St. Josemaria Institute Podcast

In this podcast for the Second Week of Advent, Fr. Peter Armenio directs our attention to the metaphors of conversion found in the gospel description of St. John the Baptist: "A voice of one crying in the desert, 'prepare the way of the Lord, make straight His paths.'" We, too, want to be imitators of John the Baptist, "albeit in a flawed and imperfect way," as Fr. Peter explains. He points out, "It’s not about my talents, my gifts, my skills; but it is about letting that Christ who lives in me through Baptism, to let him grow so He reveals Himself […] through myself, being an imperfect vessel, but a vessel of Jesus Christ, nevertheless.”During these days of Advent, our calling is to "put on Jesus Christ" more intentionally so as to let His life and His love be revealed through us. Only in this way can we make Christ "real" to those who earnestly seek Him. And, as St. Josemaria wrote, we have two points of entry available to us: "the Bread and the Word." By constantly nourishing ourselves with Scripture and the Eucharist, we will be better equipped to abide in Him amid the busyness of our daily lives.View Transcript Visit 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. Fred Dolan reminds us how this time of meditation and prayer is so important to preparing ourselves for the feast of Christmas, especially because Our Lord wants us to make the resolution "to have our eyes wide open in order to discover all the growth that must be taking place on the inside" during this season of Advent.Fr. Dolan explains how our interior growth greatly depends on our acknowledging our dignity as God's beloved children. The core of our identities and our deepest realities comes from the fact that we are children of God. And, our personal worth depends on God's love who has created us and who has big dreams for us.Therefore, one of the consequences of reflecting on our divine filiation will be "supernatural vision"--learning how to see God's providence in everything. Because, as Fr. Dolan says, "we do not know what is good for us... but we think we do. We have our own plans for happiness and too often we merely regard God as somebody who will help us accomplish them. The true state of affairs is just the opposite. God has his plans for our happiness. And, he is waiting for us to help Him accomplish those plans."As we wait for the coming of the Christ Child, let us ask Him in our prayer today: What are you up to in my life and the lives of all those in my household? We cannot improve on God's plans because His path is the only path leads us to the greatest fruitfulness and joy. 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 First Week of Advent, Fr. Fred Dolan helps us to reflect on this time that we are given to prepare for that central moment in history when God took on our flesh and began to walk among us. Advent is a time to ready ourselves for our eventual meeting with the very person whom we are awaiting and trying to imitate, Our Lord Jesus Christ.Advent, therefore, is a time for conversion. We should not be content with making a few small adjustments that really don’t make much of a difference in our transformation in Christ. Instead, we should aim for the stars seeking the kind of transformation and conversion that the Holy Spirit longs to bring about in our souls so that we can become what he wants us to become. We want a conversion that reaches every aspect of our being.Through the intercession of Our Lady, we can ask for growth in the contemplative spirit so that we decide freely and lovingly to find Our Lord in everything we do and to allow us to see everything from God’s point of view.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 fact that "we're not called to make it [to Heaven] by the skin of our teeth." We are called to make use of all of our time on earth to become saints. But, as St. Josemaria Escriva said, "Time is short, too short to love!" Therefore, Our Lord wants us always to have an overarching goal, which is holiness.This doesn't mean that we don't have other interests, explains Fr. Peter, or that we must become indifferent to everything else. What it does mean is that we are called to make this phrase our mission statement: "I'm going to put the love of Christ into everything I do."Rather than fearing the judgment of God at the end of our lives, Fr. Peter counsels us to be afraid of not having loved enough. "The meaning of human life, and especially Christian life," he says, "is to fill [our] day with deeds of love." And, in this way, to become saints.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 explains an important aspect regarding the Communion of Saints: "the holier you are, the more you help the Church, the more you help the world; it's that simple, that challenging as well." If we want to help the Church, we need to become holier, so that by our deeds of love and charity we will draw many souls to Christ.St. Josemaria Escriva said, "The Communion of Saints. How shall I explain it to you? You've heard what blood transfusions do for the body. Well, that's what the Communion of Saints does for the soul" (The Way, no. 544). The Lord calls us to sanctity, and illustrates the meaning of sanctity by preaching to us about the corporal works of mercy. Our Lord's heart contains everyone, the whole Church, such that whatever we do for the least among us, we do for Our Lord, Himself. And our works of love can also go so far as to merit great spiritual benefit for the holy souls in purgatory, who will in turn help us by their prayers."The results of the Communion of Saints are real," says Fr. Peter, "and they surface, not immediately, but surely [...] the ones who extend the Kingdom are those intimately united to Christ."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. Javier del Castillo shares the importance and conditions for transmitting our gift of faith, “especially to our loved ones and especially to our children.” Recognizing that faith is a gift that all Christians receive at baptism, the main thing that our children (and everyone around us) must see is whether we are willing to live and die for our faith.Fr. Javier explains that to live by faith means, “I have to give witness, not a counter witness… I have to preach with my life. I have to preach with my deeds, transmitting the faith.” Because “ultimately, it’s going to be our example… it’s going to be whether or not we believe it, whether or not we put it into practice, in how we actually carry out our lives.”We must strive to live and die for our faith if we hope “to teach our children that they have to be men and women of their word, that they have to be men and women who stand up to their commitments… able to take risks for Our Lord, and when the risk goes bad that they stick and they stand up for Our Lord.”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. Eric Nicolai reminds us that praying the Way of the Cross can often be a moment of conversion for a soul that feels impelled by the realization that Jesus suffered out of love for us. It makes us want to undertake greater things in our life, and to open our heart to the call of God. He explains that, “for us to do something truly great, it must somehow be a response to God’s grace, God’s transformative love.”After Peter betrayed Jesus, he experienced that gaze from Jesus in the courtyard and it was everything he needed to undertake the adventure of being a true apostle. A vocation is always a call to greater love and greater magnanimity. Many have launched into their vocations after experiencing the penetrating and loving gaze of Jesus in their prayer.Have you experienced the gaze of Jesus in your life of prayer?Take time each day to let Jesus look at you with all the tenderness and affection of His love, and you will soon discover a loving desire to do great things for Him too.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. Donncha helps us consider that the Christian vocation to holiness rests upon our ability to let God work in and through us. So often may believe that becoming saints is a matter of our own personal striving. Yet "holiness, to a great degree," he says, is "letting God work."He continues: "It's not a matter of gritting my teeth and straining my muscles...holiness is fundamentally going at God's pace. It's saying to Our Lord, with the spirit of Mary...'Let it be done unto me according to your word.'" If we want to become saints, we must allow Our Lord to shine forth in us according to His will.At the Wedding Feast of Cana, Mary notices the lack of wine and tells the servants, "Do whatever He tells you." Jesus says, to each of us, "Fill up these jars to the brim." We too will give all we can, without holding anything back. But then we will let Our Lord transform our efforts, "our poor water," into the choicest wine.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 examines three critical players in our spiritual life: the intellect, will, and heart. He offers a view of our life as a “journey back home,” relating the perilous journey in Homer’s Odyssey as a way of understanding the dangers confronting the Christian life in the modern world.“What a shame it would be,” he says, “to allow our day, our life, to be shipwrecked by the sirens of YouTube, a Netflix series, or Tik Tok.” Ultimately, Odysseus and his crew made it home because they knew the sirens were a “deadly menace,” and they did everything in their power to overcome them.If we form our intellect, will, and heart, giving each faculty its proper place, we too will overcome the obstacles that assail us on our journey Home. And we must totally commit to our destination: with all the power of our intellect, the strength of our will, and the passion of our heart.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 commemorates the canonization of St. Josemaria Escriva as well as the background of the founding of Opus Dei. He talks about the light St. Josemaria received on that fateful 2nd of October, after a decade of constant prayer, and how that light came to illuminate the rest of his life.We are also privileged to hear about Fr. Peter's own experience at the canonization of St. Josemaria, which he says was filled with people from all walks of life, and from many different countries and cultures. The ceremony itself, we learn, was a witness to the great impact of St. Josemaria's life on the whole world.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!