The Discerning Hearts Blog Archives

SJ1 – St. Joseph’s World – St. Joseph and His World with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 1 – St. Joseph’s World – “St. Joseph and His World”

In this episode, Mike Aquilina and Kris McGregor begin this series on the life and times of St. Joseph with a discussion on his ancestry.

An excerpt from St. Joseph and His World:

The family of David was intensely aware of their mission and purpose in history. The residents of Nazareth and Kochba were alive to the possibility—perhaps a probability—that one of them would bear the messiah into the world.

Archeologists estimate that Nazareth had 120–150 inhabitants in the mid-first century before Christ.3 Seventy years after the clan’s arrival, they were surely established in their routines and integrated into the local economy. The households had their trades, which fathers taught their sons, and mothers taught their daughters.

Later in that century, one of the families in Nazareth—a family of artisans—gave birth to a boy and named him Joseph. His name, like the name of his birthplace, reflected the hope of his people. Joseph, in Hebrew, means “God will increase.”

Aqualina, Mike. St. Joseph and His World (pp. 19-20). Scepter Publishers. Kindle Edition.

For more episodes in this series visit – St. Joseph and His World with Mike Aquilina page

You can find the book on which this series is based here

Mike Aquilina is a popular author working in the area of Church history, especially patristics, the study of the early Church Fathers.^[1] He is the executive vice-president and trustee of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, a Roman Catholic research center based in Steubenville, Ohio. He is a contributing editor of Angelus (magazine) and general editor of the Reclaiming Catholic History Series from Ave Maria Press. He is the author or editor of more than fifty books, including The Fathers of the Church (2006); The Mass of the Early Christians (2007); Living the Mysteries (2003); and What Catholics Believe(1999). He has hosted eleven television series on the Eternal Word Television Network and is a frequent guest commentator on Catholic radio.

Mike Aquilina’s website is found at fathersofthechurch.com

Other Mike Aquilina series’ found on Discerning Hearts:

Roots the Faith

The Resilient Church

Villains of the Early Church

ST-John Ep 26- John 12 – The Glory of the Lord part 2 – The Gospel of St. John – Seeking Truth with Sharon Doran – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 26 – John 12: The Glory of the Lord part 2

“John 12 begins just six days before Jesus’ final Passover on earth. Gathering with some of his disciples, Jesus is dining at the house of Lazarus, who had just been risen from the dead. Sharon gives us the background of typical Greco-Roman dining, where guests would recline at table to eat their meal, and afterward, would be entertained by musicians and sometimes even prostitutes. We recall King Herod, married illicitly to Herodias, who promised even half his kingdom to Herodias’ daughter Salome after she performed a seductive after-dinner dance. Prompted by her mother, Salome demands the head of John the Baptist, who had publicly criticized the marriage between Herod and Herodias. In some paintings, Salome is pictured with a vial of spikenard, a rare, expensive, richly aromatic oil.

Sharon goes on to explain the significance of spikenard for a first-century Jewish girl. Spikenard was kept in an alabaster jar, and on her wedding night, the virgin bride would break open the jar, anoint her new groom, and consummate the wedding. With this background, we now better understand the beautiful meaning behind the actions of Mary of Bethany, who breaks open an enormous jar of spikenard, anoints the feet of Jesus, and then dries them with her hair. Mary desires to give everything to Jesus and enter into a spiritual marriage. She wants to lavish him with not only her most precious earthly gift, but even more, with the priceless gift of her total self: heart, mind, soul, and strength.

6 Spikenard was also used for burial anointing, but having just seen her brother rise from the dead, Mary knows Jesus will also rise and have no need for the burial anointing. Instead, Mary anoints Jesus now as her spiritual spouse. Sharon then moves on to the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, showing how Jesus fulfills the prophecy of Zechariah 9, entering into his kingship riding atop a donkey. To reach Jerusalem, Jesus would have processed through Bethany and Bethphage. Sharon unlocks the importance of Bethphage, also known as the House of Un-ripened Figs. Despite being a few miles outside the city walls, Bethphage was still considered to be part of Jerusalem and was home to two members holding seats in the Sanhedrin. The irony of Jesus processing past this town is profound: any judicial order to execute a rebellious leader had to be made in Bethphage. Today Jesus rides triumphantly past Bethphage; in just a few short days, his execution will be confirmed in Bethphage. ”

Sharon Doran serves as the teaching director of “Seeking Truth.” An experienced Bible Study teacher, Sharon has a passion for scripture that will motivate and challenge you to immerse yourself in God’s Word and apply His message to your everyday life.

For more in this series visit the Seeking Truth with Sharon Doran Discerning Hearts page

“Seeking Truth” is an in-depth Catholic Bible Study, commissioned by the Archdiocese of Omaha in response to John Paul II’s call to the New Evangelization as well as Pope Benedict XVI’s exhortation for all Catholics to study scripture. To learn more go to www.seekingtruth.net

BBFA3 – The Prayers of Exorcism and Anointing – Baptism: Born from Above w/ Deacon James Keating

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Episode 3 -Baptism: Born from Above– The importance of the community of faith. Also the relevance and effect of the prayers of exorcism and anointing

Deacon Keating takes a careful look at the Baptismal Rite and offers prayerful reflection and insight to help us live out the faith and nurture the domestic church.

From the Baptismal Rite for Children:

From the earliest times, the Church, to which the mission of preaching the Gospel and of baptizing was entrusted, has baptized not only adults but children as well. Our Lord said:

‘Unless a man is reborn in water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God.’ The Church has always understood these words to mean that children should not
be deprived of baptism, because they are baptized in the faith of the Church, a faith proclaimed for them by their parents and godparents, who represent both the local Church
and the whole society of saints and believers: ‘The whole Church is the mother of all and the mother of each.’

To fulfill the true meaning of the sacrament, children must later be formed in the faith in
which they have been baptized. The foundation of this formation will be the sacrament
itself that they have already received. Christian formation, which is their due, seeks to lead
them gradually to learn God’s plan in Christ, so that they may ultimately accept for themselves the faith in which they have been baptized

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

More episodes of Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating Ph.D.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.
(A great gift for clergy)

From the book description:

Deacon James Keating’s book Abiding in Christ: Staying with God in a Busy World is a how-to-pray resource. This book helps readers to find a quiet space wherein they can be present to God and offers suggestions of how they can be more open to God s movement within them.

Episode 7 – A Short Primer for the Unsettled Laymen – Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J., Vivian Dudro, and Joseph Pearce FBC Podcast

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On liturgy and Traditionalism: our final discussion of Hans Urs von Balthasar’s book A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen.

You can find the book here

Hans Urs von Balthasar addresses the critical issues that have been unsettling the Catholic laity since the Second Vatican Council. In a clear and readable manner, he focuses on the core elements of the faith: the Word of God; the life, death, and resurrection of Christ; the sacraments; the structure of the Church; and Mary.

Speaking plainly about the polarization within the Catholic Church, he also discusses the various ideological trends—such as liberalism, progressivism, and traditionalism—that have undermined the confidence and the unity of the faithful.

“In this Primer, Balthasar addresses today’s faithful laity who feel that [the] solidity of the Church is shifting beneath their feet. He speaks to those who fear that the Church has done what she ought not to do: that she is in fact relaxing her demands in order to win favor, not from God, but from man. Into this situation, Balthasar re-proposes the ‘form’ of Jesus Christ as revealed in his Church. This form is ‘only the whole’: the whole, concrete reality of Christ, conveyed within Catholic tradition. This form is ‘spun from three strands’ of Word, sacrament, and ecclesial authority. These three provide the Church with the ability to remain on course despite the winds blowing through history.”
— Angela Franks, Ph.D., From the Foreword

IP#281 Vivian Dudro - Meriol Trevor's "Shadows and Images" on Inside the Pages 1 — Vivian Dudro

VEC12 – Nestorius – Villains of the Early Church with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 12 – Nestorius – “Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians“was

In this episode, Mike Aquilina and Kris McGregor discuss Nestorius, an archbishop of Constantinople who proclaimed that Mary could not be the “Theotokos”. Such statements brought about the Council of Ephesus and a declaration throughout the Christian Church that his thought was emphatically wrong. Mary was, and still is, the “Mother of God.”

An excerpt from Villains of the Early Church:

We’ve been having an argument with these other people, the monks explained. We say that Mary is rightly called Mother of God—in Greek, Theotokos. But these other people say it’s not right to call her anything but Mother of the Man—Anthropotokos. Which of us is right?

Nestorius was delighted with the opportunity to show off his erudition. His answer probably struck him as very clever and evenhanded. In a way, he said, you’re both right. Each of those names can be used for Mary in a loose and imprecise way. But technically the proper term would be Mother of the Christ—Christotokos. If you want to be accurate, you’ll avoid calling her anything else.3

Thus, Constantinople was first introduced to that little word “technically”—in Greek, akribos—which the world would soon learn was one of Nestorius’ very favorite terms when he was arguing with people. It revealed a lot about the way he thought. The problem with most people, Nestorius seemed to believe, was that they didn’t choose their terms carefully enough. When you’re talking about important issues of theology, you need to be very precise in your language.

The problem with Nestorius, thought practically everybody else in Constantinople, was that he had just said Mary wasn’t Mother of God.

The people of the city instantly latched onto that little word “technically” as representing everything they hated about Nestorius. “If Mary is not technically the Mother of God,” they said, “then her Son is not technically God.”4 Mary had always been called Mother of God, as long as anybody could remember. The city—the whole Empire—was devoted to the Blessed Virgin. What was wrong with this new archbishop?

“He seemed afraid of the word Theotokos,” Socrates recalled, “as if it were some frightful ghost.”5 In the opinion of Socrates and many others, the problem wasn’t loose language on the part of the great majority of Christians. The problem was that Nestorius didn’t know what he was talking about. “The baseless fear he showed on this subject merely demonstrated how very ignorant he was. He was naturally a fluent speaker, so people thought he must be well educated. But actually he was disgracefully illiterate.” Socrates thought that Nestorius not only didn’t know what the great Christian writers before him had written on these subjects, but also didn’t care. He was smarter than they were. He could work things out for himself.6

Well, if Nestorius didn’t know what the great Christians of earlier generations had taught, it was about time somebody told him. Enter the Bishop of Alexandria.

Aquilina, Mike. Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians . Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

For more episodes in the Villains of the Early Church podcast visit here – Villains of the Early Church – Discerning Hearts Podcast

You can find the book on which this series is based here

Mike Aquilina’s website is found at fathersofthechurch.com

BBFA2 – Baptismal Name and Godparents – Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating

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Episode 2 -Baptism: Born from Above– The importance of the name we are given at baptism. The role and significance of godparents.

Deacon Keating takes a careful look at the Baptismal Rite and offers prayerful reflection and insight to help us live out the faith and nurture the domestic church.

From the Baptismal Rite for Children:

From the earliest times, the Church, to which the mission of preaching the Gospel and of baptizing was entrusted, has baptized not only adults but children as well. Our Lord said:

‘Unless a man is reborn in water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God.’ The Church has always understood these words to mean that children should not
be deprived of baptism, because they are baptized in the faith of the Church, a faith proclaimed for them by their parents and godparents, who represent both the local Church
and the whole society of saints and believers: ‘The whole Church is the mother of all and the mother of each.’

To fulfill the true meaning of the sacrament, children must later be formed in the faith in
which they have been baptized. The foundation of this formation will be the sacrament
itself that they have already received. Christian formation, which is their due, seeks to lead
them gradually to learn God’s plan in Christ, so that they may ultimately accept for themselves the faith in which they have been baptized

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

More episodes of Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating Ph.D.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.
(A great gift for clergy)

From the book description:

Deacon James Keating’s book Abiding in Christ: Staying with God in a Busy World is a how-to-pray resource. This book helps readers to find a quiet space wherein they can be present to God and offers suggestions of how they can be more open to God s movement within them.

BTP-IC24 – Sixth Mansions Chapter 6 part 1 – The Interior Castle by St. Teresa of Avila – Beginning to Pray with Dr. Anthony Lilles Podcast

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In this episode, Dr. Lilles discusses the Sixth Mansions Chapter 6 part 1 of the “Interior Castle” which covers:

DESCRIBES AN EFFECT WHICH PROVES THE PRAYER SPOKEN OF IN THE LAST CHAPTER TO BE GENUINE AND NO DECEPTION, TREATS OF ANOTHER FAVOUR OUR LORD BESTOWS ON THE SOUL TO MAKE IT PRAISE HIM FERVENTLY.

1. The soul longs for death. 2. The soul cannot help desiring these favours. 3. St. Teresa bewails her inability to serve God. 3. Fervour resulting from ecstasies. 5. Excessive desires to see God should be restrained. 6. They endanger health. 7. Tears often come from Physical causes. 8. St. Teresa’s own experience. 9. Works, not tears, are asked by God. 10. Confide entirely in God. 11. The jubilee of the soul. 12. Impossibility of concealing this joy. 13. The world’s judgment of this jubilee. 14. Which is often felt by the nuns of St. Joseph’s. 15. The Saint’s delight in this jubilee.

For the Discerning Hearts audio recording of the “Interior Castle” by St. Teresa of Avila you can visit here

For other audio recordings of various spiritual classics you can visit the Discerning Hearts Spiritual Classics page

For other episodes in the series visit
The Discerning Hearts “The Interior Castle with Dr. Anthony Lilles”

Anthony Lilles, S.T.D. is an associate professor and the academic dean of Saint John’s Seminary in Camarillo as well as the academic advisor for Juan Diego House of Priestly Formation for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. For over twenty years he served the Church in Northern Colorado where he joined and eventually served as dean of the founding faculty of Saint John Vianney Theological Seminary in Denver. Through the years, clergy, seminarians, religious and lay faithful have benefited from his lectures and retreat conferences on the Carmelite Doctors of the Church and the writings of St. Elisabeth of the Trinity.

Episode 6 – A Short Primer for the Unsettled Laymen – Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J., Vivian Dudro, and Joseph Pearce FBC Podcast

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Fr. Fessio, Joseph Pearce, and Vivian Dudro discuss how Hans Urs von Balthasar explains what obedience means in the Church.

You can find the book here

BBFA1 – The significance of Jesus’ baptism – Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 1 -Baptism: Born from Above– The significance of Jesus’ baptism. The ministry of parenthood. The role of the father.

Deacon Keating takes a careful look at the Baptismal Rite and offers prayerful reflection and insight to help us live out the faith and nurture the domestic church.

From the Baptismal Rite for Children:

From the earliest times, the Church, to which the mission of preaching the Gospel and of baptizing was entrusted, has baptized not only adults but children as well. Our Lord said:

‘Unless a man is reborn in water and the Holy Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of
God.’ The Church has always understood these words to mean that children should not
be deprived of baptism, because they are baptized in the faith of the Church, a faith proclaimed for them by their parents and godparents, who represent both the local Church
and the whole society of saints and believers: ‘The whole Church is the mother of all and the mother of each.’

To fulfill the true meaning of the sacrament, children must later be formed in the faith in
which they have been baptized. The foundation of this formation will be the sacrament
itself that they have already received. Christian formation, which is their due, seeks to lead
them gradually to learn God’s plan in Christ, so that they may ultimately accept for themselves the faith in which they have been baptized.

How can this be accomplished? What is the role of the parents, the godparents, the minister of baptism, the Church? These and other questions are reflected upon in “Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating”.

Deacon James Keating, Ph.D., is a professor of Spiritual Theology and serves as a spiritual director at Kenrick Glennon Seminary in St. Louis, MO.

More episodes of Baptism: Born from Above with Deacon James Keating Ph.D.

Check out Deacon Keating’s “Discerning Hearts” page

Deacon Keating is also the author of:

You can find the book here.
(A great gift for clergy)

From the book description:

Deacon James Keating’s book Abiding in Christ: Staying with God in a Busy World is a how-to-pray resource. This book helps readers to find a quiet space wherein they can be present to God and offers suggestions of how they can be more open to God s movement within them.

VEC11 – Julian the Apostate – Villains of the Early Church with Mike Aquilina – Discerning Hearts Podcast

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Episode 11 – Julian the Apostate – “Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians“

In this episode, Mike Aquilina and Kris McGregor discuss Julian the Apostate, an emperor of Rome who was disillusioned by how his family who claimed to be Christians, yet acted counter to what they professed. He would embrace paganism and tried to eliminate Christian influence in the Roman Empire.

An excerpt from Villains of the Early Church:

Christians remembered Julian as “the Apostate”—the one emperor who tried to turn back to paganism. There would be no others. From 363 to 1453, when Constantinople finally fell, the Roman Empire would be Christian.

But what can we say about Julian the man? He might have been a very good emperor if he had had better relatives. In spite of his retrograde religious views, he was personally moral—in fact, puritanical—and a competent administrator when the problem was limited and solvable. Perhaps the best tribute to him comes from the Christian poet Prudentius, who neatly summed up Julian in one line:

Faithless he was to God, though not to Rome.7

Aquilina, Mike. Villains of the Early Church: And How They Made Us Better Christians . Emmaus Road Publishing. Kindle Edition.

For more episodes in the Villains of the Early Church podcast visit here – Villains of the Early Church – Discerning Hearts Podcast

You can find the book on which this series is based here