Dare to Dwell: A Podcast with the Daughters of St. Paul

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re diving into another set of common struggles that arise in our prayer lives, from God staying quiet to the perils of overthinking to the struggle to trust God.Check out our previous episode for the first half of our discussion on prayer.Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: ForgivenPassage about Elijah and the still small voice: 1 Kings 19:11-18St. Paul on being careful not to fall: 1 Corinthians 10:12St. Paul on bad company: 1 Corinthians 15:33St. Paul on being a fool: 2 Corinthians 11On the will of God: 1 Thessalonians 4:3St. Paul on longing for eternal life: Philippians 1:20–26Pope Saint John Paul II’s encyclical on mercy, Dives in misericordiaPrayer prompt inspired by this episode: Sit with one of these passages from Scripture mentioned in the episode. Talk to St. Paul or another favorite saint or biblical figure about your current biggest struggle in prayer, and see whether any advice resounds in your heart. Finish by asking them to pray for you and intercede in your relationship with Jesus.Prayer prompt 2: Estimate how long you can comfortably sit quietly in silent prayer, repeating Jesus’ name or quietly listening for the voice of God (whether it's thirty seconds, five minutes, a whole hour)... Then sit a minute longer.STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaulYouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaulTwitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingShop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re talking about prayer—how to do it, what to expect, and what might get in the way.Thanks for joining us, and thank you to all of the SEEK participants who joined us!Sr. Orianne and Sr. Allison Regina wrote a book about confession! Check it out here: ForgivenPrayer prompt inspired by this episode: Pick one of the "rote" prayers you know by heart, like the Our Father, Hail Mary, or Glory Be–and pray it super slowly and intentionally, as if you were saying it for the first time. Pay attention to the meaning of each word and, rather than praying it alone, allow the Holy Spirit to pray it in you.STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaulYouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaulTwitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingShop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/ sThank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

This season, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta share some of the interviews the sisters did with college students and campus ministers at the SEEK24 conference in St. Louis. Each episode will focus on a topic the students brought up. Today, we’re talking about distraction in prayer--what causes it, practical ways to move past it, and sharing that you’re not alone with whatever is getting in the way of you focusing on your relationship with God.Thanks for joining us!Check out Msgr. Shea’s talk from SEEK24 here: Why Are We So Depressed?Resources for those struggling with pornographyChastity ProjectMagdala Ministries (Especially for Catholic women)https://fightthenewdrug.org (Secular Resources)Book: Cleansed: A Catholic Guide to Freedom from PornResources from the USCCB WebsiteSTAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaulYouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaulTwitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingShop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

Sr. Maria Grace is an editor and author from Pauline Books and Media, specializing in children's literature. She joins the hosts to explore the vital role of fiction in children's faith education. They delve into how stories can ignite a desire for Jesus, using insights from C.S. Lewis and Tolkien. The conversation highlights various fiction forms, including Bible picture books and whimsical tales, illustrating how these stories can bridge the gap between faith and imagination, making the gospel relatable for young hearts.

In today’s episode, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Sr. Allison Regina, and talk some of the fictional stories they’ve encountered that helped them to know the Lord in a new or deeper way. Then they remembered that Sr. Allison Regina has written fiction with God in it, so they put her on the spot and asked her about that experience.  1.    Check out our Nuns React video about Moana: https://youtu.be/ZtK7EMbdF_02.    Visit Sr. Allison Regina’s page on our website and learn more about her books for kids and teens: https://pauline.org/staff/sr-allison-regina-gliot/A Storyteller’s PrayerLoving Creator God, you have made me in your image and have given me a share in your own creative power. You have given me the awesome call to listen deeply and to gently hold and nurture the fragile breath of inspiration. Allow a new understanding of truth and beauty to come into being in me. Work in me as I decisively shape and mold intuition into words and stories. Teach me how to nurture this gift of creativity, and to believe that you want to work through me. Slow me down so that I can listen attentively. I trust that you will inspire me, guide me, lead me. Jesus, Master Storyteller, you who are the very Incarnation of the Father’s being, help me to image the mystery of God and of the human person in what I write. You used the power of image, story, and proverb to communicate the freshness of your message. May my storytelling—whether spoken, written, or visual—open the human soul to the sense of the eternal. Let everything I write celebrate the wonder and sacredness of human life, uplifting those who will hear, read, or see what I write. Holy Spirit, illumine me from within; give me new vision; fill my heart with your freedom and my decisions with your energy. Stir up my creative intuition and give me the courage to write honestly and deeply, past all fear. Make of me a prophet, speaking your truth with freshness and relevance. May everything I write contain a glimmer of your beauty. Make of my stories and, above all, the story of my life, masterpieces that reflect your glory. Amen.STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaulYouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaulTwitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingShop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: http://connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

In today’s episode, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Sr. Allison Regina to talk about using fictional stories in evangelization and catechesis, and as a way of building our faith. They also talk about storytelling as a form of creation that happens in imitation of God, our Father and Creator.1.    Story Nathan tells to David: 2 Samuel 12:1–102.    From Flannery O’Connor’s Mystery and Manners:The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions. It is a good deal easier for most people to state an abstract idea than to describe and thus re-create some object that they actually see. But the world of the fiction writer is full of matter, and this is what the beginning fiction writers are very loath to create. They are concerned primarily with unfleshed ideas and emotions. They are apt to be reformers and to want to write because they are possessed not by a story but by the bare bones of some abstract notion. They are conscious of problems, not of people, of questions and issues, not of the texture of existence, of case histories and of everything that has a sociological smack, instead of with all those concrete details of life that make actual the mystery of our position on earth.The Manicheans separated spirit and matter. To them all material things were evil. They sought pure spirit and tried to approach the infinite directly without any mediation of matter. This is also pretty much the modern spirit, and for the sensibility infected with it, fiction is hard if not impossible to write because fiction is so very much an incarnational art.One of the most common and saddest spectacles is that of a person of really fine sensibility and acute psychological perception trying to write fiction by using these qualities alone. This type of writer will put down one intensely emotional or keenly perceptive sentence after the other, and the result will be complete dullness. The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn’t try to write fiction. It’s not a grand enough job for you.Now when the fiction writer finally gets this idea through his head and into his habits, he begins to realize what a job of heavy labor the writing of fiction is. A lady who writes, and whom I admire very much, wrote me that she had learned from Flaubert that it takes at least three activated sensuous strokes to make an object real; and she believes that this is connected with our having five senses. If you’re deprived of any of them, you’re in a bad way, but if you’re deprived of more than two at once, you almost aren’t present.O’Connor, Flannery, Robert Fitzgerald, and Sally Fitzgerald. Mystery and Manners. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1993.Call to action:1.    Consider, what is a fictional story that has touched you? Can you pray about that?2.    Prayer for all the Media, by Bl. James Alberione:We adore you, O Lord, Creator of heaven and earth. We thank you for having placed at the disposition of humanity such a wealth of goods for the present life and eternal life. “All these are yours; but you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God” (see 1 Cor 3:23).O Jesus, Divine Master, in your mercy enlighten and direct us so that all the discoveries and means of social communication may be used for edifying and uplifting, never for spiritual or human ruin.Today we pray for all the media. We offer you, Jesus Master, our prayers and our daily apostolate to atone for the misuse of these gifts and to ask of you that everything may be for the glory of God and peace to humanity. Amen.STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Instagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaughterStPaulYouTube: YouTube.com/daughterstpaulTwitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingShop Catholic Books: https://paulinestore.com/Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of St. Paul, also known as “The Media Nuns,” are missionaries sent forth in the spirit of Saint Paul the Apostle, called to proclaim the Gospel to the world through the most effective means of communication. Pauline Books and Media is a mission of the Daughters of St. Paul that publishes Catholic books for the whole family. To learn more, visit https://pauline.org/

After a long (long) time away, we're back and ready to go with several bonus episodes and a whole season coming down the road! In this super informal episode, we just take a minute to explain what happened, and give a preview of what's coming. Spoiler: Sr. Benedicta made her final vows! Here's an image she drew while she was praying and preparing for perpetual profession. The explanation of the art is below. God bless you all, and we'll talk again soon!-------Hearts of Jesus, Mary, and Paul by Sr. Julie Marie BenedictaTogether with the traditional images of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, center, and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, right, there is an illustration of the Heart of St. Paul.St. John Chrysostom, commenting on Paul’s desire to perfectly imitate Jesus, wrote, “the heart of Paul is the heart of Christ.”This imagining of the heart of St. Paul incorporates the thorn in his flesh (2 Cor 12:7), his having been spiritually crucified with Christ (Gal 2:19), the chains he wore for the sake of the Gospel (Acts 28:20), and the fire of love which inflamed his heart (2 Cor 5:14).The words in Latin are all words of Jesus:Sufficit tibi gratia mea: My grace is sufficient for you (2 Cor 12:9)Ecce mater tua: Behold, your mother (John 19:27)Venite ad me omnes: Come to me, all of you (Matt 11:28)Ego sum via et veritas et vita: I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6)Symbols of the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, and the means of communication surround the image of the hearts.

In today’s episode, Sr. Allison Regina and Sr. Julie Benedicta are joined by Fr. Cassidy Stinson to share their reflections on living as media apostles in the world. “A priest pours water on the head of a child while saying mysterious words; the minister of God extends his consecrated hand over the repentant sinner and says: “I absolve you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” But underneath these things, underneath these causes, true prodigies are performed. St. Thomas does not hesitate to say that the justification of a single sinner is a greater work than the creation of the world.” – Archbishop Luis Martinez, The Sanctifier Chapter 8 Fr. Cassidy’s Social Media: Twitter | Instagram Find out more about the Media Apostle Retreat: Are you a Catholic actor, producer, writer, author, journalist, musical artist, designer, or digital evangelist?  We are calling all media pros to join the Daughters of St. Paul on an exclusive retreat created just for you to be fortified in Christ and immersed in the Pauline media spirituality- a weekend to retreat and strengthen you in your craft. It is a time for you to join like-minded media apostles to pray, retreat and dream into your calling! Join the Daughters of Saint Paul at the upcoming East Coast Media Apostle Retreat for the West Coast Media Apostle Retreat on January 3 to 5 in Malibu, CA. Register now: https://connect.pauline.org/MediaApostle    STAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingInstagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaYouTube.com/daughterstpaul Thank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of Saint Paul

Season 5 Concluding PrayerA standalone episode for those who would like to simply pray the Chaplet to the Holy Spirit.Holy Spirit Chaplet: For Printing | For MobileThis season was brought to you by The Sanctifier, by Archbishop Luis Martinez.You don’t need to have the book to follow along, but if you’d like to get a copy, you can find it here:  Paperback: PaulineStore.com | Amazon  eBook: Kindle | KoboSTAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingInstagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaYouTube.com/daughterstpaulThank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of Saint Paul

Season 5 Episode 17: Season Wrap-Up and some Eschatological MusingsIn today’s episode, Sr. Orianne Pietra René and Sr. Julie Benedicta wrap up the season and talk about some of our favorite points from the book, and then launch into a long reflection on how great Heaven is going to be!Thanks for joining us this season! We’ll catch up with you again in a few months!“As the Holy Spirit gives himself to us forever and desires that his action, as far as possible, be constant in our souls, our correspondence, our devotion, must be a total, definitive, and perpetual surrender, a true consecration.” – Archbishop Martinez, The Sanctifier, Ch 19“Consequently, the cross, the supreme symbol of love and pain, is the consummation of devotion to the Holy Spirit and therefore of Christian life and perfection.” – Archbishop Martinez, The Sanctifier, Ch 19You don’t need to have the book to follow along, but if you’d like to get a copy, you can find it here:  Paperback: PaulineStore.com | Amazon  eBook: Kindle | KoboSr. Orianne’s article on Shadow and Bone for the Pauline Center for Media StudiesCall to action:1.    Spend some time reflecting with the question: Can I let God catch me off guard and surprise me? Do I want to let him change me?2.    What was your favorite theme from this season? Consider spending some time in adoration or other prayer space in a conversation with God about that topic.Holy Spirit Chaplet: For Printing | For MobileSTAY IN TOUCH WITH US!Twitter: @DaughterStPaul and @PBMPublishingInstagram: @DaughterStPaul and @PaulineBooksAndMediaYouTube.com/daughterstpaulThank you for listening. Leave us a rating and review on your favorite platform so that others can discover and listen to us too!Thank you to our supporters on Patreon who make this podcast possible!Support us and find out more: connect.pauline.org/PatreonThe Daughters of Saint Paul