St. Josemaria Institute Podcast

In this podcast, Fr. Javier del Castillo leads us to pray and reflect with humility on the mystery and eternal love of the Holy Trinity: God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have been in love, from all eternity, before the foundation of the world," explains Fr. Javier. “Because that love is so great… the Holy Trinity has freely chosen to create us, to have creatures with which they can share this great happiness that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit have had from all eternity.”Especially as we prepare to celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, we recognize that our hearts and minds cannot fully understand this great mystery of faith. "It's too big to fit in our minds. And yet, through faith, it has been revealed to us that it exists and that truly it is the end of our existence. We know that there must be something we do not know towards which we feel driven, and that is the Blessed Trinity, in whose image we are made." In baptism, the Holy Trinity sanctifies us and elevates us to a new level of children of God.Visit Show PageView TranscriptSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

This week, we're sharing a bonus episode as we end the Month of May dedicated to Our Lady!In this podcast, Fr. Eric Nicolai helps us reflect on the times when our faith and trust in God may seem quite fragile, even weak. In these moments, Fr. Eric explains, St. Josemaria would recommend recourse to little aspirations, glances at images of our Lady and other simple devotions, because these small acts end up awakening something within us. Mary seems to stir up devotion in us. She awakens our faith and makes us strong. She helps us, as St. Josemaria would say, to “stir up that fire of faith. Christ is not a figure that has passed. He is not a memory that is lost in history.” She does this because she was both the Mother of God, and our Mother. She has two motherhoods. She is twice a mother. First she became the mother of God when consenting freely to the incarnation, her “Fiat" made her mother of Jesus. But then she became mother again, when she stood at the foot of the Cross, and became our mother at the request of Jesus, by taking care of John. But that too required a Fiat.Visit Show PageView TranscriptSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, Fr. Javier del Castillo helps us prepare for the great solemnity of Pentecost by guiding us to ask ourselves: What is my relationship with the Holy Spirit? Am I docile? Do I listen?  "Wherever the Spirit is, there is newness, there is life," explains Fr. Javier. "There is definitely a difference between what the Apostles were before, and what the Apostles are after they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 2:1-11). And, "it's the power of humility... of the docility of the Apostles that let go and let God. Let God the Holy Spirit act in and through them in spite of their own weaknesses..." Fr. Javier says that, "Our Lord is challenging us to be docile to the Spirit. And, to be docile means to give the Holy Spirit a blank check... It means to take a risk, it means that we won't know where He comes from and we don't know where we're going. But we know we're in sure hands. And that's what it means to commit ourselves to the Christian life."  We ask the Holy Spirit "to come in a new Pentecost" to each one of us today to help us be docile in order to let God into our lives and to take us wherever He wills. We also ask the Holy Spirit for His gifts, especially wisdom, to understand the ways of God and to understand the things of the world from God's point of view.Visit Show PageView TranscriptSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, Fr. Peter Armenio reflects on Christ’s last words before his Ascension issuing the commission to his disciples to preach the Gospel to every creature. In fact this commission is a “global apostolic assignment” that will remain until the end of time. It is an assignment, “to make disciples of all nations,” that reaches us today and should encompass every dimension of our lives as Christians. “Out of a hundred souls we are interested in a hundred,” said St. Josemaria Escriva. This means, as Fr. Peter explains, that “we need to reach for the peripheries… those people completely alienated from Christ.” To do this effectively will require that we get out of our comfort zones with God's help. It also requires that our apostolic spirit and evangelization "come from the heart and from the gut," says Fr. Peter. "We have to love so much that we will take the risk of being rejected, and being judged, and being labeled.” Visit Show PageView TranscriptSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, Msgr. Fred Dolan reflects on the profound role for Our Lady in our lives as Christians and our need “to embrace Our Lady to remind her of how much we love her.” He especially reflects on the meaning and devotion to the Holy Rosary and how it is an expression we can you use to repeat our love for Our Lady “again and again and again.”As St. Josemaria Escriva wrote: “Today as in other times, the rosary must be a powerful weapon, to enable us to win in our interior struggle and to help all souls. Exalt holy Mary with your tongue: God asks you for reparation, and for praise from your lips. May you always want to know how to spread peace and happiness throughout the world, through this beautiful devotion to our Lady, and through your watchful love.”View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In our podcast of the week, Fr. Donncha O hAodha reflects on the title of Our Lady, Queen of Peace, on this anniversary of the Dedication of the Prelatic Church of Opus Dei (May 2). The church was built by St. Josemaria Escriva as the central church of Opus Dei, the heart of the Prelature, in Rome. And he dedicated it to Our Lady of Peace.Like all of Our Lady’s titles, “Queen of Peace” stems from her motherhood, from being the Mother of Jesus Christ who is our peace. “For he is our peace… he came and preached peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near” (Ephesians 2:14,17). Therefore, as Fr. Donncha explains, in the image and title “Queen of Peace,” we see how she is “full of joy and full of peace that comes from redemption, from salvation, from Our Lord’s cross, death, and resurrection. And that’s the peace that can never ever be taken away. And that’s also our peace."“In the advocation of Mary, Queen of Peace, we read, we sense, we feel, we understand, all the joy of Redemption because Christ is our peace.” It is suitable, therefore, that title of the church designated by St. Josemaria would be Our Lady, Queen of Peace, because the Church is the place of peace and reconciliation—“where the peace of Our Lord, merited for us on the Cross, pours forth.”View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, Msgr. Fred Dolan reflects on the image of Christ as the Good Shepherd. The Gospel of John gives us the image of the Good Shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep. This image captures the selfless, sacrificial love Christ has for each one of us.Further, Msgr. Dolan explains that we too are called to be good shepherds in our ordinary lives. We are called to have a constant concern for souls. He encourages us to pray about our role in the lives of others and stresses the importance of building community to create fruitful interactions with each other. In doing so, we become imitators of the love of Christ and good shepherds in our world today.The TED Talk featuring Pope Francis referenced in this podcast can be viewed online via YouTube.View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, Fr. Peter Armenio reflects on the continual call toward conversion as we strengthen our faith in Jesus Christ. Drawing on the familiar story of the road to Emmaus, Fr. Peter encourages us to persevere in our daily prayer and to remain faithful through the moments in which we may not always recognize the presence of Christ.St. Josemaria explains: “Persevere in prayer. Persevere, even when your efforts seem sterile. Prayer is always fruitful” (The Way, no. 101).View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast for the Easter Octave, Fr. Leo Agustina takes us to the morning of the Resurrection when Mary Magdalene first encountered the risen Lord. He reminds us how “we know that it’s the morning of the Resurrection, but she didn’t know that.” Mary was just “trying to cope with the reality of Jesus being dead.” But that morning Jesus spoke to Mary Magdalene asking her, “Why are you weeping? Whom are you looking for?” In the voice that she recognized, he said her name in such a way that she immediately knew it was him. As Fr. Leo explains: “In every person’s life, there will be an encounter like the one that Mary Magdalene had… when everything seemed to be shut down, when humanity felt lost, where there was no hope.” But then Jesus Christ calls us by name, in a voice we also recognize, and he tells us to continue the legacy of Mary Magdalene and go to our brothers and to the whole world to tell them that “Christ is alive.”View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!

In this podcast, as we continue our Lenten devotions, Fr. Peter Armenio explores the theme of taking up the yoke of Jesus in order to follow him. Following Jesus inevitably entails bearing our cross daily of which suffering is the raw material: “Whether it's emotional, mental, psychological, moral, spiritual, physical, that's the raw material.”We all experience suffering to a greater or lesser degree. The key is not to turn away from suffering or to give up following Jesus when our suffering, our cross, seemingly becomes too great to bear. Rather we must become the grain of wheat that falls to the earth and dies; in doing so, we become Christ to others. As Fr. Peter says, “I become intimately part of the Holy Mass, the Eucharistic sacrifice, if I die with Him, if I connect with His cross, I become Christ.”In this podcast, you will also hear how:The cry of modern society is to see Jesus, and he wants his followers to show him to others through the witness of their lives.Two young people used their illness and suffering to become grains of wheat and gave life to others through their unity with Christ.When we connect with the cross of Christ, we “buy grace” for others, and as we do so, we become that “grain of wheat.”View TranscriptVisit Show PageSupport the showTHANK YOU FOR LISTENING!Let us know that our podcast is important to you: Share your favorite episodes with others and leave us a rating or review. Stay connected with us on Facebook and Instagram. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: www.stjosemaria.org Also, if you enjoy the podcast, please consider helping us keep our episodes free and accessible for all our listeners: Give today!