
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


What if understanding your hormones could bring you closer to God? Julie Nelson and Chris Magruder welcome Jamie Rathjen, fertility care practitioner, certified Creighton Model instructor, and founder of the Fiat Institute, for a faith-filled conversation on women's health, fertility awareness, and the genius of how God designed the female body.
In this episode:
Become a certified hormone coach or find one near you at the Fiat Institute: fiatinstitute.com
Keep learning with Jamie on The Hormone Genius Podcast: hormonegenius.com
Listen to more Catholic Women Now at IowaCatholicRadio.com
Hashtags#CatholicWomenNow #CatholicWomen #NFP #NaturalFamilyPlanning #CreightonModel #NaProTechnology #HormoneHealth #FertilityAwareness #WomensHealth #Fiat #CatholicPodcast #IowaCatholicRadio
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
A testimony that starts in high school
Christie Walker opens up about believing "the lie as old as time" — that she needed alcohol to belong. What began at teenage parties escalated through her early twenties until a roommate and a boss told her plainly that she was going to lose her job and her home. She pursued outpatient treatment at 22, went back out drinking, and then made the decision that stuck. She has now been alcohol-free for more than 29 years, crediting Alcoholics Anonymous for the mindset shift and the Lord for the healing. Her faith journey and her sobriety journey, she says, run parallel — she couldn't have had one without the other.
Called to coach, years before she knew it
Christie was sober 25 years before the Holy Spirit prompted her toward coaching. After she began, she found an old journal entry from six years earlier in which she had prayed to help other Catholics who needed encouragement figuring out how to live life without alcohol.
The four pillars: faith, neuroscience, inner healing, identity
Christie explains why she doesn't start with the drinking behavior. Alcohol misuse, she says, is usually a symptom of something else. The Catholic faith brings the graces of the sacraments. Neuroscience explains what alcohol does to dopamine, serotonin, and the brain — which removes enormous shame when a woman finally understands why her friend can stop at one and she can't. Inner healing addresses the wounds and lies underneath the habit. Identity grounds it all in knowing you are a beloved daughter of God — which reframes God as a loving Father who wants your freedom even more than you do.
"Wine chatter" and knowing when you've arrived
One of the most practical segments: Christie describes the internal negotiating that starts around 3:00 in the afternoon — should I, shouldn't I — hours before anyone actually pours a drink. Julie compares it to "food noise" while dieting. Christie's marker for freedom isn't a number of days sober; it's whether you can take alcohol or leave it with peace. Some women need to stop completely. Others can reduce and the noise quiets down. The work is figuring out which one you are.
Shame, the sacraments, and the return to the Eucharist
Christie shares that many clients come to her having avoided confession and the Eucharist for years because of shame. Alcohol isn't evil, she says, but the enemy uses it as a tool. When women return to the sacrament of reconciliation and to Mass, she consistently sees their sobriety and awareness grow by leaps and bounds.
Mommy wine culture
Chris raises the cultural normalization of wine as the default outlet for overwhelmed young moms. Christie agrees it starts innocently as a buffer and can evolve into feeling trapped.
Ways to work with Christie
Find Christie
Learn more at TheCatholicSobrietyCoach.com. She's on social media as @thecatholicsobrietycoach, and hosts The Catholic Sobriety Podcast.
Catholic Women Now airs on Iowa Catholic Radio with hosts Julie Nelson and Chris Magruder. More at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
#CatholicSobriety #SoberCurious #CatholicWomen #AlcoholFreedom #CatholicPodcast #SobrietyJourney #CatholicFaith #DrinkLess #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicWomenNow #SoberLiving #FaithAndHealing #InnerHealing #CatholicMoms #Sobriety
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
What temperance actually is
Julie Nelson opens by admitting her first mental image of temperance was a fire-and-brimstone preacher dumping cigarettes and liquor into the river. Chris Magruder says that's exactly the misunderstanding worth correcting. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC 1809) describes temperance as the moral virtue that moderates the attraction of pleasures, provides balance in the use of created goods, and ensures the will's mastery over instincts. It is one of the four cardinal virtues alongside prudence, fortitude and justice. Chris points to a helpful image from the Catholic Diocese of Tyler: temperance works like a thermostat — too far one direction and it's too hot, too far the other and it's too cold. The goal is the right measure, not elimination.
Temperance in Scripture
The word itself doesn't appear the way listeners might expect. In the Old Testament, Chris notes, the language is about restraining appetites and avoiding base desires. In the New Testament, it shows up as moderation and sobriety. The virtue is there throughout, even when the vocabulary isn't.
Saint Francis de Sales on moderation and identity
Chris highlights Saint Francis de Sales, known for gentleness, wisdom and guiding souls toward a balanced spiritual life. His advice: do not wish to be anything but what you are, and try to be that perfectly. Chris connects it to identity as a child of God — she was made perfectly to be Chris Magruder, not Julie Nelson — and says there is real freedom in that. For deeper reading, she recommends Part III of his classic work Introduction to the Devout Life.
A temperance inventory: where is this showing up in your life?
Chris originally gave this talk with a 17-question self-examination. She walks through several of them on air, asking listeners whether they've done these things, been on the receiving end of them, or both:
Her point: even good things can be overindulged, including relationships, ministry and rest. The question is always whether it is balanced.
"He's been trying to teach me temperance for years"
Chris shares personal stories with real candor. A sixth-grade contest at Camp Foster in Okoboji, Iowa, that she won by staying silent the longest — and how taming her tongue has been a lifelong lesson since. A recent conversation with a friend she hadn't seen in twenty years, where curiosity got ahead of charity and she blurted out a question about a divorce, then went back and apologized. A situation years ago where she approached two mothers directly about their fourth-grade sons and pornography, and it bore no fruit — versus a later situation where she prayed for two weeks first, and the Lord directed her to have her husband speak to the other father. That one worked beautifully. Her takeaway: pray first. Even a quick "Lord, bind my tongue" in the moment reorients the heart.
When the good things become the imbalance
Chris also describes a season of saying yes to everything at church — until the Lord told her to go home. Her body was home but her mind and phone were still at the parish. She wasn't greeting her husband at the door or listening to her kids. Balance, she says, applies even to holy work: it's all good, but what are you actually called to?
Practical exercises to grow in temperance
An emotional control exercise for children (and adults)
For a child in the middle of a meltdown: pause and pray "Come, Holy Spirit." Get eye contact — "look at me." Name the emotion for them. Offer a stuffed animal to hug if they need to discharge energy. Breathe in for four seconds, out for four seconds. Once they're calm, think together about what to do next. Chris notes she has used a version of this with her adult and college-age children too, and shares how looking into the eyes of a Sacred Heart of Jesus image in her prayer corner calms her the same way.
Temperance and technology
Julie and Chris discuss how heavily social media is engineered to capture attention, and note that parents are now often on their devices more than their kids. Chris recommends Brick, a physical device that locks chosen apps on your phone until you walk back to it and tap again — friction that creates a pause between impulse and action. The deeper question stays spiritual: who am I trying to please, and what is this scrolling buffering me from?
Catholic Women Now airs on Iowa Catholic Radio. Listen live, stream past episodes and find the full programming schedule at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
HASHTAGS#Temperance #CardinalVirtues #CatholicWomen #CatholicPodcast #CatholicFaith #Virtue #SelfControl #CatholicWomenNow #IowaCatholicRadio #Catechism #StFrancisDeSales #CatholicMom #FaithAndFamily #SpiritualGrowth #CatholicLiving #ScreenTime #PrayerLife #Balance
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Meeting God in the Everyday
Fr. Luke Doyle joins Catholic Women Now to talk about his first book, Priest in the Wild: Stories of Meeting God in the Everyday, published by Ascension. Fr. Luke explains that he didn't write the book to tell readers how to be holy, but to invite them into the countless ways Jesus approaches us in ordinary moments. He names "self-made aloneness" as one of the great lies of the spiritual life — the assumption that we're on our own for most of the day — and reminds listeners that everyone who seeks will find. Holiness, he says, is simply living life with God: more about trusting, listening, and receiving than achieving.
Childlike vs. Childish
Ministering at a large secular university, Fr. Luke sees young people crushed by a culture that says everything is permitted and nothing is forgiven — where identity gets reduced to a GPA, a body, or a social media metric. His response has been to teach them how to play in the Kingdom. Drawing on life as an uncle in a family of eight kids, he distinguishes childlikeness — trust, wonder, freedom, willingness to risk and to share — from childishness, the posture of "no" and "mine" and "I'll do it myself." He shares how a moment of prayer, framed by an unforgettable scene from Elf, awakened his own desire to be introduced to God the Father.
Why Love Plays Offense
One of the most talked-about chapters in the book comes from Matthew 16. Worn out from constantly defending the Church in a progressive campus environment, Fr. Luke brought his frustration to prayer — and Jesus pointed him to a single word: gates. Gates are defensive weapons. If the gates of hell will not prevail, then hell is the one playing defense. Love, by its nature, moves toward others. The Church isn't built to hold a line; she's sent on mission.
Mary, the GOAT — and the Serpent-Crusher
Fr. Luke tells the story of calling Our Lady "the GOAT" in an Assumption homily and the parishioner who came at him ready for battle. His point: no one has trusted, listened to, and moved with God better than His own mother. He also shares his lifelong fear of snakes and the comfort of an image found in nearly every depiction of Mary — her heel on the serpent. His shorthand for handing her our fears: pray and squish.
Spiritual Fatherhood and the Freedom of "Yes"
With refreshing honesty, Fr. Luke describes discerning his vocation while begging the Lord not to call him to the priesthood, fearing celibacy would be a "no" to intimacy and fatherhood. In prayer, Jesus asked him a question that changed everything: Is marriage big enough for your heart? Five years ordained, he describes walking into a room and being father to every person in it — young or old — as the fulfillment his heart was actually made for.
Lion Strength
Fr. Luke closes with Narnia. Aslan — the lion who is the Christ figure of the series — calls the fearful forward and tells them to press into his mane, listen to his heartbeat, and receive his strength. That, Fr. Luke says, is exactly what the sacraments do. Christ the Lion of the tribe of Judah breathes on us in Holy Communion and Confession and sends us out as lions and lionesses to renew His Kingdom. His closing prayer and blessing are worth hearing to the end.
Also in This Episode
Julie opens the show with truth, beauty, and goodness from a recent trip to South Africa — vineyards, three oceans meeting, and elephants caring for their own — and how encountering God's creation half a world away reveals the same Father at work.
Learn More
#CatholicWomenNow #IowaCatholicRadio #FrLukeDoyle #PriestInTheWild #AscensionPress #CatholicPodcast #FindingGodInTheOrdinary #CatholicFaith #Holiness #SpiritualFatherhood #KUCatholic #StLawrenceCatholicCenter #Narnia #LionOfJudah #BlessedVirginMary #CatholicWomen #EverydayFaith #Discipleship #CatholicBooks #Prayer
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Julie and Chris spend the full show unpacking Kim Schadt's list of more than 20 practical ways to love your husband and renew your marriage, encouraging listeners to pick just one or two habits a week rather than trying to do everything at once.
Prayer and Spiritual Life
Everyday Acts of Love and Affirmation
Communication, Intimacy, and Forgiveness
Marriage-Strengthening Resource: Free Will
Read the Full Article
Learn more at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
#CatholicMarriage #CatholicWomenNow #LoveYourHusband #CatholicWife #MarriageAdvice #CatholicFaith #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicPodcast
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
A Story Continued
Falling in Love Again
The Journey Into the Catholic Church
Easter Vigil and New Life
Under the Fig Tree
A Free Gift for Your Family
#CatholicWomenNow #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicConversion #UnderTheFigTree #OCIA #CatholicFaith #Eucharist #Remarriage #GriefAndHope #CatholicPodcast
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
On this unplugged episode of Catholic Women Now, hosts Julie Nelson and Chris Magruder set aside their usual guest format for a coffee-chat-style conversation about the prayers and novenas that have carried them through hard seasons, and the miracles they've witnessed along the way.
The Rosary Group That Keeps Growing
Two Everyday Miracles
The Seven Sorrows Rosary
A Novena for Financial Miracles: Infant Jesus of Prague
Undoer of Knots, Saint Therese, and a Thirty-Day Novena to Saint Joseph
The Emergency Novena
Learn more about Iowa Catholic Radio's full program lineup at IowaCatholicRadio.com.
#CatholicWomenNow #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicPodcast #Novena #Rosary #CatholicFaith #AnsweredPrayers #CatholicWomen #Prayer #SevenSorrowsRosary #InfantJesusOfPrague #SaintJoseph #UndoerOfKnots #CatholicMiracles #FaithJourney
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Actor Alex Zuko pulls up a chair at the coffee table to share how a five-month trip to India turned into a full Catholic reversion, and how that journey eventually led him to play a grieving priest in the award-winning short film "A Great Day." Julie Nelson and Chris Magruder talk with Alex about forgiveness, the sacraments, and the surprising miracle that saved one of the film's most powerful scenes.
From Munchkin to the Big Screen
A Reversion Story from India
Playing Father Zachary in "A Great Day"
Preparing for the Role Through Real Loss
A Marian Miracle on Set
"Only God's Grace Can Bloom Thorns Into Roses"
What's Next: The Silent Song
Watch & Learn More
Learn more, request a free screening, or find study guides at ourladyfilms.org: https://ourladyfilms.org/a-great-day/
Learn more about Mount Carmel Studios and upcoming projects at mountcarmelstudios.com: https://mountcarmelstudios.com/
#CatholicWomenNow #AGreatDayFilm #CatholicShortFilm #Forgiveness #CatholicFaith #FaithReversion #CatholicMovies #DivineMercy #AlexZuko #IowaCatholicRadio #CatholicPodcast #Sacraments
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
Meet Jeannine Peters
A Story Shaped by "The Hound of Heaven"
Growing Up in Chaos, Finding God in Lourdes
Healing Through Theology of the Body and ACA
A Miraculous Reunion
Her Message of Hope
Learn more about Jeannine and her ministry at jeanninepeters.com
#CatholicWomenNow #JeanninePeters #HoundOfHeaven #TheologyOfTheBody #CatholicAdoption #BirthMother #AdoptiveMother #SpiritualDirector #UnboundPrayer #CatholicFaithJourney #CatholicPodcast #IowaCatholicRadio
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
In this inspiring conversation, Cindy discusses:
Whether you're a lifelong Catholic, a convert, or simply curious about the Jewish roots of Christianity, Cindy's testimony is a powerful reminder that God faithfully pursues every heart.
Learn more about Cindy's story in her book, From Kosher to Catholic.
Listen Live · Program Schedule · Our Stations
LINKS
You can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Tiktok! More on our website.
If you would like to support Iowa Catholic Radio you can donate Here!
More from Iowa Catholic Radio:
Liturgy & Devotions
Want to support your favorite show? Click Here
Iowa Catholic Radio - Connecting People to Christ
Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.
From the publisher's feed

6,232 Listeners

813 Listeners

819 Listeners

6,748 Listeners

4,190 Listeners

7,677 Listeners

1,354 Listeners

2,625 Listeners

1,517 Listeners

2,640 Listeners

158 Listeners

1,214 Listeners

442 Listeners

11,388 Listeners