Episodes

  • The Baptism of the Lord: Sunday, January 12, 2025

    The Baptism of the Lord: Sunday, January 12, 2025
    Jan 9 2025
    The Baptism of the Lord
    First Century; Sunday after January 6 or the Monday after the Epiphany
    Feast; Liturgical Color: White/Gold

    He humbly bowed His head as an example, not because He was imperfect Who would not want a doctor who, before he cuts, lifts his shirt a little, shows his own scar, and says to the patient, “I had the same. It’s going to be alright!” What soldier would not be just a little braver, stand a little taller, seeing medals for valor on his commander’s uniform? We want our heroes, our leaders, and our guides to lead through personal example. To have been there. To have done that. And we want our Savior to do the same. To empathize. To participate. To identify. To accompany. Actions resonate more than words.

    Our sinless God “became” sin, in the words of Saint Paul. Jesus identifies with sin but never sinned. Jesus carries sin but is not a sinner. Why? Because to become sin is to become man. In order for God to enter into human reality, He had to identify with all that sin entails. God wanted to stand with us shoulder to shoulder. He did not fake becoming man but really became man. And if God came to forgive sins and sinners, and to shed His blood for them on the cross, He had to bear the burden they bore yet retain His perfection.
    This is why our sinless God was baptized on today’s feast. God lays to the side His perfection and dignity and bows His head in the dirty waters of the Jordan River. He lined up with sinners to receive in humility what He did not need, to attend a school whose subjects He had mastered. Our God knew the value of empathy. He knew the power of example. And He knew that His ministry to mankind had to start not on a golden throne but in the mud with other men just trying to start again and again and again.

    The fullness of the Holy Trinity, first revealed subtly at the Annunciation, is present and spoken for at the Lord’s baptism. The Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, hovers. The voice of God the Father intones His favor over His Son. And the Son enters into the essential Christian pact with man—I will become like you so that you can become like me. Sins will be taken away through water and blood. I will suffer for your benefit. This is the promise. And the Church’s priests will carry on the baptizing, forgiving, and consecrating until the sun sets for the last time. God comes to us most intensely through the Sacraments. Jesus’ actions prove this.

    O Lord, You are not remote. You know sin but are not a sinner. Help us to renew our baptism through a frequent reception of confession and the Holy Eucharist. By receiving one, we strengthen the others. By receiving You, we receive God Himself.
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    4 mins
  • January 7: Saint Raymond of Peñafort, Priest

    January 7: Saint Raymond of Peñafort, Priest
    Jan 7 2026
    January 7: Saint Raymond of Peñafort, Priest
    c. 1175–1275
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of canon lawyers and medical record librarians

    He wove scripture and the law into a harmonious tapestry

    Today’s saint lived numerous lives inside of his one hundred years on earth. He was an intellectual prodigy who was teaching university-level philosophy by the age of twenty and who took degrees in civil and canon law from the premier law university of the time—Bologna. While in Bologna, he likely came to know the founder of a new religious Order who had also moved there and who would later die there—Saint Dominic de Guzman. The example of the Dominicans led Father Raymond to exchange the diocesan priesthood for the Dominicans.

    Saint Raymond’s abilities and holiness were such that everyone seemed to want him in their service. Kings and Popes and Bishops and Orders all had plans on how to utilize him best. He was called to the Pope’s service to make the great contribution for which he is still known today, the organization of a huge compendium of Church law which served as the basic reference for canon lawyers until the early twentieth century. Exhausted by his three years of effort on this project, he returned in middle age to his native Barcelona.

    But his life of quiet and prayer did not last long. He was shocked to learn from Dominicans sent to him from Bologna that he had been elected the second successor to Saint Dominic as the Master General of the Dominican Order. He served his Order well and dutifully as Master General but not long. He resigned due to old age when he was 65. But there was still a lot of life left to live. Saint Raymond’s activities in his old age included efforts to try to convert the Muslims then occupying Spain, his rejection of an episcopal appointment, the establishment of theology and language schools dedicated to converting Muslims, and his probable personal encouragement of the young Thomas Aquinas to write an apologetic work directed at non-Catholics, the Summa contra Gentiles.

    Saint Raymond’s life shows an admirable synthesis of traditional piety and devotion, service to the Church, obedience to his superiors, love of theology, dedication to his Order, and respect and love for the law.

    To know, love, and follow the law is not contrary to charity. When kept, the law promotes charity and protects the weak, the poor, and the ignorant from being taken advantage of. It takes very smart and holy people to protect simple people and bad people from themselves. Saint Raymond was smart and holy. He laid his gifts at the altar of God, and God used those gifts splendidly.

    Saint Raymond, teach us to see the law of God and the law of the Church as one harmonious law meant to foster true communion among men and true communion between God and men. May God’s law be our law. And may the law never be an obstacle to true love and devotion.
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    4 mins
  • January 6: Saint André Bessette, Religious (Canada; U.S.A.)

    January 6: Saint André Bessette, Religious (Canada; U.S.A.)
    Jan 6 2025
    January 6: Saint André Bessette, Religious (Canada; U.S.A.)
    1845–1937
    Optional Memorial (Canada & U.S.A.); Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of family caregivers

    He loved the Word of God, though he could not read

    Saint Paul teaches in his letter to the Romans that faith comes by hearing. It’s a good thing it doesn’t come only by reading. Until modern times, a relatively small percentage of the population has been able to read. Today’s saint had faith enough to move mountains, yet if he looked at the page of an open book, he saw only impenetrable symbols. André Bessette was functionally illiterate. His faith did not come by reading or study. It came by hearing, by watching, by praying, by listening, and by reflecting.

    As Catholics, we are not a people of the Book. We are a people of the Word. And that Word is an idea and a person long before it is a script. “In the beginning was the Word...and the Word became flesh,” Saint John’s Gospel begins. Our faith would live and thrive even if the Bible had never been compiled. The Church is a living Word. Saint André’s life witnesses to the primacy of the living Word over the written Word.

    Saint André was the eighth child born into a large and desperately poor family from Quebec, Canada. Alfred was his baptismal name. His father died in a logging accident and his mother of tuberculosis by the time he was 12. The many children had to be dispersed to friends and relatives. Our saint then spent the next thirteen years doing manual labor, including factory and farm work, throughout the Northeastern United States. After he had wandered enough, he wandered back home by age 25. His perceptive parish priest noted his generosity of spirit and deep faith. He recommended the young man to the Congregation of the Holy Cross in Montreal, sending Alfred to them with an almost unbelievably prophetic note stating: “I am sending you a saint.”

    Alfred took the name of this same parish priest, André, and after much difficulty was allowed to join the Congregation as a brother. He was given the unremarkable task of minding the door of a boys’ school, where he welcomed guests, delivered mail, and ran errands. But then something happened. And happened again. And then still again. Sick people who came to visit him were cured by his touch and his prayers. Brother André insisted it was God and Saint Joseph.
    Thus began a many decades-long ministry to the sick of Canada who sought out his healing touch.

    The lines of sick people became so long that he could no longer do his job at the school door. He attended to people all day long. He became famous for all the right reasons. He built a modest shrine to Saint Joseph on a hill. The shrine became very popular and grew until it became, and still is today, the most dominant structure in all of Montreal. Our saint did not live to see it completed. But he lived so long and so well that one million people filed past his casket when he died. He edified people not by his learning but by his healing and by the warm humanity that animated it.

    Saint André, you healed the sick and found time to attend to all who came to you. You encouraged those who sought you to confess their sins and to go to Mass. Intercede for all believers so that we see in Jesus our divine physician, healer of soul and body. Amen.
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    5 mins
  • January 5: Saint John Neumann, Religious (U.S.A.)

    January 5: Saint John Neumann, Religious (U.S.A.)
    Jan 4 2024
    January 5: Saint John Neumann, Religious (U.S.A.)
    1811–1860
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White
    Patron Saint of Catholic education

    He gave of himself until there was nothing left to give

    Today’s saint worked like a mule. He studied, he wrote, he prayed, he preached, he traveled, he built, he founded, he guided, he taught. And then one day, carrying construction plans for his Cathedral in Philadelphia to an office, he died in the street. He had worked himself to death. He was forty-eight years old.

    Saint John Neumann was born in Central Europe in what is today the Czech Republic. Like many people born in small countries, he had to learn more than his native tongue in order to become a success. But Saint John outdid himself. He learned seven languages in addition to his native Czech. He had a gift. Yet he found it hard to find a bishop to ordain him after he had completed his theological studies. He wrote to numerous bishops throughout Europe and to one on the other side of an ocean he had never seen. The other-side-of-the-ocean bishop wrote back: If you can get here, I’ll ordain you. Saint John got there and was ordained in 1836 by Bishop John Dubois of New York, himself a transplant from Paris, France.

    He was assigned to rural areas in Upstate New York and was outstanding in his zeal for souls. But the isolation was a burden, and he felt the need for priestly community. So he joined the Redemptorist Order and began many years of priestly service in Maryland. His intelligence, ability to preach and hear confessions in multiple languages, extraordinary work ethic, life of poverty, good nature, and general holiness were traits that all observed and all admired. He was named the fourth Bishop of Philadelphia in 1852. The city’s growth was exploding, especially its Catholic population of immigrants. Saint John threw himself into his work with no concern for his own well-being. He was a tornado of apostolic activity. He was everywhere and did everything. The Church benefitted and grew at an extraordinary pace. But Saint John’s only gear was overdrive, and he did not personally benefit. Zeal for His house consumed him, and zeal for His house killed him. Yet that is probably the way he wanted it.

    Saint John was buried in a Redemptorist Church in Philadelphia, and his reputation for holiness quickly spread after his death. The faithful asked. The faithful received. The miracles were documented, and Philadelphia had its saint. Saint John Neumann was canonized by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1977, an immigrant who was the first male American citizen to be raised to the altars.

    Saint John, you left home and family to toil in the remote regions of the United States for the sake of the Gospel. Your tireless dedication to the needs of the Church is an inspiration to all, especially priests. Enkindle in the hearts of all priests the same fire of love that burned in your own.
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    4 mins
  • The Epiphany of the Lord: January 5, 2025

    The Epiphany of the Lord: January 5, 2025
    Jan 5 2025
    January 6: The Epiphany of the Lord
    January 6 or the first Sunday after January 1 where this feast is not a Holy Day of Obligation
    Solemnity; Liturgical Color: White/Gold

    Catholicism did multiculturalism before anyone else

    The Feast of the Epiphany has traditionally been considered more theologically important than almost any other Feast Day, including Christmas. The early Christians had only Scripture, not the wealth of tradition we have today, to guide them in marking the great events of the life of Christ. So Holy Week and Easter, the Baptism of the Lord, Pentecost, and the Epiphany jumped off the pages of Scripture as great events which merited celebration. These few dates became fixed points on the calendar and were later surrounded over the centuries with numerous other feasts and saints’ days.

    Two lessons from the visit of the Magi are worth considering. The first is that the wise men’s gifts were given after Christmas. Many Catholic cultures preserve the ancient tradition of giving gifts on the Epiphany, not on Christmas itself. This tradition separates the birth of Christ from gift giving. When these two things—the birth of Christ and the giving of gifts—are collapsed into the same day, it causes some confusion of priorities, and the birth of Christ never wins. Waiting to exchange gifts until January 6 lets the Child God have the stage to Himself for a day. It makes people, especially children, wait—a rarity in the modern Western world. Postponing gift-giving until January 6 makes for a long, leisurely Christmas season and has the benefit of tradition and good theology as well.

    Another great lesson from the Magi is more theological—that a true religion must be true for everyone, not just for some people. Truth is not geographical. It climbs over borders. Truth by its nature conquers untruth. The Magi are the first non-Jews, or Gentiles, to worship Christ. They tell us that the mission field of Christ is the whole world, not just the Holy Land. The Church is forever bound, then, to teach, preach, and sanctify the world over.

    The Magi crack everything open. The true God and His Church must light a fire in Chinese souls, Arab souls, African souls, and South American souls. This may take until the end of time, but Christianity has time on its side. The Magi give personal testimony to the universality of the Church, one of its four marks. The Epiphany is the start of the multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-ethnic, and faith-united society that the Catholic Church envisions as the only source of true human unity. Catholicism started multiculturalism and diversity without sacrificing unity and truth.

    Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior, your minds were prepared to receive a greater truth. You give an example of holy curiosity, of pilgrimage by light to light. When you discovered your treasure, you laid down your gifts in homage. May our search also find. May our pilgrimage also end in truth.
     
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    4 mins
  • January 3: The Most Holy Name of Jesus

    January 3: The Most Holy Name of Jesus
    Jan 3 2025
    January 3: The Most Holy Name of Jesus
    Optional Memorial; Liturgical Color: White

    Names are powerful, and none is more powerful than Jesus

    Mary and Joseph did not sit across from each other at the kitchen table in the evenings debating a name for their child. They didn’t flip through the pages of a book of saints or bounce ideas off of their friends and family. The baby’s name was chosen for them by God Himself. They were just taking orders. The Archangel Gabriel announced to Mary, “And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus” (Lk 1:31). And Joseph had a dream in which the angel told him, "...you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins" (Mt 1:21). The Gospel of Luke further relates that “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb" (Lk 2:21). Jesus was named eight days after Christmas, January 3.

    The New Testament is filled with incidents where the name of Jesus is invoked to drive out devils, cure illnesses, and perform miracles. The Holy Name is explicitly exalted by Saint Paul: "...at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth" (Phil 2:10). Jesus reinforces the power of His own name in St. John’s Gospel: "...if you ask anything of the Father in my name, he will give it to you" (Jn 16:23).

    “Jesus” was the given name of the Son of Mary, while “Christ” was a title. “Christ” is the Greek form of the Hebrew “Messiah,” meaning the “Anointed One.” “Jesus the Christ” was the original formula for describing the Son of Mary. But over time, “The Christ” became simply “Christ,” as if it were His last name. The name of the God of the Old Testament was holy, not to be written out, nor to be casually spoken. Invoking “Yahweh” could be so egregious a sin as to provoke the tearing of the hearer’s shirt in protest and repentance. Jewish law on God’s holy name is enshrined in the second commandment: “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord Thy God in vain.” This commandment prohibited the swearing of false oaths, that is, calling upon God as your witness and then making false statements. The opposite of a solemn oath is invoking the name of God to damn someone or something: a curse—the inversion of a blessing.

    Saint Bernardine of Siena, an electrifying Franciscan preacher of the early fifteenth century, was the saint who most spread devotion to the Holy Name of Jesus. He ingeniously depicted the Holy Name with the well-known monogram “IHS,” derived from the Greek letters forming the word “Jesus.” In the sixteenth century, the Jesuits built on this tradition and utilized the “IHS” to embellish their churches, even making it the emblem of their Society. The mother church of all Jesuit churches, in Rome, is officially named in honor of the Most Holy Name of Jesus, although its name is commonly shortened to simply “The Jesus.”

    There is raw power in the name Jesus. It makes polite company cringe. It divides families. It floats across the dinner table, letting everyone know exactly where you stand. A comfortable, vague euphemism like “the man upstairs” or “the big guy” just won’t do. “Jesus” does not convey an idea that everyone can interpret as they wish. It’s someone’s name. And that someone taught, suffered, died, rose from the dead, ascended into heaven, and is seated at the right hand of the Father in heaven.

    Some people don’t like their names and seek to legally change them or to use a nickname instead. Names convey meanings. “Thor” sounds like a mythical god carrying a hammer, “Vesuvius” sounds like a boiling volcano about to erupt, and a “ziggurat” sounds like a zig-zaggy desert temple. The name “Jesus” sounds like a God-man beyond reproach. A child, when once asked to define love, said that “when someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. Your name is safe in their mouth.” The Holy Name of Jesus should be safe in our mouths even when we’re not receiving Holy Communion.

    Son of Mary, may our same tongues that receive Your Holy Body and Blood prepare themselves for Your visit by saying Your Holy Name with great reverence. And may we not refrain from invoking that same Holy Name in our daily conversations with all whom we meet.
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    6 mins
  • January 2: Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors

    January 2: Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors
    Jan 1 2024
    January 2: Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors
    St. Basil: 329–379; St. Gregory: c. 329–390
    Memorial; Liturgical Color: White

    Patron Saints of Russia, monks, hospital administrators, and poets

    Obvious truths are hard to explain, but smart theologians can explain them
    The persecution of the Church in the first few centuries, sometimes aggressive, more typically passive, starved her skinny biblical frame of nourishment. When the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313 A.D., the Church’s bones finally stretched, grew, and added muscle on muscle. Churches opened. Bishops preached. Schools taught. Theologians wrote. And, most significantly, Councils met. Three hundred years after Jesus Christ ascended into heaven, these large gatherings of bishops and theologians sought to end theological confusion, to settle thorny questions, and to establish a standard Christian doctrine. In the vast halls and churches of these councils, the great cast of theologians of the fourth century put their prodigious talents on full display. We commemorate two of the greatest of these bishops and theologians in today’s memorial.

    Saints Basil and Gregory lived so long ago, were so prolific, and played such crucial roles in so many areas of Church life, that they could each be remembered for any number of contributions to liturgy, theology, ecclesiology, Church history, monasticism, and even popular customs, especially in the Orthodox East. Yet perhaps their greatest contributions were as theologians who defined, fundamentally and decisively, what the word Trinity actually means; how Jesus is both fully God and fully man; and how the Holy Spirit is related to God the Father. Such definitions and distinctions may seem technical, abstract, or remote. But it is always the most obvious things—the most necessary things—that are the most difficult to explain. Why do things fall down instead of up? Why does the sun rise in the east instead of the west? Why are there seven days in a week instead of nine?

    The most fundamental doctrines of our faith, understood now as perennial, were not always perennial. They originated in the minds of certain people at certain times in certain places. To today’s saints we owe the decisive words that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from the Father and the Son. These words fall simply and familiarly from our lips. But the word “proceeds” was the fruit of intense thought and prayer. The Father generated the Son, but the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from them both. Interesting. Dozens of millions of Catholics say reflexively every Sunday that the second Person of the Trinity is “consubstantial” with the Father. Not equal in origin. Not equal in role. But “consubstantial,” or equal in nature. Thank you, Saints Basil and Gregory! Thank you, great Bishops and Doctors of the early Church! Thank you for pulling aside the veil of mystery for a peek into the Godhead.

    Without the teachings of the fourth century on the Trinity and Christ, there would be no Christmas trees. Think about that. Why celebrate the Christ child if He were not God? But He is God. So carols are composed, mangers are set up, lights are hung, and gifts are exchanged. Culture happens, culture flourishes, when theology makes sense. Thank you, Saints Basil and Gregory, for… everything!

    O noble Bishops and Doctors Basil and Gregory, we ask for your continued intercession to enlighten our minds and to remove the dark shadows that cause confusion. Assist us to recognize that good theology understands God as He understands Himself. When you gave us good teaching, you gave us God. We seek nothing more.
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    5 mins
  • January 1: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God

    January 1: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God
    Dec 31 2024
    January 1: Solemnity of Mary, the Mother of God
    Solemnity; Holy Day of Obligation (in USA: unless a Saturday or Monday)
    Eighth Day of the Octave of Christmas; Liturgical Color: White

    No one knew Jesus like Mary

    No one falls in love with a nature. We fall in love with a person. A woman loves a man, not mankind. And a mother pinches the pudgy little cheeks of a newborn baby, not the cheeks of a newborn nature. Saint Mary gave birth to a little person, a baby, unlike any other. In that little person, a human nature united with a divine nature at the moment of conception. So Mary was the mother of the person Jesus, and the person Jesus had two natures, one fully human and the other fully divine. Saint Mary was, then, the mother of Jesus’ human nature and of His divine nature. She was both the mother of a man and the mother of God.

    Two false extremes must be identified and rejected here. Jesus was not really and truly only a God who just faked being a man. Nor was He really a man who just pretended to be a God. The Son of God did not wear a fleshy human mask to conceal the radiance of His real divine face. And Jesus the man did not wear His divinity like a cloak that He could remove from His shoulders when He walked in the door. Jesus was fully God and fully man in a mystery of faith we call the hypostatic union. And because a woman is a mother to a person, not just to a nature, Mary is the mother of God. This has been the constant doctrine of the Catholic Church since the Council of Ephesus in 431 A.D.

    Saint Mary has many titles under which we honor her. Today’s Solemnity commemorates the utterly unique, and unrepeatable, bond she shared with Jesus, a bond no other saint can claim. Jesus and Mary probably even looked very much alike, as hers was the only human DNA in His body. What a beautiful thing that our God did not float down from heaven on a golden pillow. How good that He was not forged from a fiery anvil. How right that He did not ride to earth on a thunderbolt. Jesus could not redeem what He did not assume. So it was fitting that He was born like all of us—from a mom. We honor Mary today for her vocation as mother. If she had disappeared from the pages of the Gospels after giving birth to Jesus, she still would have fulfilled her role in salvation history. She was obedient. She was generous. She allowed God to use her, body and soul, to write the first chapter of man’s true story, the story of the Church. Like all true stories, the person comes first. A life is lived, and the book comes later.

    God’s Mother gives us our mother, Holy Mother Church, who washes our souls in the saving waters of baptism, adopting us into God’s family. The Motherhood of Mary gives the world Jesus. Jesus gives us the Church. The Church then brings us into God’s family where Mary is our mother, Jesus our brother, and God our Father. This is the family of the Church. What pride to be members of so noble a family!

    O Mother of God, you birthed the one who created all. How beautiful the mystery. How exalted your vocation that precedes and makes possible the Apostles’ own vocations. At home you bounced on your knee the one who spins the world on His finger. Help us start this new year with wonder more than resolutions, with eternal gratitude more than mundane goals.
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    5 mins