Heart to Heart: Faith Seasons Podcast

from 1 Peter 5:5b-14 Beloved: Clothe yourselves with humility in your dealings with one another, for: God opposes the proud but bestows favor on the humble. So humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time. Cast all your worries upon him because he cares for you... Full scripture passage: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042522.cfm My father was a cattlema...

from Acts 12:24-13:5a The word of God continued to spread and grow. After Barnabas and Saul completed their relief mission, they returned to Jerusalem, taking with them John, who is called Mark. Now there were in the Church at Antioch prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshi...

Today’s Season of Joy reflection on John 10:22-30 is by Fr. Radmar Jao, SJ. Fr. Radmar is the Vocation Director for the Jesuits West Province, based in Los Angeles, CA. Before joining the Jesuits in 2001, Radmar was a professional film, TV, and stage actor. He's also a spiritual director, retreat leader, and travels to give presentations on Ignatian Spirituality and discernment. from John 10:...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on Acts 11:1-18 is by Mark Huddy. Mark serves the Catholic Diocese of Columbus as Director of Catholic Charities and Social Concerns and is a member of the senior executive team. Mark and his wife Beth have four children and four grandchildren. They are members of St. Matthew the Apostle parish in Gahanna, Ohio. from Acts 11:1-18 As I began to speak, the Holy...

from 1 John 3:1-2 Beloved: See what love the Father has bestowed on us that we may be called the children of God. Yet so we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Read the full scripture passage: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042124.cfm I remember looking through family photo albums when I was a kid, seeing pictures of my dad when he was little, my grandfa...

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Today's Season of Joy reflection on Acts 9:1-20 is by Terry O'Connell. Terry has been happily married to his wife Cindy for 44 years. They have 3 children and 3 grand children. He’s a retired senior executive who worked for Time Warner Cable for 30 years. His hobbies include golf (which he enjoys most often), fishing (which he seldom does) and reading.  from Acts 9:1-20 He fell to the gr...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on Acts 8:26-40 is by Fr. Michael Rossman, SJ. Fr. Michael is a Jesuit priest currently working on a doctorate at the Gregorian University in Rome. He is a native of Iowa and a graduate of Notre Dame, Loyola Chicago, and Boston College. He shares a video each week at amdg.substack.com. from Acts 8:26-40 Then the eunuch said to Philip in reply, “I beg you, abou...

Today’s Season of Joy reflection on John 6:35-40 is by Neal Tew. Neal Tew is a husband and father living in Cincinnati, OH. He has a BA in English from Harvard College and a Masters in Philosophy from Catholic University. He spent three years living in a monastery and wrote a book about the experience. Today he runs Brandstrength, a communications firm. from John 6:35-40 Jesus said to the crowds,...

When Jesus speaks about hunger and thirst, I imagine him including pain in the list of things that will be no more. Sometimes I have back problems. Whether it is from our back, or perhaps some other part of our body, pain can take over our life. We can hurt so badly that we can't think of anything else but that pain. When this happens to me, I have learned to turn it over to prayer. Well, one...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on John 6:22-29 is by Terri Davis-Hayden. Terri Davis-Hayden is a vocalist, teacher, writer, and producer, with a career spanning over thirty years. As owner of Cincinnati-based Respected Artists International (RAI), Terri creates and performs live, musical events, coaches career-bound singers, and produces meditation podcasts for Advent and Lent for her RAI Y...

from Luke 24:35-48 The two disciples recounted what had taken place on the way, and how Jesus was made known to them  in the breaking of bread. ... Read the full gospel: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/041424.cfm Our gospel today begins with the two disciples who have just encountered Jesus on the road to Emmaus and recognized him in the breaking of bread. As they are sharing this incredibl...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on John 6:16-21 is by Tammy Bundy. To read the full scripture passage, please visit: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/043022.cfm Seeing Jesus in the midst of the storms of life is such a comforting reminder, isn’t it? I mean it’s easy to feel the presence of God in the sunshine, when all is going well. We feel so blessed, so assured. But those days when...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on John 6:1-15 is by John Willig. To read the full scripture passage, please visit: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/042922.cfm After we sold our family business, my preference would have been to continue working, but I felt God calling me to get more involved in doing his work. This gospel reading, of the loaves and the fishes, pretty well summed up my...

For many years I did not appreciate the readings from The Acts of the Apostles in the weeks after Easter. However, being a member of a religious congregation, reading about the development of the early Christian community caught my attention. People of different social classes, drawn together by the Holy Spirit, shared their lives, their possessions, and their faith. Their strong community life, t...

Chapter 3 of John's gospel, describes three people, who either reject, ponder or accept Jesus' teaching: the Jewish priests, Nicodemus, and John the Baptist.  The priests are obsessed with ritual purity, strict observance of the law, and self-righteous Orthodoxy. Jesus calls them hypocrites and they reject his teaching as a threat to their authority.  The second person is Nicodemus, a Ph...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on John 3:7b-15 is by Jane Newberry. Many years ago, Jane married her wonderful high school sweet heart. They were blessed with 3 incredible children and now have 9 equally incredible grand children. She is a retired nurse and now spends her time helping family, friends and others. She’s involved in two parishes and also part of a group called “Discerning Wome...

Have you ever held your breath waiting for someone to reply, hoping almost desperately that they will say yes to something that you ask them to do? Well, back in the 12th century, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux imagined the Archangel Gabriel waiting desperately for the Blessed Virgin Mary to respond to God's proposal that she become the mother of his child.  In a homily, Bernard said the followin...

Today's Season of Joy reflection on John 20:19-31 is by Fr. James Martin, SJ.  Fr. James is a Jesuit priest, writer, and editor-at-large for the Jesuit magazine, America. In 2017 Pope Francis appointed him as a consultant to the Vatican’s Secretariat for Communications. A New York Times Best Selling author, he is a sought after public speaker and media commentator on faith, culture, and spiri...

This Season of Joy reflection on Mark 16:9-15 is by Sr. Francis Maag.  Sister Francis took her vows with the Congregation of Divine Providence 68 years ago. Over her career she served as principal with seven different schools, in four different states and five different dioceses. She remains an active participant of Divine Mercy parish in Bellevue, KY. from Mark 16:9-15 When Jesus had risen, early...

from John 20:1-9 On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning, while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb. The Rising Son So often over the years, I’ve noticed that we put a tremendous effort into our Lenten observance and then when we get to Easter, we lose our spiritual steam, our fervor fades. Oh, for sure there’s the happy exuberance...

Today’s story seed is Before the Dawn. From Psalm 51, verse 12 A clean heart create for me, O God, and a steadfast spirit renew within me. No one knows, but what if… after Jesus was taken down from the cross and his body laid in the tomb, Mary, Mother of Jesus, sat in the house of a friend. Devastated as she was, people came to express their condolences. We can imagine the trauma of those people,...

Today’s story seed is In the Middle. From the Gospel of John chapter 19, verse 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus in the middle. The mother looked at her son. A breathing tube was down his throat. The beeps and buzzes of the equipment rang out in the hospital room. Her sobs were muffled by her hands over her mouth as she prayed for him, her beautif...

From the Gospel of John chapter 13, verses 8 and 9 Peter said to him, “You will never wash my feet.” Jesus answered him, “Unless I wash you, you will have no inheritance with me.” Simon Peter said to him, “Master, then not only my feet, but my hands and head as well.” Grandmother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. While she still had the strength, she gathered her children and grandchildren...

From the Book of the Prophet Isaiah chapter 50, verse 6 I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The early church is filled with martyrs, people who gave their life to see the faith continue. Today is the feast day of St. Martin I. When he became Pope in 649 there was a popular belief called Monothelitism that...