With Good Friday soon upon us, we’re talking through fasting and abstinence, the good of penance, and the penance of Palm Sunday with small children.

Mentioned on today’s episode:

St. Michael’s Abbey

The Rule of St. Augustine (as it pertains to fasting)

“Fasting: A Source of Trial,” Sermons of Saint John Henry Newman

“All About Lent: The Fast,” Emily Stimpson Chapman

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

If Chappell Roan is good at anything besides singing, it’s inspiring lively conversation. Buckle up for a free flowing and wide ranging conversation about parenting, influencers, community, country music, the Diocese of Pittsburgh’s shameful maternity leave policy, and mimetic desire (because why not).

P.S. This week, a little over 13 months after we launched this podcast, we crossed the 130,000 download mark! That is an amazing feat for a little podcast like ours, and we are so grateful to all of you who are listening and sharing! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Show Notes:

Call Her Daddy with Chappell Roan

“The Weeds and Wheat of Motherhood,” by Emily Stimpson Chapman

Renee Girard and Mimetic Desire

“Study: The Experiences of U.S. Adults Who Don’t Have Children,” Pew Research Center

Anne Hathaway: “Abortion is another word for mercy.”

Drunkard’s Prayer, Over the Rhine

Metallica: Some Kind of Monster

Gabby Barrett

All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood by Jennifer Senior

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit visitationsessions.substack.com

After we finished “Let’s Talk About Sex,” our most recent conversation with Monica and Renzo Ortega of Two Become Family , we kept recording as we discussed the Manosphere’s obsession with the marital debt, what they get wrong, and what they get right.

This episode is available for full subscribers only. Not a subscriber? We would love for you to become one today.

For …

How do you talk with your spouse about sex? How do you communicate your fears, struggles, needs, and love to them? Why are these conversations so very hard? And why also are they so very important? This week, we’re talking about those questions and more, with our friends Renzo and Monica Ortega, authors of the new book: Lovemaking: How To Talk About Sex With Your Spouse and hosts of the podcast and Substack, Two Become Family. You’ll hear about how struggles with sex and communication almost destroyed their marriage, how they overcame those struggles and past sexual sin, how they leaned into discernment as a family, and how discernment, mentorship, and a mature approach to NFP can help your marriage, too.

PS. Full subscribers, a bonus episode will be coming your way later this week, where we continue our conversation with the Ortegas, focusing on the Manosphere and the marital debt. Not a full subscriber? Just click the button below.

Show Notes:

Lovemaking: How to Talk About Sex With Your Spouse by Renzo and Monica Ortega

Love and Responsibility by Karol Wojtyla (Pope Saint John Paul II)

Man and Woman He Created Them by Karol Wojtyla (Pope Saint John Paul II)

Humanae Vitae by Pope Saint Paul VI

These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body by Emily Stimpson Chapman

“Battles of the Sexes: Duals Between Men and Women in 1400s Fectbucher,” The Public Domain Review

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

St. Patrick’s Day is almost upon us, so this week we’re talking about heavenly visions of lakes of beer, the goodness of alcohol, the badness of drunkenness, and bizarre stories about St. Patrick himself (courtesy of Casey, of course).

Show Notes

St. Brigid’s Fire by Kevin Heider

Corned Beef and Cabbage Recipe

Drinking with the Saints by Michael Foley

St. Thomas on Boorishness

St. Thomas on sobriety and drunkenness

The Communion of Saints and the Consumption of Alcohol

What the Church Says About Drunkenness

Catholics, Alcohol, and Drinking

If you’re enjoying this podcast, consider buying us a virtual cup of coffee each month. Your $5 pledge helps keep the podcasts coming by paying for equipment, babysitting, travel costs, and the time it takes to pull this off (almost) every week.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

Recently, in The Free Press, the writer Chris Arnade penned an essay asserting that “Every Man Wants to Be a Hero.” So, this week, we’re discussing if that’s true, along with what heroism means, the attraction of the anti-hero, forming little boys to be heroes, and why or why not women have the same desire for heroism. Nazis, video games, the Manosphere, and mermen also somehow figure in to the conversation. Because why not!

Show Notes:

Dignity: Seeking Respect in Back Row America by Chris Arnade

“All Men Want to Be Heroes,” by Chris Arnade

Interview with Louise Perry on Honestly (February 14, 2025)

“Warbloods”

Childcraft 1984: Great Myths and Legends

Wall-E

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

What is IVF? Why does the Church oppose it? Why do we hear so little about it in our parishes?How does the conversation need to change? What does the Catholic tradition of celibacy have to teach us about sex, marriage, and babies? We’re talking about all this and more, this week?

Show Notes

Revelations (Alvin Ailey Ballet)

Donum Vitae Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Dignitas Personae Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

“Begotten, Not Made: A Catholic View of Reproductive Technology” by Dr. John Haas

Conceived by Science: Thinking Compassionately and Carefully About IVF by Stephanie Grey Connors

IVF Is Not the Way: The False Promises of Artificial Procreation by Dr. Stacy Trasancos (Pre-Order

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit visitationsessions.substack.com

Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa for this delayed bonus episode! Between talks … and film festivals … and photo shoots … and deadlines … and snow days … and all the kids, the four of us are stretched way too thin right now. We are working on a plan to help with that. Until then, we ask for your mercy.

Here, though, as promised last week, is a litt…

Sorry for the repost! We had a little error that needed fixing!

So many of you have asked us to do a more thorough discussion of the Four Temperaments and why this is is such a deeply Catholic (and helpful) understanding of the human person. It turned out to be more of a conversation than we could tackle in an hour, so consider this a solid start.

(Also, if you’re a full subscriber, keep an eye on your inbox for a bonus episode tomorrow, in which we talk about how our temperaments play out in our own marriages.)

Show Notes

Spiritual Theology by Jordan Auman

The Temperament God Gave You by Art and Laraine Bennet

A Temperament Quiz

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe

What possesses a man to turn the hardest, saddest, most humiliating chapter of his life into a book? How do you write about your wife’s infidelity without losing your wife all over again? What does life look like afterwards?

This week, we’re talking about those questions and more with author and humorist, Harrison Scott Key. Back in October, we discussed his book, "How to Stay Married: The Most Insane Love Story Ever Told. It’s a doozy of a book and it was a doozy of an episode. It was, in fact, our most listened to, most talked about episode to date, which is why we were thrilled when Harrison offered to come on the show and chat with us.

If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, you can find it here.

And if you haven’t read the book yet, you really should.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit visitationsessions.substack.com/subscribe