Recent Archives

The Prayer of Persistence – a reflection by Msgr. John Esseff – Discerning Hearts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 30:56 — 28.3MB) | Embed

Msgr. Esseff discusses prayer and the importance of persistance in faith. What should we be praying for? How should we pray for it? What if we don’t receive the answer we expected?

Gospel LK 11:5-13

Jesus said to his disciples:
“Suppose one of you has a friend
to whom he goes at midnight and says,
‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread,
for a friend of mine has arrived at my house from a journey
and I have nothing to offer him,’
and he says in reply from within,
‘Do not bother me; the door has already been locked
and my children and I are already in bed.
I cannot get up to give you anything.’
I tell you, if he does not get up to give him the loaves
because of their friendship,
he will get up to give him whatever he needs
because of his persistence.

“And I tell you, ask and you will receive;
seek and you will find;
knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks, receives;
and the one who seeks, finds;
and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
What father among you would hand his son a snake
when he asks for a fish?
Or hand him a scorpion when he asks for an egg?
If you then, who are wicked,
know how to give good gifts to your children,
how much more will the Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit
to those who ask him?”

In the Footsteps of St. Teresa of Avila – Announcing our Discerning Hearts Pilgrimage w/ Fr. Giles Dimock OP & Dr. Anthony Lilles – Discerning Hearts

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:46 — 7.1MB) | Embed

Five hundred years ago, on March 28, a great mystic, founder, reformer, and doctor of the Church was born. From March 27 to April 6, 2015 you are invited to join Kris McGregor of Discerning Hearts on a spiritual journey through Holy Week and Easter in the footsteps of Saint Teresa of Avila in Spain. Fr. Giles Dimock O.P. will serve as Chaplain and Dr. Anthony Lilles will be our spiritual guide for this pilgrimage.

We will have more on this pilgrimage in the days ahead. We begin with this conversation with Dr. Lilles. For more information visit our page dedicated to pilgrimage at: www.pilgrimage.discerninghearts.com

In-the-footsteps-of-Teresa- — Click the picture to download the Brochure

DWG8 – “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions w/Fr. Timothy Gallagher

Episode 8 “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions w/Fr. Timothy Gallagher.

In this episode, Fr. Gallagher discusses the Three Modes, and in particular the we discuss “The Second Mode”: The Attraction of the Heart. When clarity is received through the discernment of spirits of either spiritual consolation or desolation.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:00 — 51.3MB) | Embed

For other episodes in the series visit The Discerning Hearts “Discerning the Will of God” page

Father Timothy M. Gallagher, O.M.V., was ordained in 1979 as a member of the Oblates of the Virgin Mary, a religious community dedicated to retreats and spiritual formation according to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Fr. Gallagher is featured on the EWTN series “Living the Discerning Life: The Spiritual Teachings of St. Ignatius of Loyola”.

For more information on how to obtain copies of Fr. Gallaghers’s various books and audio which are available for purchase, please visit his website: frtimothygallagher.org

For the other episodes in this series check out Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Faith Check 15 – Confession to Priests

Confession to Priests

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:05 — 1,015.2KB) | Embed

On this Faith Check let’s take a look at a common question: why confess your sins to a priest instead of straight to God?

First, Catholics are encouraged to privately confess our sins to God all the time and every single Mass begins with a penitential rite in which we do exactly this.

Still we should regularly go to the sacrament of confession or reconciliation. Remember that in the Old Testament a Hebrew was to publicly go to the temple and offer a sacrifice for his sin. In John 20, our Lord gives the apostles authority to forgive sins in his name, when He breathed the Holy Spirit on them and said “whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.”¹ In 2 Corinthians Paul also notes that the apostles are Christ’s ambassadors who have been given the ministry of reconciliation.²

Early Christian records show that the early Church always understood this according to the Catholic view³:those who sinned gravely after baptism could be reconciled to the Church through confession to the priests, who do not stand as barriers to Christ, but as his ambassadors, who lovingly take us by the hand and restore us to grace after we have fallen.

1 – Jn. 20:23

2 – 5:18-20

3 – See Catholic Answers website on subject: http://www.catholic.com/library/Confession.asp

CW6 – St. Francis – The “Never-Enough” – The Great Cloud of Witnesses: Guides for Prayer w/Fr. Mark Cyza – Discerning Hearts

CW6 – St. Francis – The “Never-Enough” – The Great Cloud of Witnesses: Guides for Prayer with Fr. Mark Cyza

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 15:52 — 14.6MB) | Embed

Fr. Mark Cyza discusses the witness of St. Francis and how he was transformed through his encounter with Christ.

Fr. Cyza reflects on the passage from the novel by Nikos Kazantzakis, when Brother Leo, the faithful companion of St. Francis, heard him cry : “Love is not loved, Love is not loved”. Leo asked: “Why are you crying, Brother Francis?” Francis did not reply, he simply continued to say, “Love is not loved, Love is not loved…”

Leo said to him: “But Francis, do you not think that you have done enough for Jesus by leaving you father and mother, your friends and a future of glory? And Francis answered: “No, it is not enough”.

“But Francis, – Leo continued to say -, does it not seem to you to be enough to have removed your clothes before everybody, to beg alms along the streets of the town, to embrace a leper… so that you are looked upon as a fool by your own?” “No, it is not enough”, responded Francis again.

For the third time Leo insisted: “Francis, does it not seem to be enough to suffer as you are suffering because of the stigmata, the rebellion of the Ministers, the illness of your eyes?” And once again Francis, this time in a loud voice, shouted: “No, it is not enough, it is not enough, it is not enough”. And he concluded saying: “Write it and remember it in you heart, Brother Leo, God is the never-enough”.

GWML#2 Emily Bronte and “Wuthering Heights” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – Discerning Hearts

Episode 2 – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – Emily Bronte

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 28:28 — 26.1MB) | Embed

Wuthering Heights is one of the classic novels of nineteenth century romanticism. As a major work of modern literature it retains its controversial status. What was Emily Brontë’s intention? Were her intentions iconoclastic? Were they feminist? Were they Christian or post-Christian? Who are the heroes and the villains in this dark masterpiece? Are there any heroes? Are there any villains?

Based on the Ignatius Critical Edition, this series examines, from the Judeo-Christian perspective, the life,the times, and influence of authors of great works in literature .

Joseph Pearce is currently the Writer-in-Residence and Visiting Fellow at Thomas More College of Liberal Arts in Merrimack, New Hampshire. He is also Visiting Scholar at Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, New Hampshire. He is also Visiting Scholar at Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, New Hampshire. He is co-editor of the Saint Austin Review (or StAR), an international review of Christian culture, literature, and ideas published in England (Family Publications) and the United States (Sapientia Press). He is also the author of many books, including literary biographies of Solzhenitsyn, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, and Oscar Wilde.

To learn more about the authors and titles available in the Ignatius Critical Editions

St. Jerome, father of the Church (and “the great name-caller”) with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts

Learn more about St. Jerome in our fascinating discussion with Mike Aquilina

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 20:09 — 27.7MB) | Embed

Spiritual Writings:

– Letters
– The Perpetual Virginity of Blessed Mary
– To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem
– The Dialogue Against the Luciferians
– The Life of Malchus, the Captive Monk
– The Life of S. Hilarion
– The Life of Paulus the First Hermit
– Against Jovinianus
– Against Vigilantius
– Against the Pelagians
– Prefaces
– De Viris Illustribus (Illustrious Men)
– Apology for himself against the Books of Rufinus

Prayer to St. Jerome

For Insight

Through your anger and confrontations you remind us that we all have a duty to confront others from time to time. You also remind us that we have a duty to examine ourselves and confront our own weaknesses and harmful behaviours. Your life teaches that I must accept others for who they are. You taught of the danger of self-righteousness; of the importance of reflecting upon one of Jesus’ most insightful teachings: “Let the man who has no sin on his conscience throw the first stone.” In the light of your teachings, Saint Jerome, help me to see my own self clearly. Help me to confront my own biases and to act to change others only out of love. If I see that I have the duty to confront another, I ask you to be with me during those necessary but unpleasant moments of confrontation. Help me to remember that love alone can make changes for the good.
Amen.

The Thunderer

God’s angry man, His crotchety scholar
Was Saint Jerome,

The great name-caller
Who cared not a dime
For the laws of Libel
And in his spare time
Translated the Bible.
Quick to disparage
All joys but learning
Jerome thought marriage
Better than burning;
But didn’t like woman’s
Painted cheeks;
Didn’t like Romans,
Didn’t like Greeks,
Hated Pagans
For their Pagan ways,
Yet doted on Cicero all of his days.

A born reformer, cross and gifted,
He scolded mankind
Sterner than Swift did;
Worked to save
The world from the heathen;
Fled to a cave
For peace to breathe in,
Promptly wherewith
For miles around
He filled the air with
Fury and sound.
In a mighty prose
For Almighty ends,
He thrust at his foes,
Quarreled with his friends,
And served his Master,
Though with complaint.
He wasn’t a plaster sort of a saint.

But he swelled men’s minds
With a Christian leaven.
It takes all kinds
To make a heaven

by Phyllis McGinley, from “Times Three: Selected Verse from Three Decades with Seventy New Poems”, (Pulitzer Prize Winner).

DWG7 – “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions w/Fr. Timothy Gallagher

Episode 7 “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions w/Fr. Timothy Gallagher

In this episode, Fr. Gallagher discusses the Three Modes, and in particular the we discuss “The First Mode”: When there is a clarity without doubting. Sometimes the right decision is unmistakably clear. We know what the right choice is. This knowledge is a gift from God. All we need do is act on what we know to be the right direction. Often this takes some time. We put off acting on what we know we should do.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 27:30 — 50.3MB) | Embed

For other episodes in the series visit The Discerning Hearts “Discerning the Will of God” page

For more information on how to obtain copies of Fr. Gallaghers’s various books and audio which are available for purchase, please visit his website: frtimothygallagher.org

For the other episodes in this series check out Fr. Timothy Gallagher’s “Discerning Hearts” page

26th Sunday in Ordinary Time – Sunday, Sunday, Sunday with Mark Hart

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 7:30 — 7.0MB) | Embed

The Sunday, Sunday, Sunday Podcast is a reflection on the upcoming Sunday Mass readings presented by LifeTeen.com and hosted by Mark Hart.

Sunday Readings from the USCCB

Reading 1 EZ 18:25-28

Responsorial Psalm PS 25:4-5, 8-9, 10, 14

Reading 2 PHIL 2:1-11

Gospel MT 21:28-32

Jesus said to the chief priests and elders of the people:
“What is your opinion?
A man had two sons.
He came to the first and said,
‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’
He said in reply, ‘I will not, ‘
but afterwards changed his mind and went.
The man came to the other son and gave the same order.
He said in reply, ‘Yes, sir, ‘but did not go.
Which of the two did his father’s will?”
They answered, “The first.”
Jesus said to them, “Amen, I say to you,
tax collectors and prostitutes
are entering the kingdom of God before you.
When John came to you in the way of righteousness,
you did not believe him;
but tax collectors and prostitutes did.
Yet even when you saw that,
you did not later change your minds and believe him.”

RC#8 – The Conversion of the New World – The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts

Episode 8– The Conversion of the New World

The Resilient Church with Mike Aquilina, offers a fascinating look at the trials and triumphs of the Catholic Church over the past two thousand years. Fast-paced sketches of critical periods in church history give readers perspective on the challenges faced by the church today. Mike Aquilina does not shrink from the realities of the past, including badly behaved leaders and those who betrayed the Lord. Yet he also leaves us all with well-founded hope for the future: God remains faithful in every circumstance and fulfills his promise to remain with his church always. Hosted by Kris McGregor