If you listen to Catholic Radio or watch EWTN news, you’ve heard her voice. Teresa Tomeo (Pastore) is the host of Catholic Connection, a co-production of Ave Maria Radio and the EWTN Global Radio Network broadcast on more than 500 radio stations worldwide and Sirius Satellite Radio. The internationally known author and speaker also serves as a television correspondent for EWTN News In-Depth.

But before she became the voice of Catholic media, Teresa spent 20 years in the secular world following her dream career in broadcast journalism. Her husband, Dominick Pastore, likewise was climbing the corporate ladder as a successful architectural engineer. They should have been on top of the world, but striving for career success had taken a toll on their relationship. Their marriage was imploding, but the more they tried to fix it in their own strength, the worse their struggles became. Six years in, the couple had run out of ideas and was almost ready to call it quits.

It was an innocuous invitation to a Detroit Pistons game that changed the trajectory of their lives. Teresa’s boss shared some tickets with the couple and afterward casually asked Dominick if he’d like to join him at a Bible study on Monday nights. Normally a methodical thinker, Dominick astounded himself when the answer, yes, jumped out of his mouth without hesitation.

That Monday night group was Bible Study Fellowship, which ignited Dominick’s relationship with Jesus and eventually reconnected him to his Catholic roots. As his faith deepened, Dominick hoped his relationship with Teresa would improve. Instead, to his dismay, their division widened. This situation is not uncommon when couples begin to work on their marriage, they advise the thousands to whom they now minister through their marriage and couples’ retreats, cruises, pilgrimages and resources like their seminal marriage book, Intimate Graces: How Practicing the Works of Mercy Brings Out the Best in Marriage. 

Dominick persevered, making changes to be the man and husband he felt God was calling him to be, despite Teresa’s initial reluctance to join him on a faith journey.

“Recommitting your life to Christ is a process – and that really took us by surprise,” Dominick said. “I was growing in my faith, and our marriage was getting worse. Now we know that when you are trying to make changes, you can expect opposition. It’s the devil turning up the heat.”

He encourages couples who find themselves in the same boat to “keep at it, even if one spouse is not yoked equally. Keep praying, keep working on it. God will bring your spouse along.

“We see this a lot,” he added. “One spouse seems to be dragging the other. Have patience with the other person who is not as far along.” Likewise, he cautions the other to refrain from considering their newly religious spouse a “holy roller.” “Be open, compassionate, empathetic and help each other grow.”

“This is not easy,” Teresa agreed. “People think when you work on your marriage, you’ll be cured, and everything will be fine. No. It took years of learning about us and learning about the faith.”

Once Teresa joined Dominick in study and developed her relationship with Jesus, their marriage started to grow. They also credit counseling and attending a Marriage Encounter workshop as steps that helped them clear the path so they could move forward together.

“God saved our marriage,” Teresa said. “We understood that our marriage was falling apart. We were trying to put it together, but without God in our life, we had no idea what we were doing.”

They highly recommend any struggling couple follow their example and avail themselves of resources to overcome obstacles and improve their marriage. They credit the interdenominational Marriage Encounter with giving them tools to communicate and understand their personality differences.

“Seek help when you think you need it,” Teresa encouraged. “God gave us good people – that’s what they are there for!”

The two were invited to share their story at the annual dinner dance hosted by the Archdiocese of Detroit in honor of World Marriage Day. They were so warmly received by the crowd of 500 that they’ve been asked to speak at the February event every year since – a span of more than two decades. That presentation jump-started their ministry encouraging marriages that now reaches across the globe.

The topics of their marriage presentations address the power of God in a couple’s relationship as well as draw upon Teresa’s experience in media to illuminate how culture can impact a family. Titles include:

 “Intimate Graces: The Works of Mercy in Your Marriage”

“Because of You I Know God: The Power of Personal Witness in Marriage” 

“Love Changes Everything: A Marriage Testimony”

“For Better or Worse and Back: The Road to Emmaus—A Marriage Metaphor”

“The Media and Your Marriage: Knowing How the Media Work, So They Don’t Work on You and Your Spouse”

“Remembering to Remember: How Looking Back Helps Us Move Forward with Hope and Joy”

Each time they speak, Teresa and Dominick include practical suggestions of how to incorporate their recommendations in real life situations.

First and foremost, take time for God, they stress, referring to the old adage, No Jesus, No peace. Know Jesus, Know peace. “Your kids can’t come first,” Teresa said. “Love God and love each other, or you won’t be good for anyone else.”

Read the Bible and incorporate scripture every day, Dominick added. Teresa and Dominick enjoy sharing the Catholic daily mass and prayers together.

Understand schedules. Be committed to look at the calendar and decide when you are going to get together, not just for a movie, but to talk. “We are very conscious of how much time our careers took up. There’s a time when you have to cut off work – or even ministry. There needs to be an end to the day,” Teresa said. And when you eat meals, be away from the media and phones, Dominick reminded. Couples can spend time together doing normal activities, too, even grocery shopping can be fun if you do it together, they suggest.

They also encourage couples to attend church together. “It is so important to have a sense of praise and worship to God in a formal setting that helps take that spirit into daily life,” Dominick said.

Find fellowship in your community. “Surround yourself with like-minded friends, because you need to know you are not the only ones trying to hold your marriage together,” Teresa said. “The fellowship with friends in faith means so much – it’s pure enjoyment and support when you need it.”

As Teresa and Dominick’s hearts changed, they felt God tugging them to leave their career striving and devote themselves more fully to ministry. With encouragement from Christian friends and a godly example in their parish, Dominick spent five years in pastoral study to become ordained as a Deacon in the Catholic church, a position he’s held for 12 years. Twenty-three years ago, Teresa shifted to share her talents in the realm of Catholic, rather than secular, media.

“Our whole life is ordered around God now,” Teresa said.

A God-centered focus allows them to speak at events and host an annual couple’s cruise in January that sells out its 800 spots. They spend part of every year in Italy, a country they’ve visited more than 60 times, and lead pilgrimage groups. Teresa curates experiences through her site, T’s Italy, which she describes as “One stop shopping for all things Italia. Whether you just want to look around, need travel advice on how to maximize your trip to this amazing country, or you just want to learn about Italy culture, history, food, and happenings, T’s Italy is here for you.”

“God is everywhere!” Teresa said, as she noted the spiritual experience of being together with likeminded people following in the footsteps of Jesus and the saints. “Pilgrimages highlight the beauty of Italy’s art, food, culture and wine. Looking at beautiful piece of art. Having a delicious dinner in the country – that’s all God. So many marriages are strengthened and saved.”

Their travels highlight how small the world has become. Couples across the globe struggle with many of the same issues: the influence of culture, too much emphasis on making money, not enough time spent together.

They recently spoke at a conference in the small island country of Trinidad and were surprised to realize that its residents experience the highest level of pornography use in the world.

As an insider, Teresa has called out how the media saturates culture with false messages that destroy families and lives. She points to the emphasis of career over family and addiction to video games and now phones and social media.

She sees, “a direct connection between what we are consuming and how we are living our lives,” referring to a recent study that noted children spend 8.5 hours immersed in media outside of school. Adults are worse – their total is 12 hours. “It’s a huge time factor that takes us away from other important things,” Teresa said.

Immersion in media has caused people’s social skills to develop poorly. “We’ve become so desensitized to the way we treat each other,” she added. “People do not know how to politely communicate and ask a question.” This translates to less civility in marriage.

Dominick noted that people go into marriage thinking it is a contractual, 50/50 relationship. “You do the cooking; I’ll do the dishes.” Couples need to be committed to each other 100/100 in everything. They need to bring up and talk through difficult subjects in a loving way.

They wish that couples would place more emphasis on preparing for marriage rather than putting all their focus on the reception, wedding and honeymoon. “Not enough people understand that the journey just begins when they get married,” Teresa said. “They’ll work on their house, work on their health, work on their finances and 401K, but they just expect their marriage to happen. They walk on and think everything is fine.”

Before “the wheels come off,” resources like their book, Intimate Graces: How Practicing the Works of Mercy Brings Out the Best in Marriage, can help.

They consider corporal works of mercy as described in Matthew 25 through a lens of a married couple, for example, interpreting the definition of “feed the hungry” to mean to identify and respond to your partner’s deepest longings.

“He doesn’t understand me.” “She doesn’t fulfill me any longer.” “I am not getting what I need from this marriage.” “These statements, representing a real spiritual and emotional hunger… are all too often spoken by many frustrated spouses,” they write. Their solution: “Truly satisfying or feeding the hunger in any marriage starts with bringing Christ into the relationship and keeping him there front and center,” Teresa continued. “Quite frankly, it translates into a single word: self-sacrifice.”

“In the beginning, we never thought of those acts of kindness and mercy from a marriage perspective,” Teresa said. “Most of us think about the physical needs, but if you look deeper, you can realize they are also spiritual needs. We wanted to introduce a spiritual sense and link with a story and an example.”

Protecting and cherishing each other in vulnerable moments comes from the mercy of clothing the naked. Visiting the sick can be understood as standing by a spouse in illness or decline. Burying the dead means responding to your spouse’s deepest sorrows and regrets.

Each of the short 14 chapters develops another of the mercies through the vantage point of both Teresa and Dominick, so male and female perspectives are equally represented. They share examples from their journey to make their recommendations relatable. The two conclude with a few questions to inspire further discussion, some practical tips to try and a prayer.

Although the words “corporal works of mercy” may sound foreign to a non-Catholic, the book is written in plain language and uses common references that make the concepts easy to understand and apply. In the section on becoming “home” for the one you love as a way to figuratively shelter the homeless, Teresa references the beloved classic Wizard of Oz, in which Dorothy returns home after being whisked away, an example to which most can relate.

“Practicing the works of mercy brings out the best in marriage,” Teresa said.

A conversation with faith leaders such as Teresa and Dominick who’ve had so many tremendous opportunities to meet giants in the field would be incomplete without asking them who’s made the most lasting impression.

While some of their answers might have been expected — Teresa mentioned covering Pope John Paul II as a journalist and having a chance to be blessed by Mother Teresa of Calcutta, they both agree that it’s the ordinary people going about what God has called them to do that inspire them the most.

Dominick mentioned the volunteers who run the World Marriage Day dinner, as well as the friend who was willing to invite him to Bible Study Fellowship long ago. Teresa recently interviewed a 12-year-old girl who created a website because she wants to talk positively about her Catholic faith.

“It’s the people down there in the nitty gritty doing the work of God,” Teresa explained. Making a difference one person, or one couple at a time. Who can count the number of lives touched.