Arise, My Darling Podcast

"Never be lacking in zeal but maintain your spiritual fervor serving the Lord. Be joyful in hope. Patient in affliction. Faithful in prayer." Romans 12:11-12 In this episode, our friend Patty Hanna is back to invite us into her journey as she gets ready to become a full member of  the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil.  She shares her deep zeal for her faith and what has been refreshin...

“Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be devoted to one another in love.  Honor one another above yourselves.” Romans 12:9-10 We cannot love sincerely without being taught by Love himself, God. This episode we discuss what is sincere love, the importance of being taught how to love sincerely by spending time with Jesus, and honoring our brother and sisters by  knowing th...

 " For just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. If your gift is prophesying, then prophesy in accordance with your faith;   if it is serving, then serve; if it is teaching, th...

" For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you." Romans 12:3 This episode invites us all to reject the standard of perfection that is impossible to reach and step into freedom. We can begin to see ourselves with sob...

 " Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2 Its is easy to fall into the pattern of the world, which is unkind and unpredictable; instead, let us conform our minds to the pattern of God, which is one of consistency and kindnes...

"Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship." Romans 12:1 In a culture where our bodies seem to be in a constant state of attack, it becomes difficult to view our bodies as a gift from God and for God. In this episode we discuss how we can offer our bodies t...

Last season we discussed all the ways Jesus is the perfect lover! In this season, we will discover how to live out that relationship through a transformed life with Christ by journeying through Romans 12. We must live lives transformed in Christ. We were not meant to live according to a "to do" list but rather to live a life filled with truth, beauty, and goodness. In this episode, we ca...

To love is to "will the good of another." Love is not void of suffering and can sometimes be given to us in the ways that we don't anticipate. Our perception of what would be loving for God to do is sometimes incorrect because we lack eternal perspective.  In the final episode of the season, we talk about the greatest fruit of the spirit- love! Everything builds up to this story whe...

"Remain in me, as I remain in you. Just as a branch cannot bear fruit on its own unless it remains on the vine, so neither can you unless you remain in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit, because without me you can do nothing."- John 15:4 In the midst of chaos sometimes you need to take a pause and reorient yourself toward hea...

“The more our soul is peaceful and tranquil, the more God is reflected in it, the more His image expresses itself in us, the more His grace acts through us.”  -Fr. Jacques Philippe In John 6:15-21, Jesus walks on the water toward the disciples in a storm. The disciples are afraid and at first don't recognize Jesus. Jesus tells the men to not be afraid and as soon as they invited Jesus into th...

Jesus is the perfect lover.  In John 5,  we are lead through a gospel invitation and asked the ultimate question- Do you wish to be made well?  We are invited to ponder that question and determine if we really want to live a life with Christ at the center or just a part. This is the truth: | We were made for relationship | That relationship was broken by sin | Jesus is the answer because He restor...

Jesus is the perfect lover. “Go,” Jesus replied, “your son will live.” The man took Jesus at his word and departed. -John 4:50 Jesus heals the official's son with only His words and the Roman soldier believes Him. The Roman soldier has faith in Jesus and Jesus follows through with his promises, showing to the official His faithfulness. In this episode, we dive into the topics of how we see Je...

Jesus is the perfect lover.  "Jesus shakes the Samaritan woman out of her immersion in the corruptible goods of the world, then out of her allegiance to even those noble necessities that are religions, in order to open her mind and heart to the uncontrollable, unlimited mystery that is God." -Bishop Barron In this episode, we speak into the gentleness of Jesus as He breaks through the wa...

Jesus is Patient. In John 3, we see Nicodemus come to Jesus with questions and curiosity. Jesus greets him and patiently begins to not only answer his questions but reveal to him the greater things of God's kingdom.  Often we also need Jesus to patiently walk us through the greater things of God's kingdom. He is always patient with us but we also need to learn to be patient with him and...

Jesus is the perfect lover.  When you read this story in John 2:13-25, self-control might not be the first fruit of the spirit that you think of, but as we dive in deeper into the cleansing of the temple we see that Jesus acts out of love with self-control. This week we discuss the difference between reacting and responding, areas of our lives we have had to exercise self-control, and how self-con...

Jesus is the perfect lover.  As we walk through the fruits of the spirit in Galatians, we see how Jesus exemplifies all these fruits through stories in the Gospel of John. We first see Jesus' kindness on full display at the Wedding of Cana. He invites the servants in to the miracle and elevates their humble gift of water to wine, he cares for his family to prolong the celebration, and obeys t...

"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it more abundantly." John 10:10 Jesus promises us an abundant life and yet many of us are not taking Him up on His offer. What would our lives look like if we were living abundantly like Christ wants us to? In this episode, we share our thoughts on the thieves that try to take us away from...

We may be little, insignificant servants in the eyes of a world motivated by efficiency, control, and success. But when we realize that God has chosen us from all eternity, sent us into the world as the blessed ones, handed us over to suffering, can’t we then also trust that our little lives will multiply themselves and be able to fulfill the needs of countless people? - Henri Nouwen Jesus does no...

" The great spiritual call of the Beloved Children of God is to pull their brokenness away from the shadow of the curse and put it under the light of the blessing." Henri Nouwen Each of us has unique blessedness, chosenness, and brokenness. In this episode, we unpack how our brokenness can be put under a blessing and aids in our ability to serve the people in our life. We both share stor...

" The characteristic of the blessed ones is that, wherever they go, they always speak words of blessing. It is remarkable how easy it is to bless others, to speak good things to and about them, to call forth their beauty and truth, when you yourself are in touch with your own blessedness.  The blessed one always blesses" - Henri Nouwen This episode we dive into how we bless others and sp...

" We can desire to become the Beloved only when we know that we already are the Beloved.  Therefore, the first step in the spiritual life is to acknowledge with our whole being that we already have been taken." Henri Nowen In the first episode of our Life of the Beloved series, we discuss how we get in touch with our chosenness when we are surrounded by rejections, the places that remind...

Welcome back, Darlings to Season 2. As Andrea and I were catching up, we kept exclaiming that God is SOOO GOOOD! Our Lord pursues us even during a pandemic. Both of us had some major shifts in our lives since the last episode and God has showed up in some big ways. In this episode, we share some much needed updates about support raising, life as a missionary, and Andrea becoming Catholic during th...

"My life goes on in endless song Above earth´s lamentations, I hear the real, though far-off hymn That hails a new creation"- How Can I Keep From Singing Music has the power to transport us into a thin space closer to heaven. All of creation was created like the intricate lines of a large orchestration. Music has the ability to draw us closer to God and His people. We are excited to have...

“My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord” (Luke 1:46-55). These are the words of Mary’s magnificat. It is the sharing of all the goodness and love that God has poured into our hearts with our brothers and sisters in Christ. In a world that wants to minimize the role of God in our lives, magnificat invites us to magnify Christ. When we invite God into our hearts and give Him our fiat then we ca...

As we continue with Part 2 of our 3 part series, we dive deeper into Mary's yes or in Latin Fiat! Mary's response to the Angel Gabriel is "Behold I am the handmaiden of the Lord. Let it be done unto me according to your word." (Luke 1:38). Fiat in Latin translates to "let it be done." Mary offers her yes to the Lord with a limited understanding of all it will cost her...