Thoughts from the Trailer with Fr. John Riccardo

It’s been said often that we are rapidly leaving behind an era called Christendom for a very different one ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Special guest presenter this week. We welcome Albert Faraj to the Podcast! Saint Augustine repeatedly warned his flock not to build on sand, meaning not to think life was going to be easy once a person became a Christian. Faith doesn’t magically make all of life’s challenges disappear. Instead, faith enables us to know and to see that with every challenge and every temptation God provides the grac...

Let us beg St. Paul in these unsettled days to pray for peace in the land he once walked, and to intercede in a mighty way for those who are now as he once was. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Perhaps it’s as simple as this: God can be trusted. He is our Father, and not an absent or abusive Father but a good Father. Because He is a good Father He will supply for all our needs. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Lest we think the Christian message is all rainbows and unicorns, it’s worth reminding ourselves where Paul is as he writes these words to the Church in Philippi. He’s in prison. Not a county jail with three square meals, indoor plumbing and some degree of heating and cooling. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

“All things” includes a universe that’s 90+ billion light years across. That’s 90 billion times 5.88 trillion miles across. That’s more than 522,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 miles across. And that’s just the visible universe. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Imagine for a moment sitting in prison, or awaiting a life threatening surgery, or heading into yet another round of chemotherapy. We decide to sit down and write a letter to our wife, husband, children, or dear friend. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment a...

Timely, then, are the readings for Mass this week, for they are all related to the topics of mercy, forgiveness and judgment. Even this passage from Romans comes in the context of Paul warning the community to be very careful in their behavior towards one another, lest they end up passing judgment on the servant of another (i.e.,God). ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow...

It’s often noted that the simple key to problem solving is to define the problem. If we were to apply that simple logic to the mess that is the world, the country, the Church, what would be the answer? A newspaper supposedly posed that very question to its readers more than 100 years ago. The famous writer and Catholic G.K. Chesterton supposedly sent in his response. It read: “Dear Sirs: I am. Sin...

Paul urges us to present our bodies as “a living sacrifice.” This was written to people who, unlike us, were very familiar with ritual animal sacrifices... ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!

The simple reality, Paul writes, is that God’s ways are not our ways. Our puny, finite minds simply cannot understand what He is about, the plan He has, and how it is all going to be fulfilled. He is God and we are dust and ashes ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a...

The problem was that since the Jewish people were part of the original human project it turns out they were in “the ditch” too, hopelessly bound by Sin and Death. The “tow truck” also needed to be rescued. In such a hopeless predicament, how could humanity ever be rescued?  ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online si...

Over and over in these chapters Paul reminds the Church in Rome that God has not and will not ever reject His promise to the Israelites. Furthermore, he reminds the Gentiles in the Church that they are “wild branches” that have been “grafted” onto the tree that is the Jewish people. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our onlin...

In the political landscape, well, does anyone really trust our leaders – no matter their party affiliation? ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!

For those who believe in God, however, and not just a god, but the God who has revealed Himself to be Love, then suffering, pain, injustice and the rest can become very problematic indeed. Nobody asks more questions of God about suffering than Scripture. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our wee...

Personally, I hate the feeling of being weak, in any way. Yet, the Holy Spirit seems to be telling us through Paul that we need weakness. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!

Paul reminds us of a most important truth. There, he teaches us that while suffering is never a good, it can be used for good things. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!

As I prayed with this, I was immediately struck by how relevant that little detail is for so many of us. How tempted I am to think that many of the things that other people, or other ministries, need I must also need. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment abo...

Americans don’t usually like bad news. Oh, to be sure, we seem to enjoy reading other people’s “dirty laundry,” as an 80’s song once put it. But confronting the reality of demons who hate and are seeking to degrade, enslave and destroy us…? Uh, no thanks. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our we...

We live in a time which is simultaneously permissive in the extreme while being merciless on anyone who makes mistakes. Our society makes no allowance for those who have messed up… there can be no redemption. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this p...

What is the role of a father? A way to break this open is to understand that fatherhood essentially includes imparting identity, living unconditional love, and speaking words of authority. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!...

In the story of the Good Shepherd in John’s gospel we read that, “The sheep hear His voice, and He calls his own sheep by name” (Jn. 10:3). Do you know that? Do you believe that? The Good Shepherd calls you by name. The One who named every star He breathed has a name for you too. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online s...

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age” (Mt 28:18-20). ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming...

Jesus has never said that our life should be a desert journey. If we understand the Christian life in this way, it should not surprise us that many turn their backs on the Church and Christianity and just go on to other traditions that promise peace, joy, and a full life. This is a reaction, not against Christianity, but against a type of Christianity that has lost its authenticity. ======= Seekin...

Jesus told His disciples, and us, that it would be better for us if He left, so that another Advocate could come (cf. John 16:7). At first glance, this doesn’t make sense. ======= Seeking to be even more encouraged and inspired? Follow our online streaming channel . Visit us at our online site . Subscribe to our weekly communications Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us!