Podcast Episodes
Back to SearchThe Promise of Emmanuel
Episode 306
Friends, many mythologies and philosophies in the ancient world held that time is cyclical; it just goes round and round. Many people today, on the other hand, hold that time is meaningless; it is ju…
Published on 3 years ago
Wait for the Desert to Bloom
Episode 305
Friends, today we come to the third Sunday of Advent, and the great image from Isaiah is that of the blooming desert. Many of us pass through desert times, dry periods of trial and training. But perh…
Published on 3 years ago
Go Meet John the Baptist
Episode 304
Friends, on the second Sunday of Advent, the Church invites us to go meet the great Advent figure of John the Baptist. All the details of our Gospel—where the Baptist makes his appearance, why people…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
An Advent Challenge
Episode 303
Friends, Happy New Year's Day! We come today to the beginning of a liturgical year—the first Sunday of Advent. There is a sort of a permanent Advent quality, a vigil quality, to the Christian life. W…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
King of All, Warrior of Mercy
Episode 302
Friends, we come to the great feast of Christ the King, which is always the last Sunday of the liturgical year. Think of the king coming at the end of a long procession into his palace; this is Chris…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
The Shaking of Three Worlds
Episode 301
Friends, as we come toward the end of the liturgical year, we begin to look at the apocalyptic writings in the Bible. What’s indeed revealed is the end of the world in one sense—not so much the end o…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
The Reality of Life After Death
Episode 300
Friends, our first reading and our Gospel for this weekend have a special resonance for our time because they both speak clearly about life after death. Our dominant secularist or materialist ideolog…
Published on 3 years, 1 month ago
You Have Been Loved Into Being
Episode 299
Friends, our first reading from the book of Wisdom makes an extraordinarily important observation that’s of both theological and philosophical significance—namely, that the very fact that something e…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
Finish the Race
Episode 298
Friends, our second reading this week is from Paul’s Second Letter to Timothy—one of the last letters we have from St. Paul. Now toward the end of his life, Paul passes on various pieces of wisdom to…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago
The Spiritual Life Is a Battle
Episode 297
Friends, our first reading for this Sunday is about a battle between Israel and the Amalekites. To many of us today, this appears to be either an irrelevancy of history or an outrageous story about G…
Published on 3 years, 2 months ago