catholic prayer Archives

Ep 3 – Responding to the Call – And Mary’s ‘Yes’ Continues Afresh w/ Sr. Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 3 of 4 of And Mary’s ‘Yes’ Continues Afresh with Sr. Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz one of the founders and the vocation director of the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist

Join Sr. Joseph Andrew Bogdanowicz and Kris McGregor as they discuss:

1. Responding to the Call
2. How is God Present?
3. The Need for More Teachers
4. Give God Permission
5. Letting Go of the Baggage

Visit here to pick up a copy of the book

From the book description:

Our world is constantly changing and each generation faces new challenges of faith and identity. In this increasingly post-Christian, radically secular culture, the vocation of a consecrated religious might appear outdated or, perhaps, wasteful. Even within the Church, the vocation of a Bride of Christ is a mystery to many who have never encountered it. But who is a religious Sister? She is one who hears our Lord’s call to “Come, follow me!” and answers with the resounding confidence of Mary’s Fiat! She is exactly what our world needs: a light in the darkness, a soul dedicated completely to loving and serving God and her neighbor.

In this new volume, And Mary’s Yes Continues Afresh, the Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist present a treasure-trove of education and inspiration for young women, parents, priests, and educators alike. You’ll learn what religious life is all about; hear the inspiring vocation stories of women from all walks of life and many different nationalities; and discover—perhaps for the first time—the incredible gift of the consecrated life. You might even hear the Lord’s call in your own heart. Ultimately, you will come away with a deeper understanding and appreciation of the life-giving vocation of religious Sisters, and their role in our world today.

The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist

The Dominican Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, were canonically established in 1997 in response to Pope St. John Paul II’s call for a New Evangelization. We seek to share God’s message of faith and the joy of religious life with the modern world through various outreaches including education, vocations, and culture.
Read more about their charism

Beginning with four foundresses, their community has now grown to over 150 Sisters with an average age of 32. Their Motherhouse is located in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Their website can be found at sistersofmary.org

CWC8 – The Wellsprings of Prayer – Communion with Christ with Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 8 – Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – The “wellsprings” where Christ awaits us. Responding at the moment when the subtle interior movements of the Holy Spirit calls to us. The Word of God becomes a place of encounter. The danger of Scripture becoming all academic. People are converted when the Word approaches them as living. The liturgy is also a place of encounter. The heart is an “altar” in the liturgy.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

The book addresses their mutual dedication to remain with Christ in prayer even in the service of parishioners. Once prayer finds a place in the heart, compassion grows for those who look for God “like sheep without a shepherd.” Through interior prayerfulness, clerical unity in ministry can be better ensured Remain in Me is for priests and deacons to use as prayer, on retreat, or during the holy seasons of Lent and Advent.

CWC7 The Will To Pray – Communion with Christ with Deacon James Keating- Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 7 – Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – The will to pray. To listen, to search, to see Him…to become prayer ourselves. You know are progressing by the fruit of your life. The parish is the “school of prayer” and the pastor as a teacher of prayer, the spiritual father. The disordered demands we may place on the priest. What is the remedy?

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2650and 2651

2650 Prayer cannot be reduced to the spontaneous outpouring of interior impulse: in order to pray, one must have the will to pray. Nor is it enough to know what the Scriptures reveal about prayer: one must also learn how to pray. Through a living transmission (Sacred Tradition) within “the believing and praying Church,”¹ The Holy Spirit teaches the children of God how to pray.

2651 The tradition of Christian prayer is one of the ways in which the tradition of faith takes shape and grows, especially through the contemplation and study of believers who treasure in their hearts the events and words of the economy of salvation, and through their profound grasp of the spiritual realities they experience.²

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

CWC6 – The Reception of Grace – Communion with Christ with Deacon James Keating

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Episode 6- Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – How we receive prayer. The reception of grace and the great gift of memory. Through prayer, heaven begins. Prayer is a battle…it isn’t easy. Western culture is a “culture of distraction”. We need to receive the coming of God when it enlights upon us.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2610and 2611

2610 Just as Jesus prays to the Father and gives thanks before receiving his gifts, so he teaches us filial boldness: “Whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will.”⁶⁶ Such is the power of prayer and of faith that does not doubt: “all things are possible to him who believes.”⁶⁷ Jesus is as saddened by the “lack of faith” of his own neighbors and the “little faith” of his own disciples⁶⁸ as he is struck with admiration at the great faith of the Roman centurion and the Canaanite woman.⁶⁹

2611 The prayer of faith consists not only in saying “Lord, Lord,” but in disposing the heart to do the will of the Father.⁷⁰ Jesus calls his disciples to bring into their prayer this concern for cooperating with the divine plan.⁷¹2612 In Jesus “the Kingdom of God is at hand.”⁷² He calls his hearers to conversion and faith, but also to watchfulness. In prayer the disciple keeps watch, attentive to Him Who Is and Him Who Comes, in memory of his first coming in the lowliness of the flesh, and in the hope of his second coming in glory.⁷³ In communion with their Master, the disciples’ prayer is a battle; only by keeping watch in prayer can one avoid falling into temptation.⁷⁴

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

CWC5 – Ask, Seek, Knock – Communion with Christ: Practical Prayer w/ Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 5- Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – ” How did I ever live without prayer?” A sustained communion with Christ is the beginning of heaven. “Ask..seek…knock”. Are you knocking to receive a relationship or are you knocking to get more stuff? Are you seeking to surrender and entrust or are you seeking to satisfy more of a passing desire or mood? Even in our coming to prayer Jesus wants to purify our motive for doing so. The challenge of entering into deep prayer leads to the great maturity of prayer.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

CWC4 – God’s Longing for Us – Communion with Christ: Practical Prayer w/ Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 4- Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – Deacon Keating continues his reflections on the last things said by Jesus on the Cross and Mary as a teacher of prayer. The Blessed Virgin Mary is the wellspring of interiority because she held all the mysteries in her heart. Deacon Keating discusses God’s longing for us and allowing God to pray in us. “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”…is it more that we have abandoned God? Sin looks like crucifixion. The final words.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

DC37 St. Catherine of Siena pt 2 – The Doctors of the Church: The Charism of Wisdom w/ Dr. Matthew Bunson

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Dr. Matthew Bunson discusses the life, times and teachings of St. Catherine of Siena

Born: March 17, 1347, Siena, Italy
Nationality: Italian

From Vatican.va, an excerpt from the teachings of Pope Benedict XVI

From the General Audience on St. Catherine of Siena

A true and authentic spiritual family was built up around such a strong and genuine personality; people fascinated by the moral authority of this young woman with a most exalted lifestyle were at times also impressed by the mystical phenomena they witnessed, such as her frequent ecstasies. Many put themselves at Catherine’s service and above all considered it a privilege to receive spiritual guidance from her. They called her “mother” because, as her spiritual children, they drew spiritual nourishment from her. Today too the Church receives great benefit from the exercise of spiritual motherhood by so many women, lay and consecrated, who nourish souls with thoughts of God, who strengthen the people’s faith and direct Christian life towards ever loftier peaks. “Son, I say to you and call you”, Catherine wrote to one of her spiritual sons, Giovanni Sabbatini, a Carthusian, “inasmuch as I give birth to you in continuous prayers and desire in the presence of God, just as a mother gives birth to a son” (Epistolario, Lettera n. 141: To Fr Giovanni de’ Sabbatini). She would usually address the Dominican Fr Bartolomeo de Dominici with these words: “Most beloved and very dear brother and son in Christ sweet Jesus”.

Another trait of Catherine’s spirituality is linked to the gift of tears. They express an exquisite, profound sensitivity, a capacity for being moved and for tenderness. Many Saints have had the gift of tears, renewing the emotion of Jesus himself who did not hold back or hide his tears at the tomb of his friend Lazarus and at the grief of Mary and Martha or at the sight of Jerusalem during his last days on this earth. According to Catherine, the tears of Saints are mingled with the blood of Christ, of which she spoke in vibrant tones and with symbolic images that were very effective: “Remember Christ crucified, God and man….. Make your aim the Crucified Christ, hide in the wounds of the Crucified Christ and drown in the blood of the Crucified Christ” (Epistolario, Lettera n. 21: Ad uno il cui nome si tace [to one who remains anonymous]). Here we can understand why, despite her awareness of the human shortcomings of priests, Catherine always felt very great reverence for them: through the sacraments and the word they dispense the saving power of Christ’s Blood. The Sienese Saint always invited the sacred ministers, including the Pope whom she called “sweet Christ on earth”, to be faithful to their responsibilities, motivated always and only by her profound and constant love of the Church. She said before she died: “in leaving my body, truly I have consumed and given my life in the Church and for the Holy Church, which is for me a most unique grace” (Raimondo da Capua, S. Caterina da Siena, Legenda maior, n. 363). Hence we learn from St Catherine the most sublime science: to know and love Jesus Christ and his Church. In the Dialogue of Divine Providence, she describes Christ, with an unusual image, as a bridge flung between Heaven and earth. This bridge consists of three great stairways constituted by the feet, the side and the mouth of Jesus. Rising by these stairways the soul passes through the three stages of every path to sanctification: detachment from sin, the practice of the virtues and of love, sweet and loving union with God.

Dear brothers and sisters, let us learn from St Catherine to love Christ and the Church with courage, intensely and sincerely. Therefore let us make our own St Catherine’s words that we read in the Dialogue of Divine Providence at the end of the chapter that speaks of Christ as a bridge: “out of mercy you have washed us in his Blood, out of mercy you have wished to converse with creatures. O crazed with love! It did not suffice for you to take flesh, but you also wished to die!… O mercy! My heart drowns in thinking of you: for no matter where I turn to think, I find only mercy” (chapter 30, pp. 79-80).

For more visit Vatican.va

Dr. Matthew E. Bunson is a Register senior editor and a senior contributor to EWTN News. For the past 20 years, he has been active in the area of Catholic social communications and education, including writing, editing, and teaching on a variety of topics related to Church history, the papacy, the saints, and Catholic culture. He is faculty chair at Catholic Distance University, a senior fellow of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, and the author or co-author of over 50 books including The Encyclopedia of Catholic History, The Pope Encyclopedia, We Have a Pope! Benedict XVI, The Saints Encyclopedia and best-selling biographies of St. Damien of Molokai and St. Kateri Tekakwitha.

CWC3 – Praying Always – Communion with Christ: Practical Prayer w/ Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 3- Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – Jesus is the primary teacher of prayer. How can we pray “always”? How do we become “prayer”? Jesus was conscious that all things flow from the Father. He teaches us how to pray to the Father. Deacon Keating speaks of praying in the name of Jesus and “receiving” God in our hearts.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Heart” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

CWC2 – A Foretaste of Heaven – Communion with Christ: Practical Prayer w/ Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 2-Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer – We have lost are fear of going astray and being unfaithful within. We must be aware of the spirits, personal or impersonal, that can get into us. We can get tangled up in many different influences in prayer. That is why it so important to have a director, a guide, to help us navigate in this journey and to test those spirits. Jesus is the model of prayer. “He learns to pray from His mother”. (see below). The witness of the community. His prayer springs from a secret source and He wishes to share it with us. All prayer is foretaste of heaven.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description:

CWC1 God Calls Man First -Communion with Christ: Practical Prayer w/ Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 1 -Communion with Christ – Practical Prayer –The most powerful principle of prayer is that God desires us. Prayer is a response to a presence who has entered our reality. Distractions, an enemy of prayer. Recovering the prophetic consciousness. The highest fruit of prayer to be someone who is so transparent to God, that God reveals His acts in our lives…the person has become prayer.

From the Catechism of the Catholic Church paragraph 2567

God calls man first. Man may forget his Creator or hide far from his face; he may run after idols or accuse the deity of having abandoned him; yet the living and true God tirelessly calls each person to that mysterious encounter known as prayer. In prayer, the faithful God’s initiative of love always comes first; our own first step is always a response. As God gradually reveals himself and reveals man to himself, prayer appears as a reciprocal call, a covenant drama. Through words and actions, this drama engages the heart. It unfolds throughout the whole history of salvation.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.

From the book description: