The Poco a Poco Podcast with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal

Episode 147 - Hope For Everything We cannot grow in freedom unless we grow in faith, hope and love—that's the recipe for freedom. Faith, hope and love are the three theological virtues that connect us to God. As Christians, we are people who believe in God, hope everything from Him, and want to love Him with all their hearts and to love their neighbors. This episode is the third part of our series...

Episode 146 - Realities Not Fantasies We think we're most free when we can kind of be in control.  "I'm free when I get to get up every day and just have control over my life and my circumstances."  That's not a Catholic freedom according to Jacque Philippe, but it is actually being able to accept reality as it is. We struggle with freedom because it's hard to accept our weakness. It's quite diffi...

Episode 145 - A Freedom Greater Than Circumstances What makes us most free, is this submitting to God and this dependence on Him.  Yes, freedom is actually dependent on obedience rather than kind of doing whatever I want. When we fall in love with God and we experience that love, this deep interior freedom takes place and it becomes the most important thing of our lives—even to a point that is gre...

Episode 144 - Strong But Weak How do we reconcile being strong and weak at the same time? There has to come a healthy recognition that we're just unable to do things.  And it's in this weakness, in recognizing that we have a lack, that Christ is then able to come in and actually be the one who moves us through that weakness into a place of strength. In this episode, we're gonna talk about and atte...

Episode 143 - Getting Virtue Right A habitual and firm disposition to do good, not just for ourselves but for everybody—this is how virtue is defined. Virtue allows the person, not only to perform good acts but to give the best of themselves for the greatest good of everybody. But why do we do it? Who's it truly for and how do we exactly do it right? In this episode, we'll attempt to answer these...

Episode 142 - Relationship, Identity, Mission "Who Is God" and "Who am I?" This is what we're attempting to answer when we talk about living in the proper order of relationship, identity, and mission. We are living in a time where we're going through an identity crisis. In the very foundation, a lot of us are forgetting who we are. We forget that we are sons and daughters of God and that we are ma...

Episode 141 - Formation First Why do we need to go deeper into our spiritual life? What does that actually mean? Going deeper into our spiritual life means recognizing that we are not the ones in control anymore. It is accepting this place of poverty that we cannot only rely on ourselves, to fabricate everything and make it work. It is having that absolute trust and confidence in the presence of G...

Episode 140 - I Know Him Mary wants the Holy Spirit to come to our life, as the Holy Spirit came for her. When we're struggling, when we don't understand, when we're having deep desires and longings of our hearts, the Holy Spirit will come.  God is good, God will send and He will give us everything, we just need to have the openness to received Him and say Yes. We might not know the answers, but w...

Episode 139 - Peace not Panic We have this tendency that we want to fix or clean-up certain things first before we let the Lord in.  We are afraid that our place, our lives are messy—that it can be too much for anyone even for God to handle. But God is NOT panicking, he's completely in control. He's not afraid or scandalized of how messy our lives are, he actually comes for the mess. He isn't wait...

Episode 138 - Don't Fumble the Bag The gift of Advent is God proposing himself to us. He comes not just to command us to do something and watch from a far. He comes to sing with us, dance with us, BE with us. With that said, it would be tragic if the Lord comes knocking in our door and we don't open it—that we miss Emmanuel, God with us. Let us receive him and respond to him in the proper way duri...

Episode 137 - Gentle But Uncompromising Sometimes we lose hope, wondering, does He really want to come and be with us in our sickness, addiction, our family brokenness, our difficulty, our struggles, or anxieties?  Advent is a time that God speaks a definitive word into our exiles, "Yes, I do"—He comes and desires to be with us. This episode is the first part of the series on Emmanuel: An Advent D...

Episode 136 - Step One Jesus not only loves us—He thirsts for us. Why does He say "I thirst"? What does it mean? It's something so hard to explain in words. I thirst is something much deeper than Jesus just saying, "I love you".  Mother Teresa tells us how much love Jesus has for each of us—beyond all that we can imagine.  In her words "Not only He loves you, even more, He longs for you. He misses...

Episode 135 - Little But Infinite Sometimes, we may feel that we are only able do the little things—that what we do is insignificant. Things may seem so small, but in reality no matter how little or insignificant something may seem, nothing is little. It's because God makes them and because He makes them, they are great and infinite in value. The Saints, like Mother Teresa did amazing things, but...

Episode 134 - The Ecstasy Episode Could you imagine being woken up in the middle of the night because of a great desire to be with someone? For Mother Teresa, it was her desire to be with Jesus.  She had a deep, supernatural union with God that gave her the experience of divinely-inspired thirst for Him. A living relationship with Jesus that brings her to this mystical state of ecstasy. This episo...

Episode 133 - Our Holy Aunt As we mentioned on our previous episode, we need to be in this place where we are able to both worship and adore Jesus and at the same time be in relationship with Him and our neighbor with compassion and warmth. This episode talks about an exceptional example of that-Mother Teresa of Calcutta.  A person who embodied and lived the fullness of the gospel life and who was...

Episode 132 - Worship and Warmth In our faith we sometimes find ourselves in the extremes. We become either strict and liturgical or warm and casual but the truth is our faith should not be "either, or" but "both, and". We need to be in this place where we are able to both worship and adore the Lord and at the same time be in relationship with Him and our neighbor with compassion and warmth. When...

Episode 131 - We Speak Praise We allow our hearts to agree with the truth of who God is—that's what adoration means.  And as we become more familiar with the truth of who God is through adoration, we start to see more clearly who God is to us and what is given to us by Him.  Everything that we have is a gift from God and for most of us this is an overwhelming truth where Praise is the only just re...

Episode 130 - Prayer Battle Tactics There's great wisdom to having some structure or intentionality to our prayer life because not having a plan for it can lead to the death of it. The truth is, killing your prayer or spiritual life is not only limited to doing violence to it, but also not nourishing it. There might be a lot of reason for us not to make time for prayer. But we need to make a commi...

Episode 129 - Stay Where the Grace Is Life is difficult—our life is a valley of tears. And the ability to remain in faith, hope, and love with God as Father is impossible if we do it ourselves.  If we want to be able to experience God's closeness and his presence and to cry out "Abba, Father" in the midst of our darkness, difficulties, crucifixions, sufferings and loss, we need grace to do it. Wit...

Episode 128 - The Me in "Our" Father There is no denying that there can be many circumstances to dismiss fatherhood, both from our earthly and our Heavenly Father.  But despite what we've experienced, God is your Father and my Father who intently listens and cares for us—a Father who delights in his sons and daughters. We all need to have a personal relationship with God. Aside from praying "Our"...

Episode 127 - Define the Relationship Being in relationship with God looks like we're sitting down in front of a big table with Him, and what a deeper conversion and deeper healing means is that we are willing to be at this table and we are willing to lay out everything here for the Lord to see.  He sits us down and He wants all our weapons, all of our distractions, all the things that keep us fro...

Episode 126 -  Authentically Awesome When we were kids, we were usually amazed and awed about something that was new, grand or magnificent, but as we grew older we became more indifferent towards those things.  As Christians and Catholics, we are in love and fascinated with Jesus. But as we've sat with the Lord for longer periods of time, we too sometimes become indifferent to our Faith and His li...

Episode 125 - Heaven Within Life and circumstances are undeniably hard, but we are not alone in this.  The beautiful reality is that even when we leave prayer and go into the world, we may leave God but He never does. God is still always with us—within us. Knowing that the Lord is dwelling within us, it does change how we navigate through whatever is happening in our lives. It doesn't mean that ou...

Episode 124 - Dryness in Prayer Probably the most important relationship in our life is our relationship with God, and we are building that through prayer. Prayer is real—it's for everyone, but we know that prayer is not always easy. Sometimes it can even be really hard. Growing in relationship with God is a journey, there are ups and downs along with some twists and turns.  There are good days wh...

Episode 123 - Sons of the Church Obedience is rooted in God, it is lived trust and lived surrender in His pastoring and fatherhood—that's where we want to be. It can be really difficult but as sons and daughters of the church we are invited to stay in obedience, not only to our religious superiors but ultimately to God. We need to be able to listen to the voice of God amidst all the ups and downs...