that this doesn't happen.

00:33:34.640 They're not going to be able to stop it.

00:33:36.040 In fact, they're going to be the cause of it, because it's going to be just like what happened 2,000 years ago.

00:33:41.380 Ask yourself, who was it, ultimately, who's responsible for the death of our Lord?

00:33:46.960 It was the high priests.

00:33:48.520 It's like, well, what do we have going on now?

00:33:51.100 Same thing.

00:33:52.300 They used secular people to do it, but it was the religious authorities that were behind it, and that's what we're going to see with the church, too.

00:33:59.920 So, whatever their purpose is, I don't understand exactly.

00:34:05.800 I'm looking at it from the other point of view.

00:34:07.880 It's like they're the ones that are going to cause the very thing they're trying to keep from happening.

00:34:11.800 And so, in their malice, just like 2,000 years ago, God's going to bring about great good from that.

00:34:19.400 And so, again, to be very clear, the church's teaching on marriage cannot change.

00:34:25.500 If somebody tries to change it or change any other basic teaching of the church, we must reject that.

00:34:32.700 We must absolutely must remain faithful to Jesus.

00:34:36.700 And we can see it from that spiritual perspective.

00:34:39.760 This is the time where we have the opportunity to be able to say, I will be faithful to the bridegroom of my soul.

00:34:48.000 That we have that chance now that nobody has had in 2,000 years to be able to do this.

00:34:54.160 That's what this is about on the bigger picture.

00:34:57.400 I mean, again, practically speaking, yeah, these are horrible things.

00:35:01.140 But in that bigger picture, if we can understand that and say, all right, what is absolutely critical is that we absolutely must remain faithful to Jesus, no matter what.

00:35:14.780 The way I always put it to people, I just say, look, I don't care what color cassock someone's wearing.

00:35:19.660 It's the black of a priest, the purple of a bishop, the red of a cardinal, or the white of a pope.

00:35:23.680 If someone says something different from what Jesus said and what different from what the church has taught, stick with Jesus in the church.

00:35:32.520 It's just that simple.

00:35:34.420 And so, you know, how many are going to remain faithful?

00:35:38.720 You look at what happened 2,000 years ago.

00:35:41.400 It's not that there were a huge number of people at the time Jesus was crucified.

00:35:45.060 But there was only one who ultimately remained absolutely faithful.

00:35:50.160 That was Our Lady.

00:35:51.760 You know, you can look at the small group with the apostles, and they finally got their act together, and they were faithful.

00:35:57.840 But the vast majority left.

00:35:59.800 I mean, when Jesus spoke about the Eucharist, the majority of them left.

00:36:03.340 They said, we can't do this.

00:36:05.360 Well, guess what?

00:36:06.080 The Eucharist and marriage are the two sacraments most closely aligned symbolically.

00:36:12.640 People can't handle what the church teaches about marriage because they can't handle what the church teaches about the Eucharist.

00:36:18.920 So we've got fewer than 25% of people who call themselves Catholics saying that they believe in the Holy Eucharist.

00:36:25.660 Well, should we be surprised that they can't handle what the church teaches about marriage?

00:36:29.500 So the question for every single person is, are we going to remain faithful?

00:36:35.280 We know the church ultimately is going to remain faithful, but how many of her children, how many of us who are part of the Bride of Christ will remain faithful?

00:36:45.020 Who is going to be willing to be crucified with him?

00:36:48.780 Because that's what the church is going to have to endure at some point.

00:36:52.960 And so are we willing to love him to the end?

00:36:57.000 Because that's what St. John told us that Jesus did for us.

00:37:00.600 He loved his own.

00:37:01.640 He loved them to the end.

00:37:03.900 He poured out his life so that we could have his life.

00:37:07.540 And now we have a chance to be able to do the same in return.

00:37:11.420 Absolutely beautiful, Father.

00:37:13.520 God's Plan for Your Marriage is the name of the book.

00:37:15.900 Father, where can we pick it up?

00:37:16.840 You can get it at the website, godsplanforyourmarriagebook.com, or you can get it from Sophia Institute Press.

00:37:24.540 So, godsplanforyourmarriagebook.com, or Sophia Institute Press.

00:37:30.700 Father Robert Altier, thank you so much for being with us.

00:37:33.480 Well, thank you, John Henry.

00:37:34.680 God bless you.

00:37:35.620 Thanks for all your good work.

00:37:37.160 Keep it up.

00:37:38.020 Will do, Father.

00:37:38.840 And God bless all of you.

00:37:40.920 And we'll see you next time.

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00:38:06.780 Thank you and God bless you.

00:38:11.760 Thank you.

The John-Henry Westen Show - December 13, 2022

The Secrets to a Happy Marriage that the Devil Wants to Keep Hidden

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