Choppin’ Wood Podcast

🌹 Saint Spotlight: St. Catherine of Siena — Holy Fire Episode Show Notes What does it mean to become fully who God created you to be? In this Saint Spotlight, Kristen reflects on the bold, beautiful witness of Catherine of Siena — mystic, lay Dominican, Doctor of the Church, and one of the fiercest women in Catholic history. Catherine lived during a time of scandal, division, and spiritual exhaus...

🌪️ Ep. 16: The Lent (and Apparently Easter) That Jumped Me and Took My Lunch Money Well hey there, fellow holy hot messes… The Lent I planned and the Lent I got were definitely not the same thing. 😅 Emotional support Snickers may or may not have entered the chat. 🤢 Norovirus took down the whole house. 🙏 Confirmation had to be rescheduled. 🏥 Michael was discharged from the hospital an hour befo...

🧰 The Tired Catholic’s Toolbox (Part 2: Learning to Hear His Voice) In Part 2 of The Tired Catholic’s Toolbox, we begin adding a little weight to the bar. 💪 After talking about staying connected to God in the middle of tired, busy, ordinary life in Part 1, this episode moves into the next step: formation. Because if this is a relationship—and it is—it cannot stay one-sided. We don’t just talk to...

Divine Mercy Sunday: Mercy Wins 🕊️✨ Divine Mercy Sunday is the feast that reminds us God’s mercy is always bigger than our mess. In this episode of Choppin’ Wood, Kristen reflects on why this feast feels especially personal this year. Not only did Michael recently come home from the hospital, but this Divine Mercy Sunday also marks ten years since Kristen and Michael returned home to the Catholic...

Easter Sunday: Easter People, Alleluia Hearts 🌅✨ He is risen — truly, He is risen. After the palms, the perfume, the betrayal, the Upper Room, the Cross, and the long held breath of Holy Saturday, Easter arrives not as a mood shift, but as an answer. The tomb is empty. Death has been undone. Love has won. This episode of From Hosanna to Alleluia reflects on the joy of Easter as something deeper...

Holy Saturday: Between Cross and Dawn: Waiting with Hope 🕯️ Holy Saturday feels like a held breath. In today’s reflection, we sit with the in-between day of Holy Week — the day between Cross and Resurrection, between heartbreak and glory, between what has already happened and what has not yet been revealed. This episode of From Hosanna to Alleluia is for anyone who knows the ache of unfinished sto...

Good Friday: Standing at the Cross ✝️🕯️ Good Friday turns our eyes to the Cross — and to the Blessed Mother standing beneath it. In this reflection, we look at Mary at the foot of the Cross and the profound mystery of her steadfast love. She could not stop the suffering. She could not change the outcome. And still, she stayed. Her yes to God did not end in Nazareth. It followed her all the way to...

Holy Thursday: Love to the End ✨🕯️ Holy Thursday is not sentimental. It is sober, intimate, and almost unbearably tender. In today’s reflection, we enter the Upper Room and sit with the night Jesus loved His own to the end — kneeling with a towel, feeding them with His very Body and Blood, and giving Himself completely even with betrayal already in motion. This episode of From Hosanna to Alleluia...

Spy Wednesday: The Hidden Deal 🕯️ Spy Wednesday carries a sadness that sinks in slowly. In today’s reflection, we sit with one of the more unsettling truths of Holy Week: betrayal rarely begins all at once. More often, it starts in the hidden places — in disappointment left unattended, in compromise we justify, and in the slow drift from trust into negotiation. Judas handing Jesus over is the visi...

Holy Tuesday: Loyalty in the Shadow of Betrayal ✝️ Holy Tuesday carries a different kind of heaviness. In today’s reflection, we sit with one of the harder truths at the center of Holy Week: Jesus knows exactly who will falter, and He keeps loving anyway. He knows Judas will betray Him. He knows Peter will deny Him. He knows the others will scatter. And still, He stays. This episode of From Hosann...

Holy Monday: Love That Pours Itself Out 🌿✨ After the palms and hosannas of Palm Sunday, Holy Monday leads us somewhere quieter — but no less intense. In today’s reflection, we step into Bethany, where Mary pours out perfume worth nearly a year’s wages on Jesus in an act of extravagant love, and into the Temple, where Jesus overturns the tables and clears away what does not belong. One scene smel...

Palm Sunday: Hosanna in the Whiplash 🌿 “Hosanna! Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!” — Mark 11:9 Palm Sunday is beautiful, loud, joyful, and a little bit heartbreaking. 🌿✨ In this Holy Week reflection, Kristen opens the series From Hosanna to Alleluia by sitting with the strange holiness of Palm Sunday — a day filled with praise even as the shadow of the Cross begins to fall. This...

🧰 Episode 13 Show Notes The Tired Catholic’s Toolbox (Part 1: Staying Connected) Have you ever felt like you don’t have enough energy to “properly” practice your faith? Like there’s a right way to do this, and somehow you’re missing it? This episode was inspired by a listener who asked that exact question—and the more I sat with it, the more I realized this isn’t something we can rush through. Be...

🌿 Saint Spotlight: St. Joseph — The Strong, Silent Type We don’t have a single recorded word from St. Joseph in Scripture. Not one. And yet he stands as one of the most powerful men in salvation history. In this Saint Spotlight, Kristen reflects on the quiet strength of Saint Joseph (chatgpt://generic-entity?number=0) — the foster father of Jesus, protector of the Holy Family, and patron of fathe...

✨Episode 12 The Comparison Trap: Why Her Sainthood Doesn’t Threaten Yours Have you ever scrolled through social media and suddenly felt… behind? 📱 Behind in motherhood. Behind in prayer. Behind in discipline. Behind in holiness. In this episode, we dive deep into why comparison is more than insecurity — it’s a misunderstanding of the Mystical Body. ✨ St. Paul reminds us that God arranged the Bo...

🌾 Episode 11: Hope & Anchor Mid-Lent and the Virtue of Hope It’s week three of Lent. The ashes have smudged off. The emotional momentum has cooled. The same weaknesses are still there. The sink is still full. Sanctity still feels… unfinished. In this episode, we go deeper than “just try harder.” We talk about the theological virtue of Hope — not optimism, not personality, not productivity — b...

✨Show Notes episode 10   Not Further. Formed. Shortening the Distance Between Failure and Repentance   This episode was originally supposed to be light. A coffee-themed reflection on finding grace in the morning chaos.   But ten episodes in — and ten years into following Jesus — the question beneath the chaos felt deeper:   Why are mornings still hard?   Why does my nervous system still react bef...

✨EPISODE 9 Saints, Schedules, and Sanctity: When Holiness Meets Google Calendar “Let nothing disturb you, let nothing frighten you. All things are passing; God never changes.” — St. Teresa of Ávila What does your calendar quietly reveal about what you love most? In this episode of Choppin’ Wood, we’re talking about busyness — not as a time management problem, but as a spiritual one. We explore ho...

🕯 Mini Episode 2 Ashes and Authenticity: A Holy Mess Called Lent “God does not require great deeds, but only heartfelt desire.” — St. John Vianney Lent begins today — and if you’re already tired, overwhelmed, or feeling behind before it’s even started, this mini episode is for you. In this Ash Wednesday reflection, Kristen gently reframes Lent as an invitation to honesty rather than performance. T...

🔥 Episode 8 Pray Dirty: Finding God in the Messy, Mumbled, and Half-Finished Prayers What if prayer doesn’t need to be polished to be powerful? As Lent begins, it’s easy to feel pressure to perform spiritually — to craft the perfect prayer routine, wake up earlier, pray longer, and finally “get it right.” But what if prayer was never meant to be a checklist or a performance? In this episode of Ch...

🔥 Episode 7   Holy Sass & Sanctified Sarcasm: When the Devil Crashes Your Bathroom Break   What if holiness isn’t about becoming quieter, smaller, or less yourself?   In this episode of Choppin’ Wood, Kristen reflects on one of the most infamous (and unexpectedly theological) saint stories of all time: St. Teresa of Ávila’s bathroom encounter with the devil — and what her joyful, unapologetic...

⭐️ Episode 6 (Part 2) Theology of K-Pop Demon Hunters: When the Music Fights Back If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet: pause this episode and go do that first. Seriously. I’ll wait. 😇 In Part 2, we go deeper—into the theological gut-punches hiding in a sparkly K-Pop demon hunter movie. This episode is longer than usual on purpose, because I did what I do best: hyperfixated spiritually, emotion...

🪵 Mini Episode 1: What Even Is Septuagesima? Preparing for Lent — not by acting yet, but by paying attention. “While we have time, let us do good.” — St. Francis de Sales ⸻ Lent has a way of sneaking up on us. We sprint through Christmas, limp through January, and suddenly Ash Wednesday is tapping us on the shoulder asking if we’re ready to give up chocolate again — and we’re… not. In this first...

⭐️ Episode 5 — Theology of K-Pop Demon Hunters: Singing Back the Darkness (Part 1) Saint Quote to Begin “Music is a fair and glorious gift of God. Only the devil hates it.” — St. Augustine ⸻ Episode Summary If you had told me a few months ago that I’d be recording a Catholic theology episode about a K-pop demon-hunting movie, I would’ve laughed — nervously — and reached for holy water. And yet… h...

Episode 4: “Not Now, God" If St. Augustine praying “make me chaste… but not yet” has ever felt a little too relatable, this episode is for you. Today we’re diving into the spiritual (and hilariously everyday) reality of procrastination — from fossilized granola bars in my 12‑passenger van to the deeper ways we tell God, “Later, I promise.” We’ll talk about the difference between delay and disobedi...