Gregory K. Popcak > Quotes

“Lord, Jesus. Please come into my heart and make me Your little child. Teach me to love You more than anything, and help me always live my life for You.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“but for now, it is important to know that any time a husband and wife contracept, they are saying to each other, “I just want the parts of you that make me feel good; I don’t want the parts of you that make me commit to you for life and enable us to celebrate a love so powerful it could become its own life.” That”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Holy Sex!: A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving

“Wow. Those are really strong feelings.” • “You seem really sad/angry/frustrated/disappointed about that.” • “I understand that you are very upset right now. Take a breath and think about what you are really trying to tell me.” • “I know that you feel like hitting. Please use your words.” • “I know you are angry, but you may not speak to me that way. Please say [fill in the blank] instead.” • “You obviously need to tell me something that’s very important to you, but you’re too upset to tell me the way you need to. Please go to your room; when you’re ready to speak respectfully, I will be ready to listen.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“The truth is that the Catholic Church celebrates and esteems sex more than any other faith. By exploring what authentic Catholic tradition holds about human sexuality, any husband and wife can experience sex as God intended it to be experienced — an eye-popping, toe-curling, life-giving, profoundly sacred, and deeply spiritual union of one divinized human person with another.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Holy Sex!: A Catholic Guide to Toe-Curling, Mind-Blowing, Infallible Loving

“Dios nos ha creado para que cualquiera de nuestros deseos apunte, en último término, a nuestro anhelo esencial de una honda intimidad con Él. Por desgracia, en lugar de perseguir el encuentro con lo sagrado que permanece oculto tras nuestros deseos terrenales, el adicto se instala en el placer del momento. Y, curiosamente, cuanto más instalados estamos en él, más inestables nos sentimos. El resultado es una relación aún más obsesiva con el ídolo. Acudimos una y otra vez al pozo cegado con la esperanza de que esta vez saciaremos nuestra sed. En palabras del escritor y analista cultural Mark Shea, «nunca se tiene bastante de lo que en realidad no se quiere» (2001).”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Dioses rotos (Mundo y Cristianismo)

“(When God said, “Be fruitful and multiply” [Genesis 1:28], he wasn’t giving math homework.)”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids

“Lord Jesus Christ, in Genesis, we are told that it is not good for us to be alone. Help us to remember this as we work toward healing our marriage. Help us to overcome the pride that might stop us from reaching out for assistance. Give us the wisdom we need to seek good counsel and the humility we need to accept and use the help we receive. Walk with us on our journey, and grant us the ability to cooperate fully with your abundant grace. We place our marriage at the foot of your Cross. As we join our struggle to your Cross, we ask that you would allow us to also rise with you so that the love you would rekindle in our hearts would be a sign to us and the world of the wonders your grace can do. We ask”
― Gregory K. Popcak, How to Heal Your Marriage: And Nurture Lasting Love

“realized that he would one day need to answer his child’s questions about faith.”
― Gregory K Popcak, Then Comes Baby: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Three Years of Parenthood

“1. individual and couple prayer 2. nurture your love 3. each other, but an even stronger commitment to your vows 4. learn new skills when new challenges come instead of giving into a tendency to blame your marriage or spouse for being “broken”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage

“In order for your marriage to become that great love story there are certain things you need to establish in your early years together because relationships tend to build and grow on precedent.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Just Married: The Catholic Guide to Surviving and Thriving in the First Five Years of Marriage

“Lord, I am trying to do my best. But you and I both know that I don’t really know what I’m doing. I ask you to lead me. I ask you to transform my heart and make it like yours. I place myself under your headship. Show me how to be a man after your own heart. Show me how to truly love and lead my wife and family—not out of my will but yours. Give me listening ears and a servant’s heart. Help me remember that, to be the head of this family, I must be your first follower.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, BeDADitudes: 8 Ways to Be an Awesome Dad

“the promise to “forsake all others” includes all those entanglements, friendships, family-of-origin commitments, career opportunities, and community involvements that do not serve to increase either the physical and mental health of each spouse or the intimacy of the marriage.”
― Gregory K Popcak, The Exceptional Seven Percent: The Nine Secrets of the World's Happiest Couples

“Lord Jesus Christ, you taught us that we should do good to those who frustrate us and always be loving even to those we are angry with or hurt by. Sometimes, Lord, we are so far from this in our marriage. Help us to know how to put into place those habits that will make us feel loved, supported, and understood even when the tensions rise. Give us your grace to overcome our injured pride, emotional reactions, addiction to our preferences, and tendency to be parents to each other instead of partners. Empower us to encourage each other through the tension by exhibiting your love for each other when our own love runs dry. Most importantly, help us to pursue the solutions that respect your will more than ours so that we can have the marriage you have in mind for us — the marriage that will lead us closer to each other and to you. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, How to Heal Your Marriage: And Nurture Lasting Love

“The important thing to remember is you cannot give what you don’t have. If you want to be an effective relationship model for your kids, you definitely don’t have to have a perfect marriage (phew, right?) but you do have to show your kids that you take your relationship seriously and work hard at it. Regardless, if you want to achieve a true Catholic sexuality, then the only answer is to love. Love”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids

“Each night, we bless our children by placing our hands on their heads and saying, “Lord Jesus, please bless this child. Send Your Holy Spirit into his/her heart, and help him/her to love You more than anything. Give him/her Your grace so that he/she can grow up to be the man/woman You want him/her to be. Amen.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“Choosing an “Away School” There was a time when this section would have been easy. We simply would have said, “Find the nearest Catholic school and send your child to it.” Unfortunately, it is no longer possible to make such blanket statements in an age where in some places teachers and staff are often either openly hostile or passively dismissive toward their own mission to be a Catholic school. It is our opinion that these schools do so at their own peril, because once you take the “Catholic” out of a Catholic school, you end up with a hobbled institution. Fortunately, these inferior institutions remain in the minority of Catholic schools. In fact, we are still very heavily biased in favor of Catholic schools, and we strongly recommend that you consider any and all available Catholic schools before considering other conventional schooling options (e.g., public or non-sectarian private schools). Generally speaking, they have been shown to be more effective than their public counterparts; they typically have smaller, more orderly classes; they support the values and prayers you are trying to teach at home; and they help your child appreciate the importance of the Eucharist by attending Mass during the school week.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“Thank you, Lord, for the gift of this day. Thank you for making Mommy to be a woman and Daddy to be a man. Thank you for calling us to the sacrament of marriage. And thank you for bringing [insert the names of your children here] into the world through Mommy and Daddy’s love. Please help them to grow into strong men and women, and teach them how to love as you love.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids

“A Christian relationship is ultimately about believing that you and your partner have a better chance together than you do alone of becoming the person God wants each of you to be by the end of your life.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids

“there is no greater inheritance that we can give to our children than siblings.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“Lord Jesus Christ, in Genesis, we are told that it is not good for us to be alone. Help us to remember this as we work toward healing our marriage. Help us to overcome the pride that might stop us from reaching out for assistance. Give us the wisdom we need to seek good counsel and the humility we need to accept and use the help we receive. Walk with us on our journey, and grant us the ability to cooperate fully with your abundant grace. We place our marriage at the foot of your Cross. As we join our struggle to your Cross, we ask that you would allow us to also rise with you so that the love you would rekindle in our hearts would be a sign to us and the world of the wonders your grace can do. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us!”
― Gregory K. Popcak, How to Heal Your Marriage: And Nurture Lasting Love

“there is growing support for the idea that rather than promoting independence, letting a baby cry it out creates a condition psychologists call “learned helplessness,” which can be a precursor to depression. Crying it out can lead to quiet babies, it is true; but because an infant is physiologically and psychologically incapable of true independence, and in light of recent evidence about the impact of crying it out on cortisol levels and vagal tone, the more likely explanation for this quiet is that he simply has learned the uselessness of crying: “When I cry, nothing happens, so why bother?” This is why cortisol levels remain high for babies who are sleep trained using the cry-it-out method. They are literally being bathed in the hormones of hopelessness.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Parenting with Grace

“Most people spend a good deal of energy denying that one day they will die. The common perception is that time flows forward from birth and ends with a huge question mark at death—a view that makes life meaningless and absurd. But this is a mistake. I believe it was the philosopher Martin Heidegger who asserted that time flows backward from death giving life its meaning. Death clarifies.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, The Exceptional Seven Percent: The Nine Secrets of the World's Happiest Couples

“It is by making a sincere gift of ourselves that we discover the nature of our goodness.”
― Gregory K. Popcak, Beyond the Birds and the Bees: Raising Sexually Whole and Holy Kids