Episode 116: How Death Was Undone

April 16th, 2025  |  13 mins 16 secs

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In her masterful book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge writes perhaps better than any author I’m aware of on the sheer horror of death in this fashion. What follows are a series of excerpts from her book, and while this may be a longer post than usual, it might be worth taking with us to the celebrations that are about to begin, to help us better understand what’s happening to Him for us.

Episode 115: Standing Alone With Jesus

April 9th, 2025  |  8 mins 53 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

We – the guilty, the enslaved, the foolish, the rebellious, the unfaithful, the creatures – go free and have life because He – the Innocent, the Lord, the King, the Creator, the Son – placed Himself into the hands of Death.

What kind of God is this? What kind of love is this? Who am I that my King should allow Himself to be torn to shreds when it is I who should be?

Episode 114: The Tsunami That Is Baptism

April 2nd, 2025  |  6 mins 23 secs

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Baptism, like the tsunami, causes things to drown. What things? Sin, guilt, the pasts by which we feel haunted. I know few things as a priest that compare with standing inside the font at the Easter Vigil, waiting in the water for those standing outside it to step in...

Episode 113: Faith Is Not Blind

March 26th, 2025  |  7 mins 9 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

Like the blind man who encounters Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday (cf. John 9:1-41), baptism moves us from blindness to sight, and from darkness to light. Those who refuse to believe, who refuse to honestly examine what God has done for us in Jesus, remain in darkness and blindness. And out of love, we should be eager to bear credible witness to them by our words and actions of the difference Jesus makes so that they too might walk in the light and come to know this astounding truth that is increasingly necessary in a lonely and anxious culture: God is Love, and the object of that love…is each one of us.

Episode 112: The Promise Keeper

March 19th, 2025  |  6 mins 32 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

As He did with Abraham, God is asking you and me again today to put our trust in Him, and perhaps especially for things we cannot yet see.

Episode 111: What Makes a Good Citizen?

March 12th, 2025  |  7 mins 29 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

As we continue these early stages of our Lenten journey, let’s seriously consider where our identity is truly found, where our ultimate allegiance really lies, and how we can today advance the Kingdom of God by the joyful and beautiful power of attraction.

Episode 110: You Can Come Home Now

March 5th, 2025  |  11 mins 53 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

Lent is a great opportunity to ponder again the story, the narrative arc of history, if you will. Doing so allows us the chance to reflect on God’s intention in bringing everything into being in the first place, what the conclusion will be, and what our role as disciples is until that day.

Episode 109: “Your Labor Is Not in Vain”

February 26th, 2025  |  7 mins 42 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

In these days of Eucharistic revival in the Church, we are continually being invited to consider why the Lord gives Himself to us at Mass hidden under the appearance of bread and wine.

Episode 108: Do We Know the Story?

February 19th, 2025  |  6 mins 25 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

Paul’s proclamation, and the message of the New Testament, is the announcement that Jesus is the true King of the world; that by His death on the cross He has defeated (and one day will destroy) the enemies of the human race; that He has rescued us for the world — not from it; that you and I are now personally being summoned to lovingly and gratefully pledge Him our loyalty and allegiance as our rightful King; and until the day He returns and makes all things new (cf. Rev 21:5), we are to live our lives in such a way as to be both working models of His recreation and active agents in His hands, doing all we can to reconcile, restore and recreate this world that God loves.

Episode 107: Why Would Anyone Want To Live Forever?

February 12th, 2025  |  10 mins 26 secs

acts xxix, actsxxix, encouragement, faith, fr. john riccardo, hope, inspiration, mission, prayer, reflections, weekly

In this great Jubilee Year of Hope, I have found myself rereading Pope Benedict XVI’s rich letter on hope from 2007. The words of Saint Paul this week remind me of a passage that I find very provocative as we not only consider the Lord’s resurrection but the life to come which Paul emphatically preaches. I pray you, too, will find it worth praying with this week.