Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 11) As a shepherd, what are you willing to lay down for your sheep? For shepherds nowadays, and even in the times of the Apostle, the sheep are for the shepherd's sake, they serve him. It's not like vice versa, sheep are the product and we get them to pasture so they can grow, so we can slaughter them.  But this wasn't the case for Jesus, He said that "I am the good shepherd "and I lay down my life for my sheep." Jesus loves us this...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 10) Can you imagine how it feels for a parent when their child dies? A father and a mother don't want to lose any of their children and this is an icon of understanding how God doesn't want any of his children to be lost—how passionate God is about our salvation. God desires none to be lost. Today we'll talk about how we can walk towards life and away from death as a fruit of sin. We'll dive deeper into how we can keep the life of...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 9) Do you trust God's mercy? We are invited to bring to light those things that we are keeping in the dark, things that are tough, and trust that God in his mercy will love and care for us there. When we bring something to the Lord, it's forgiven and it's gone, He no longer sees us with that. He doesn't define us as a son or daughter who did this bad thing. To the Father's eyes, we are not defined by our sin and our weakness but by...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 8) What's your initial response to difficulty? Difficulty and suffering is something that's part of the world we live in and to move forward with the Lord we have to live in this reality, even though it's hard.  God is with us in it! One of the things a father also has to do is to teach their children and equip their children to do hard things. God the Father equips us and prepares us for what we need to have fulfillment and...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 7) What's the role that rules and laws play? Rules create boundaries and usually define the best way to do things. However, following rules can also NOT lead to freedom, this is why we need to learn to find the right balance in following the rules. In this episode, we will talk about the spirituality of laws and rules and how we can find balance to be safe, secure, and free in following them.  We are also invited to look at some of...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 6) What does it mean to be safe? Safety is not the absence of suffering, it's not like we're not going to struggle with anything but it's the recognition that when we are vulnerable, we don't have to escape it, because someone wants to be with us and provide for us and that is our Lord, Jesus Christ. This is the safety that we are proposing. In this episode, we're focusing on the necessity of having sufficient resources and true...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 5) What does it mean to be loved and celebrated? We are favored sons and daughters worthy of celebration—of being served. We are worthy and loved by God and this episode talks about a step in the right direction on what it means to be loved and celebrated. This is a gentle call to conversion and repentance, an invitation to allow ourselves to be loved sacrificially and give God and others permission to love and celebrate us. Here's...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 4) What does it mean to be made for freedom? We are all called to live in freedom as sons and daughters of God. The reality is we are seen, loved, and chosen by God the Father and there's freedom when we experience that. In this episode, we're going through the mechanics of freedom and learn more about how the experience of home and trust can help us understand that a little bit deeper. Here's the link to the graph that we referenced...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 3) Can you imagine how you would gaze upon your newborn baby for the first time? This is the way the Father loves everyone. He's constantly looking at us and is constantly delighting in us. The Father always looks at us with the same delight, love, and rejoicing as a father looks at his newborn for the first time. This is how our Heavenly Father looks at us, delights in us, rejoices in us and contemplates us right now.  When we feel...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 2) Do you know how much your heavenly Father delights in you? The part of the heart of the Father is to care for his children in whatever shape or form that would take. It might feel a lot or even tiresome but because of the uncalculated love of the father, the time when he gets to take care of and be with his children in this special way can be the best part of the father's day. In his children's poverty, in this exchange, and...

Series on "The Father" by Fr. Mark-Mary Ames, CFR (Part 1) How are you affected by the wounds you had from your earthly father? The life of St. Francis is a good example of how the wounds we have from our earthly father can be an access point to the heart of God. His wounds led him to embrace the heart of the Father through Jesus Christ.  It is a good reminder for all of us that Jesus is the way to the fatherhood of God, He is the interesession between the Father and our wounds and He...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 7) This holy week, how do you intend to receive Jesus' total gift for you? The fast during Lent is not to show Jesus how tough we are, it's to show him how poor we are. It's to be in the space of utter poverty and to trust that receptivity, that He will come. And what we are celebrating in this holy Triduum, this Holy Week, is Christ, giving himself to us as the bridegroom and espousing himself to us, His bride. We are...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 5) Does it have to end in just being able to receive God's unconditional love? Like Lazarus, the guy beat up on the side of the road. We who have been loved in such messiness are also invited to go into the mess, and love. This is a sign that God is alive in us. We now have the dignity of His beloved sons and daughters, of not just being the recipients of His unconditional love, but now being able to love, not only from our...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 6) Our expectations and what God is doing can be totally different, so how should we respond to that? In the raising of Lazarus, the response of the Pharisees was to have Jesus killed. This was the tragic response of the heart when they were not open and unable to receive the mysterious and unconditional love of God. We can sometimes share the same humanity as the Pharisees too. We sometimes prefer to have Jesus out of our...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 4) If you were the prodigal son would you receive the Father's unconditional love? The conversion that the Father wants us to have is to move on from a conditional, perfectionistic way of experiencing God to a place of just being unconditionally loved by Him. But we can sometimes hold onto shame for security, what is asked of us is to leave behind that shame—let the shame and self-contempt crumble. We don't need to "pay...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 3) Are you familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan? When we're beat up, when we're in this place of difficulty and shame, He's there, at the side of the road looking at us, desiring to pick us up and saying, "Come with me.". That's Jesus for all of us. The invitation of this episode is to allow the Lord to get close into our deepest places of darkness and shame so he can help us and love us there. Jesus actually comes...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 2) How does a bridegroom love his bride? That is how Jesus loves each one of us. He meets us wherever we are in our life to be our beloved and for us to be His. The Lord meets us in the desert-our place of poverty where He betroths us to Him and He betroths Himself to us. In this way, Jesus as the bridegroom reveals to us a quality of love, the way that God loves. In this episode, our aim is for us to better understand what...

Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 1) What does Jesus desire for you and Him this Lent?  The temptation during Lent is to make the Lenten journey about us, we can do hard things during Lent that are fueled by our own desires and distractions but Lent isn't supposed to be about ourselves. Lent is also not simply about prayer, fasting, and almsgiving. Those disciplines help us to focus on what we need to focus on. This season is about a person and that person is...

Series on "Mary and the Interior Life" by Fr. Jeremiah Shryock (Part 3) Do you remember Jesus and what he did?  The most consistent word Mary had spoken to Fr. Jeremiah, was "remember". When we don't know what to do or how to act, Mary tells us to remember her son, Jesus' actions, that was the case for Fr. Jeremiah and this is an invitation that extends to all of us. There is a richness and importance that Mary plays, for us not to have her be a part of our spiritual life.  We are invited...

Series on "Mary and the Interior Life" by Fr. Jeremiah Shryock (Part 2) Is your prayer and your life two separate realities?  Mary gives us a ton of hope that the grace of God and the Holy Spirit meet us in reality.  The Marian posture at the core of it is about the reality of the fullness of God. Mary teaches us that The best place to live your spiritual life is in reality—in where you are right now in this moment. It's about living one reality in the presence of God. This episode is an...

Series on "Mary and the Interior Life" by Fr. Jeremiah Shryock (Part 1) How important is Mary, Our Lady, in your spiritual life?  Our Lady is a real woman, a real mother to all of us and Mary's intercession is actually more real than we realize.  The gift of Our Lady is that she looks upon us, she knows our hearts, and her gaze can be the first safe and secure place in a world of filled insecurity. At this same moment, Mary wants us to look upon her and it is in this exchange where we find...

Do you actually believe and have hope that prayer does something? Doing things over and over again can lose the awe and wonder of what's going on in our prayer life. There can come a point when we're no longer coming to prayer expecting to hear God's voice or expecting anything at all.  This results in boredom or discouragement—a loss of hope. In this episode, we're gonna talk about how we can pray for a supernatural hope as the remedy for discouragement and boredom. The Poco a Poco...

How much focused are you toward yourself? There can be times when we struggle with perfectionism, control, and activism, and this can sometimes rub off on our spiritual life.  Jesus does not demand great actions from us; rather, the invitation is simply to live in surrender and gratitude to Him. At times, we can take a more Pelagian approach where more emphasis is given to our efforts, initiatives, and self-improvement—our achievement of holiness rather than the primacy being given to God...

Are you worried for 2024?  Worry is a lack of confidence and we can be worried about a lot of stuff. The invitation from St. Therese and from our Lord is to have confidence in Him. We who run in the way of love shouldn't be thinking of suffering that can take place in the future. That's a lack of confidence. The complete confidence that becomes an abandonment in love sets us free from obsessive calculations, constant worry about the future, and fears that take away our peace.  If we are...

What was Jesus like for you this year? As we end the year, let's do a poverty and identity check and put Jesus in the center as we look back to this past year and look forward to the coming year For this episode, a proposal to reflect on where Jesus have been, how He has been with you, how He loved you, and how He is loving you into this year. The Poco a Poco podcast happens because of many generous donors, including recurring monthly donations of any amount. Thinking about helping out?...