Thoughts from the Trailer with Fr. John Riccardo

How might we best enter into this season of grace, especially the first half, which is something like an extended examination of conscience, before we start to focus on preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ triumphal Passion, Death and Resurrection? ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Jesus’ prayer for the unity of all those who believe in Him is one that I fear many of us — myself very much included — do not usually take anywhere seriously enough. In His farewell discourses in John, the Lord’s motive for this unity is twofold: that the world will believe the Father sent Him and that the world may know that God loves them even as He does His Son (cf. John 17:11-23). ======= Hav...

...the peace God and God alone can give and does give is able to calm our hearts and minds even when things all around us are on fire, whether literally or figuratively. The peace of Jesus can reign in us regardless of whether or not the circumstances of life or up or down. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As we turn the calendar and continue to read and watch stories of ongoing violence, wars, and division, let us call upon the intercession of Peter and Paul, and invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to fall upon us, that we may somehow further and advance the peace that only God can give and bring to the creature made in His image and likeness whom He so loves. ======= Have a comment about this podc...

As we enter into this new year, mindful of the division, resentment, anger, enmity and more that are tearing apart the human race, let us call upon the intercession of St. Stephen and his friend and brother, St. Paul. May their powerful prayers help us to see one another as we should, as brothers and sisters. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXI...

Emmanuel doesn’t merely mean “God is with us,” as in “God is in our midst.” It means, “God is on our side.” He has come for us. Because for some unimaginable and unexplainable reason, the Creator of all that is is passionately in love with us! May the Holy Spirit overwhelm us anew in these holy days we are about to enter. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More A...

In these introductory verses to the Church in Rome, Paul tells us that the good news of King Jesus’ victory over the powers of Death and Sin had been promised previously through the prophets. There are scores of prophecies about what and how God is going to defeat these cosmic powers, but none of them just come out and say “God is going to become a man and rescue His creation.” We might be incline...

Generally speaking, the Latin word adventus means coming, or arrival. But there’s much more behind this word than meets the eye. You wouldn’t use it to describe, say, grandma coming for Thanksgiving (no offense to grandmas!). Adventus was an empire word. It had to do with a very specific ceremony in the Roman Empire. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About...

Advent is a time to prepare ourselves to celebrate the single most important event in the history of the universe: God becoming man to rescue His good creation from cosmic powers we could never defeat on our own and thus reconcile us to Himself and one another. It’s also a time to prepare ourselves for the very real day when this God-man will return as triumphant King to definitively make all thin...

This week, as we celebrate with family and friends – and remember and miss greatly those family and friends who once sat with us and are now waiting for us on the other side of the veil – it would seem that burying ourselves in various psalms of thanksgiving would be a most appropriate thing to do. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

This coming Sunday is the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. What a name for a feast! That said, writing as an American, ours is a nation that doesn’t like kings all that much. Kings often conjure up in our minds images of men seated on thrones, living in luxury, remote from their people, who are often living much simpler and harder lives. How then are we to enter into, let alone cel...

As we draw nearer to the end of the liturgical year with next week’s solemnity of Christ the King, there is an increasingly urgent tone in the Scriptures. This coming Sunday, God’s Word through the prophet Malachi warns us that “the Day is coming,” that is the Day of King Jesus’ return, of wrapping up history, of judgment, and of making all things new. This “Day” is a certainty. It’s going to happ...

Paul says that Jesus didn’t lay down His life for His friends. In fact, Jesus died for His enemies! Jesus died, Paul writes, for the ungodly! Who does things like this? Nobody does things like this. Nobody willingly dies for their enemy, for bad people, for the ungodly, for the wicked. Nobody but God that is. And by so doing, Jesus turned enemies into friends and the ungodly and the wicked into be...

Memento mori was a common expression in days gone by. It’s Latin for “remember death.” The expression served as a reminder that one real day we will be like those we pray for now. Hopefully, people will be praying for you and me when that day comes. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Every Sunday morning, a notice pops up on my phone. It probably does on yours too.“You averaged X hours of screen time a day last week,” it proclaims. Some weeks the amount of time is downright alarming. Imagine, instead, what would happen if a notice popped up that said, “You averaged X hours of time in the Word of God a day last week”?  Think our lives would be different — less anxious...

Paul tells us how important it is for us to persevere. What’s more, he reminds us for what exactly we are persevering: so as to reign! In other words, it’s worth it. The Greek word Paul uses could alternatively be translated as remain, endure, don’t be moved off your spot, be patient. Perhaps, most simply, it means to stand. Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About...

The fact that the command, “Do not be afraid” is the most common command in the whole Bible tells me that it must be the thing that I need to hear the most! But though I have the feeling of fear, I do not have to let it control me. This is what John Paul II was constantly saying to the world. And this is what Paul is saying to us this week. Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To L...

In these days of intense feelings, often hostile rhetoric, and worse, let us be very careful how we speak about others. And most of all, first of all, with utmost confidence in God’s mercy and power, let us pray for them — perhaps especially for those we find it most difficult to love or like. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Saint Mother Teresa, whose feast day we recently celebrated, heard Jesus one day in prayer give what to me is the single greatest commentary on this ”picture.” In a world increasingly fearful, lonely, and longing for love, it seems so very timely. As you read what He said to her, please know He is saying this now to you and to me. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear the voice of the Lord Jesus, t...

As we eavesdrop on Paul teaching Philemon this week, he’s teaching us too. The world is still divided between “us” and “them” — just read the news. The call on the disciple of Jesus is still to announce the good news that the entire human race has been rescued from the powers of Sin and Death, and the subsequent enslaving forces of division, hatred and more. But not just to announce it. To put the...

The most unjust, horrific, hideous act in human history took place on Calvary some two thousand years ago now. There, on that hill, the God who is Love, gave Himself into the hands of the creature He had fashioned out of love for friendship, and was torn to shreds, quite literally. Why? So that we might be rescued from the clutches of the powers of Sin and Death, into whose grip we had fallen as a...

So God — God! — came to our rescue. Personally. He didn’t wave a magic wand. He didn’t send an angel. He came Himself. As a man. And the rescue happened by His going to the cross, a most shameful, humiliating and painful way to die. What looked like a defeat was in fact a victory, because Jesus on the cross isn’t just a victim, He’s the aggressor; He’s not just hunted, He’s hunting. Our enemy. And...

There’s a reason why teams want to play their big games at home. Tens of thousands of cheering fans, often whipped up into a frenzy by anything from cheer leaders to yell leaders, somehow inspire and perhaps even enable highly skilled athletes to do things that they could never do otherwise. Accordingly, the home crowd is often referred to as “the 12th man” in football. ======= Have a comment abou...

We in ACTS XXIX would gently like to suggest, however, that it is not enough in these days in which we are living to simply be pilgrims of hope. We must also be heralds of hope. We live in the midst of a world that is riddled by fear, division, anger, depression, despair and so much more. As disciples of Jesus, that is, as men and women who have encountered Someone who has entirely changed our liv...

Our speech can be immensely damaging to others, and in our modern society we are exposed almost constantly to harsh, slanderous, malicious, and obscene speech. As disciples of Jesus, the way we talk and write is supposed to stand out, to be different, to be noticed by not sounding like the world at large. In doing so, we can help the world become more genuinely human.. ======= Have a comment about...