St. Josemaria Institute Podcast

In this podcast for the Third Sunday of Advent, Fr. Leo Austin encourages us to continue our interior journey this season -- a journey to (re)discover our vocations by asking ourselves the deeper questions of life: Who am I? What's my identity? What's the reason of my existence?St. John the Baptist was asked a similar question to which he immediately answered, “I am not the light, but came to testify to the light” (Jn 1:6-9). We will discover that our vocation is also to testify to the light and to be glowing witnesses of Christ who walks by our side and calls us to happiness. Pope Paul VI said, "In our world today, we need glowing witnesses who know how to break open the dark skies of the world, not with words, but with the witness of their lives."  As witnesses to Christ, we can look around at the world and at every single human being as tabernacles-- all of our friends are dwelling places of the Blessed Trinity.In this meditation, therefore, Fr. Leo helps us to consider the importance of our mission and our vocation as apostles in order to make a lot of friends and to be a friend of friends who radiates the light and friendship they have received from God. View TranscriptVisit Show PageMissed the podcasts for the first and second Sundays of Advent?  It's not too late to tune in! Explore "A Time for Hope: Advent with St. Josemaria Escriva" - a collection of devotions, readings, and meditations from the St. Josemaria Institute to help you prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord and the season of Christmas. Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast for the Second Sunday of Advent, Fr. Leo Austin reflects on the invitation we receive this season to go to the desert-- a mysterious and quiet place where we can meet Our Lord face-to-face without distractions and without hiding to contemplate our lives and specifically our vocations.Even if he already knows everything, it is good for our relationship with Jesus Christ to open our hearts to him and tell him the story of our lives. This is always a little bit scary, as Fr. Leo explains, but God does not come to accuse us or threaten us. He comes to walk with us and offer us his light. This Advent, therefore, can be a great opportunity to open our eyes and allow Our Lord to point out things that maybe need to change or scars from the past that are not completely healed. Through an examination of our lives and through confession, we experience God's healing and the peace of having him inside us. A bonus of being forgiven is being able to forgive and to bring that peace and dignity to the world that sometimes is so hectic and also in need of God.View TranscriptVisit Show PageDid you enjoy this podcast? Explore "A Time for Hope: Advent with St. Josemaria Escriva" - a collection of devotions, readings, and meditations from the St. Josemaria Institute to help you prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord and the season of Christmas. Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast for the First Sunday of Advent, Fr. Leo Austin offers an inspiring meditation to help us focus not necessarily on what we are going to give to Jesus, but on the gifts that Jesus gives to us. He is not asking us to be perfect. He is inviting us to a relationship with him saying, "Come to me."Advent is a preparation for an encounter. It's not about being scared or tense because God is going to show up at any moment and catch us. Advent is a time for us to realize that Our Lord is coming to this world to call us to happiness. As Fr. Leo explains, "It's God coming to see you, to be with you." This is our vocation: God coming into this world, creating us, and then giving us freedom to develop, to unfold, to discover, and to explore. God is telling us, "I love you before you were aware of that and I'm preparing for you something special--an encounter, a friendship, that is unconditional." Yet, if sometimes we don't trust God, the funny thing is that he trusts us. God knows that sometimes we are blind, scared, wounded, and discouraged. For those moments, he provides us with the gifts of faith, hope, and love. And, as we read in the Gospel, he comes to heal us and he tells us these three consoling words, "Come to me." _________Did you enjoy this podcast? Explore "A Time for Hope: Advent with St. Josemaria Escriva" - a collection of devotions, readings, and meditations from the St. Josemaria Institute to help you prepare for the Nativity of Our Lord and the season of Christmas._________View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Eric Nicolai reflects on the authority of Christ as King of heaven and earth to help us renew our desire for Christ to reign deeply in our hearts and to proclaim with the saints and martyrs, "Long live Christ the King!" The Solemnity of Christ the King was established in the 1920s by Pope Pius XI in response to the great rise of secularism in which people increasingly lived their lives as if God didn't exist. It is not unlike the battles and crises that we are confronting today that also fuel our desire to spread God's kingdom on earth. But for that to happen, Christ has to reign in our hearts now. Fr. Eric reflects on the ways in which we see Christ depicted as king in scripture and in art. Among those images is Jesus's entry into Jerusalem on a humble donkey. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord; hosanna in the highest” (Mt 21:9). What is an hosanna? Hosanna is a word that was used in the Hebrew liturgy, and then later in the Christian liturgy, as a shout of jubilation and a sign of respect and honor for he who saves. But in Jerusalem, it was especially a shout of praise and adoration and a kind of recognition of Jesus as the Messiah. Like those people, we can also offer so many hosannas to Our Lord to acknowledge him as our king. Fr. Eric encourages us to throw our cloaks under Our Lord as a beautiful sign of our submission to his will. We want to let him trample on our comforts and willfulness, under his donkey, so that we rely more not on our things but on his will, and so that his will is what really reigns in our heart. Tune in as we celebrate the Solemnity of Christ the King.View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Msgr. Fred Dolan guides us to pray and ask God to help us to stand back to take a look at our life on earth and to realize that our time here is very short.The great project of our life is gradual transformation into another Christ, explains Fr. Fred. We long to change and to be transformed. Therefore, a sign that we truly and passionately want to be fully alive is our willingness to be mindful of every moment and day of our life. We don't want to be sleepwalking or flying blind through life. We want to reflect on deeper things and focus on things that are important, asking ourselves often: Why do I give so much importance to things that just do not matter in the bigger scope of things? This gives us perspective and peace. And it allows us to give ourselves and our souls space to take time to do things calmly and in the right order. Fr. Fred also shares strategies that can help us to live heroically every minute of our life, including not allowing ourselves to waste time trying to undo the past and focusing on the importance of helping our loved ones prepare for death. The fact is that a life well lived, which is what we're all looking for, will have reverberations down through the centuries.View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Peter Armenio reminds us of our invitation as disciples of Jesus Christ to connect with God through the humanity of Jesus, especially through the Gospels and through the geographic area revealed by the Gospel itself. Like Christian pilgrims throughout the ages, Fr. Peter shares how he had always dreamt and aspired to the possibility of making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and how the experience exceeded his expectations. It is a very profound spiritual experience and an extraordinary privilege to walk among the sites and landscapes where Jesus lived. The Holy Land is the only place on earth that also has an eternal dimension to it because of Jesus Christ, God made man. These places are not just sites from a historical period of time, but they are sites made holy by the Eternal Word made flesh who lived there, worked there, socialized there, worked miracles there, died there, and redeemed us there. The redemption of the world took place there in a given place and set of circumstances. Therefore, Fr. Peter explains, it is obviously the will of the Holy Spirit that we encounter Christ in a special way in the Holy Land. We encounter Christ by contemplating his humanity and seeing the land where he was born and dwelt among us. The Holy Land holds a special place in the hearts of all Christians around the world. During this period of war and unimaginable suffering in the region, we join our prayers with the Holy Father, Pope Francis, asking for peace and reconciliation in the Holy Land, especially through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Queen of Peace. View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Donncha Ó hAodha guides us to pray about the gift of the month of November. It is a great gift because it gives us the opportunity to focus on reality, to focus on the truth and love of God, and to recover our perspectives on our own journeys through time and to eternity. This is important, as Fr. Donncha explains, because when we elevate and perfect all the bits and pieces that make up our day, seeing them within the horizon of eternity-- one universal horizon-- we will find the integrity and maturity that give meaning to all the aspects of our being. In the month of November, especially with the Feast of All Saints and then the Commemoration of All Souls, we're also reminded straight off that when we consider time and eternity, we're not alone before this mystery; we're not alone before this journey. In life and in death, we're always accompanied, loved, and supported by our brothers and sisters who have gone before us, who love us, and intercede for us. The saints are our good friends. They're our brothers and sisters. We can be sure that we are always surrounded by the reassuring company and consoling presence of the saints and the souls in purgatory, and by the whole Church. View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Peter Armenio reflects on how our faith and fidelity can increase through our genuine self-giving to the will of God. Faith is more than just believing or trusting. An ongoing faith or fidelity requires us to go beyond the limitations of our experiences and of our intellects in order to give ourselves more to the will of God and to our vocation as Christians. And, as Fr. Peter explains, our collective vocation as Christians is to evangelize and to attract people to Christ through our friendship, through our charity, and through our counsel. Our Lord is asking of us to bring everyone to him which requires a fidelity and partnership with him. And, we enter into a partnership and into the heart of Christ through three entrance ways: the Eucharist (the vine), the Cross (pruning), and the Word of God (nourishment). Under no uncertain terms, therefore, Jesus says we will be fruitful and we will work miracles. But without that kind of fidelity, we can do nothing. Even as an instrument, we could do nothing. An intimate and faithful union with Christ needs to be there fueled by prayer, sacrifice, and our self-giving.View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Eric Nicolai leads us in a time of reflection and prayer to check up on our spiritual health. He explains that when we are spiritually healthy, we are grateful and cheerful. But when we are not, even the smallest thing drives us crazy. All those times when we're kind of irritable, restless, disconcerted, really worried about how things are going to turn out, what people might say, that's a sign we need a checkup and we need to get more spiritually healthy. Our spiritual health will come, he explains, if we are men and women of prayer; if we are men and women who turn prayer into a real dialogue with God. Prayer puts us in contact with God, with our purpose and meaning, and therefore has the profound effect of giving us hope. There is nothing more essential for us than hope, to live by hope. We can't really live without hope. We can't even pray without hope. The hope that comes from our prayer is also a reminder that we're never alone-- that's how some of the great saints survived. Prayer doesn't have to be a super perfect, forceful, or calm concentration. Prayer is a correspondence and dialogue with Our Lord.As St. Josemaria Escriva says, “Prayer is the most powerful weapon a Christian has. Prayer must make us effective. Prayer must make us happy. Prayer gives us all the strength we need to fulfill God's commands" (The Forge, no. 439). View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today! 

In this podcast, Fr. Peter Armenio challenges us individually to answer the question, Why must I pray the Rosary? October is the month dedicated to Our Lady through the Holy Rosary. Our Lady herself has asked us to pray the rosary in the battle against evil and to win sinners back, ourselves included. She wants our prayers because they connect us with her Son-- she is the shortcut to him. As Fr. Peter explains, when Mary takes our prayer and brings it to her Son, it has more effectiveness. And Mary, what does she want more than anything else? She wants to bring everlasting life to every human being. And how does her Son want this done? Through his children--his saints and witnesses. We must be inspired to pray the rosary, meditating on the life of Christ through the mysteries, so that Mary can facilitate our growth in holiness and charity and so that we can take on this war of love and peace, drowning out evil, with an abundance of good in the world.Note: This podcast was recorded live during an Evening of Recollection in October 2016.View TranscriptVisit Show Page Support the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you:Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review.Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.orgAlso, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!