Ave Explores

Emily Jaminet is a Catholic author, speaker, mother of seven, and the executive director of the Sacred Heart Enthronement Network. She talks with host Katie Prejean McGrady about how family prayer and welcoming Jesus into your home can transform your family dynamic. Jaminet also explains how the ability to pivot in the midst of life’s changes is a mother’s greatest strength, sharing how when a mother is centered in prayer, she’s able to change course with grace and patience.

Links:

• Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Timothy P. O’Malley, director of McGrath Theology Online at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame, talks with host Katie Prejean McGrady about he and his wife Kara’s struggle with infertility. A professor who also teaches a course on marriage, O’Malley offers insights into discernment and dating for young adults, and ways that we can encourage prayer as a family.

Links:

• Week 3 of Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Marcia Lane McGee is a birth mother with an open adoption and a foster mom who lives with six teenage boys at the Mooseheart Home near Chicago. She tells host Katie Prejean McGrady that we are all called to creatively foster family life based on our unique state of life and vocation. Lane McGee also explains how we must invest in people, even when they are at their worst, to help them find joy and to lead them to a fullness of love in Christ.

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• See all the Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life content

Catholic speaker Brian Greenfield talks with host Katie Prejean McGrady about a father’s role as provider and protector, and as an affirming, empathetic, healing presence in the lives of his wife and children. A theology teacher at an all-boys high school, Greenfield also shares how walking with young people through their wounds and helping them to find peace and love is a key role that all men can play in helping to heal a broken and selfish culture.

Links:

• Sign Up for Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Damon and Melanie Owens, founders of Joyful Ever After Ministries, talk with host Katie Prejean McGrady about finding healing within a marriage, especially when working through resentment and frustration. The couple also shares about raising their eight children in the faith, ultimately entrusting their hearts to the Lord and his will for their lives. The Owenses also offer insights into the ups and downs of married life, homeschooling, and finding balance at home.

Links:

• Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Newlyweds Nick and Riley Sciarappa talk with host Katie Prejean McGrady about meeting online and about their lives while dating and discerning marriage and what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown in trust throughout their engagement. The Sciarappas also share what it was like to plan a wedding in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic.

Links:

• Sign Up for Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Jackie Francois Angel and Bobby Angel, authors, speakers, and parents of four, explain to host Katie Prejean McGrady that marriage must be rooted in friendship, attentiveness to the other’s needs, communication, and a dedication to prayer. The Angels say that marriage is meant to be abundantly joyful, established in a love of Christ that flows into family life.

Links:

• Sign Up for Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Jeannie Gaffigan, author of the bestselling When Life Gives You Pears, wife to comedian Jim Gaffigan, and mother of five, talks candidly with host Katie Prejean McGrady about balancing family life, her Catholic faith, and maintaining a sense of sanity and fun in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic in New York City. Gaffigan shares practical tips on how Catholic family life can thrive by lowering your expectations and letting stressful things go so you can focus on your family’s health, happiness, and holiness.

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• Sign up for Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life

Theologian Edward Sri and his wife Beth talk with host Katie Prejean McGrady about how marriage and parenting is meant to be centered in love of God and a couple’s call to mission— to generously love, serve, teach, and proclaim the Gospel. With stories of raising their eight kids (ranging in age from nineteen to four years old), the realities of balancing work, home, and travel, and how to find healing from past wounds, the Sris explain how generosity is the key to thriving within Catholic family life.

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Katie Prejean McGrady's parents, Marie & Garland Prejean, introduce the upcoming Ave Explores series on Catholic Family Life

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• Subscribe to Ave Explores: Catholic Family Life