Faber Institute Podcast

DESCRIPTION - TNS 18,4 - John Donne (1572-1631) on 21 April 2026 John Donne (1572-1631) is a contemporary of our Guest at The Night School last month - St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622). Both were “divines”, which means “One who has officially to do with ‘divine things’; formerly, any ecclesiastic, priest, or other member of the clergy; now, one skilled in divinity; a theologian.” The latter was pa...

DESCRIPTION: TNS 18, 3 - St. Francis de Sales (1567-1622) on 17 March 2026 Our Guest in this Part III of The Night School, Series 18, is one of the giants in the art of Spiritual Direction. He sought to heal the Church’s obvious ills in an Age when it was tearing itself apart, from within.  Unlike those reformers who moved to attack vigorously the words and works of the Church’s (internal) “enemie...

DESCRIPTION - TNS 18, 2 - St. Bede the Venerable (672-735 CE), Doctor of the Church - on the (biblical text) Song of Songs - Love as Learning Our Guest has been understood to have been the most learned of the Anglo-Saxon Christians. The particular Form of love that we will notice in him is his love expressed in his devotion to learning of God and of the world that God has given us. The age of the...

DESCRIPTION: TNS 18, 1 (Tuesday, 20 January 2026) - the Author (s) of the Song of Songs (late 4th to early 2nd centuries BCE) - Love as Eros (Erotic) I am aware of no biblical book that has received the attention of so many of the greatest minds and mystics, Jewish and Christian, in history than this biblical book. “If all the [biblical] writings are holy,” Rabbi Akiva proclaimed in a discussion o...

The third of our “Johns” of Series 17 is only the second native-born Englishman since the 8th century to be raised by the Church to the status of Doctor of the Church.  It is because of this remarkable man, and what was done by Pope Leo XIV on 1 November 2025 in Rome, that I designed Series 17 to include these three Johns: John the Evangelist, John Chrysostom, and John Henry Newman.  It is one thi...

Our second John of Series 17 has been better known, and profoundly revered, in the eastern half of Christianity than in its western (Roman) half, though both halves esteem his life of holiness and brilliance as a pastor and speaker and writer, designating him a Doctor of the Church. He was so designated in the year 1568 with three other giants of holiness and intellect: St. Basil the Great (239-37...

The Night School, Series 17 (September through November 2025) - Three Johns - Wise Ones from East of Us The Night School has always been about the “Guests” whom we invite to be with us, people often from the deep past whom we meet in the texts that they left behind when they went to be among our Ancestors. Why have we invited “three Johns”; that is, the Evangelist, Chrysostom, and Newman? We chose...

The Night School, Series 16 (February through May 2025) - Light from Light In the famous Creation account in Genesis 1, it was only on the fourth day of Creation that God created the sun and the moon - the light by which we see the physical world in the day and at night.  But it was on the first day of Creation that God placed into the inmost fabric of our created world the inner light, giving hum...

The Night School, Series 16 (February through May 2025) - Light from Light In the famous Creation account in Genesis 1, it was only on the fourth day of Creation that God created the sun and the moon - the light by which we see the physical world in the day and at night.  But it was on the first day of Creation that God placed into the inmost fabric of our created world the inner light, giving hum...

The Night School, Series 16 (February through May 2025) - Light from Light In the famous Creation account in Genesis 1, it was only on the fourth day of Creation that God created the sun and the moon - the light by which we see the physical world in the day and at night.  But it was on the first day of Creation that God placed into the inmost fabric of our created world the inner light, giving hum...

The Fireside Gathering is an annual event in which we invite guests to come experience the works of the Institute. Funds raised through this event support the ongoing work of the Faber Institute - the work of souls - activated through classes, retreat, spiritual direction, writing and speaking. We invite you to support the Faber Institute by making a donation online: https://faberinstitute.com/don...

In Series 15, we have picked our Guest based on the date when his or her feast day is celebrated (annually) according to the Catholic liturgical calendar. Mechthild’s feast day is November 19th. She began a poem in this way:  Ah blessed absence of God, How lovingly I am bound to you! You strengthen my will in its pain And make dear to me The long hard wait in my poor body. She, and in a way simila...

The second Guest of our Series 15 of The Night School has her annual feast day on October 15th, which is one reason that we have chosen her to be our Guest on this night. She wrote in a letter in 1574: “It is necessary that we bear our weakness and not try to constrain our nature. Everything amounts to seeking God, since it is for Him that we search out every kind of means, and the soul must be le...

Saint Robert Bellarmine died in 1621, in the chronological center of the historical phenomenon known as the Counter-Reformation or the Catholic Reformation. He was a bishop, a cardinal, and a member of the relatively young Society of Jesus, founded by Saint Ignatius Loyola [and his nine companions] in 1540. In his own times and for many generations thereafter, he won wide recognition for his writi...

This fifth and final Guest of this Night School series (Series XIV on Angels: A Forgotten Friendship) is a 4-year old runaway child, whose name is Anna, whom the author, Fynn (a pseudonym), met in the middle of the night on the street in the dockyards in 1930s London. Fynn, a 16-year old when he met Anna, would be profoundly “schooled” in some of the most profound questions about life, and especia...

A Mother's Retreat is an annual retreat of the Faber Institute for mothers of all ages, from pregnant women and new moms with babies, to empty nesters and grandmothers. Tara Ludwig, Spiritual Director at Faber Institute and mother of three little ones, is the Retreat Director, guiding us through a reverent exploration of the power of “Mother”. Together, we consider how our spiritual capacities as...

A Mother's Retreat is an annual retreat of the Faber Institute for mothers of all ages, from pregnant women and new moms with babies, to empty nesters and grandmothers. Tara Ludwig, Spiritual Director at Faber Institute and mother of three little ones, is the Retreat Director, guiding us through a reverent exploration of the power of “Mother”. Together, we consider how our spiritual capacities as...

A Mother's Retreat is an annual retreat of the Faber Institute for mothers of all ages, from pregnant women and new moms with babies, to empty nesters and grandmothers. Tara Ludwig, Spiritual Director at Faber Institute and mother of three little ones, is the Retreat Director, guiding us through a reverent exploration of the power of “Mother”. Together, we consider how our spiritual capacities as...

A Mother's Retreat is an annual retreat of the Faber Institute for mothers of all ages, from pregnant women and new moms with babies, to empty nesters and grandmothers. Tara Ludwig, Spiritual Director at Faber Institute and mother of three little ones, is the Retreat Director, guiding us through a reverent exploration of the power of “Mother”. Together, we consider how our spiritual capacities as...

In Part IV of the Angels: A Forgotten Friendship Night School series, Rick Ganz introduces us to St. Peter Faber, SJ and his book At Work with Angels. 

The Faber Sessions #10 Part 8 on The Last Battle from the Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis, presented by Rick Ganz. “I have come home at last! This is my real country! I belong here. This is the land I have been looking for all my life, though I never knew it till now.”

The Lenten Meditations are an annual habit of the Faber Institute, offered in support of expanding and deepening your spiritual practice during the season of Lent. This year's Lenten Meditations, offered on each of the six Sundays of Lent, have been thoughtfully composed and presented by Tara Ludwig of the Institute. The Meditations will contemplate deeply what exactly it is that we mean when we s...

In Part III of this Night School series on Angels: A Forgotten Friendship, we explore how it was that Angels became more fully integrated into the theological (not only the biblical) understanding of the Christian Church. Someone of the enormous capabilities of St. Augustine (353-430 CE) was the one to do this.

The Lenten Meditations are an annual habit of the Faber Institute, offered in support of expanding and deepening your spiritual practice during the season of Lent. This year's Lenten Meditations, offered on each of the six Sundays of Lent, have been thoughtfully composed and presented by Tara Ludwig of the Institute. The Meditations will contemplate deeply what exactly it is that we mean when we s...

The Lenten Meditations are an annual habit of the Faber Institute, offered in support of expanding and deepening your spiritual practice during the season of Lent. This year's Lenten Meditations, offered on each of the six Sundays of Lent, have been thoughtfully composed and presented by Tara Ludwig of the Institute. The Meditations will contemplate deeply what exactly it is that we mean when we s...