Podcast Archives - Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts

Two Modes of Discernment – “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions with Fr. Timothy Gallagher

Fr. Timothy Gallagher continues his teaching on St. Ignatius of Loyola’s three modes of discernment, focusing here on the first and second modes. The first mode is a clarity beyond doubting, in which a person receives an unmistakable certainty about God’s will that cannot be shaken. This is illustrated through vocation stories. Such clarity may arise suddenly or gradually, but remains stable over time. It’s important in confirming this kind of clarity with a wise sp...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 15: The Sacred Vigil of Love

The fostering of an infant’s life is a thing of terror as well as of beauty. We are face to face with life at its most precious, housed in its frailest. That life depends for its survival upon us, upon the intelligence, the skill, the perseverance, the unceasing, untiring vigilance of our love.

It requires of us love that is as strong as the worn and hollowed rock, as delicate as the dew that trembles in it.

We...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Part Three: Listening Through Trials, Weakness, and Silence

DAY 16 – Weakness

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12.9 RSV

Weakness is one of the most vulnerable places in the spiritual life. It is where we feel limited, fragile, unable to do what we desire, or unable to rise in the ways we once could. Weakness is uncomfortable. It exposes how mu...

Monday of the 3rd Week of Advent – An Advent Lectio Divina for the Discerning Heart

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.  For at least the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of this day to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart “Jesus, I Trust In You…You Take Over”

Become aware that He is with you, looking upon you with love, wanting to be heard deep within in your heart…

From the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew 21:23-27

Jesus had gone into the Te...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 14:  Patience in the Hidden Growth of Sorrow

Sometimes this Advent season of the soul is a recurring rhythm through life, deliberately chosen as such or simply given to us. Sometimes it is the immediate result of conversion or of a new awareness of God or of an increase of Love.

Sometimes it is a painful experience. It may be that a soul brimmed with love becomes dumb, inarticulate, blind, seeing only darkness, unable to give things that it longs to give to a world of c...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Part Three: Listening Through Trials, Weakness, and Silence

DAY 15 – Confusion

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.”
Proverbs 3.5 RSV

Interior confusion is one of the most painful trials in the spiritual life. It is the moment when the heart cannot see clearly, when intentions feel tangled, when choices seem uncertain, and when prayer does not of...

Sunday of the 3rd Week of Advent – An Advent Lectio Divina for the Discerning Heart

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.  For at least the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of this day to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart “Jesus, I Trust In You…You Take Over”

Become aware that He is with you, looking upon you with love, wanting to be heard deep within in your heart…

From the Holy Gospel of Matthew 11:2-11

John in his prison had heard w...

The 3rd Sunday of Advent – The  Joy of Christ’s Coming – Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff

In this Third Sunday of Advent reflection, Msgr. John Esseff proclaims the joy of Christ’s coming and the deep mystery of Jesus dwelling within those who are baptized. Drawing from the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, he reflects on the signs that reveal the Messiah: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor receive the good news.

Msgr. Esseff focuses on Jesus’ response to...



CLJ6 – Joyful Penitence – ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C.

An excerpt from Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting:

Joyful Penitence

My dear Sisters, in this third week of Advent following upon Gaudete Sunday, we find a deep call, a profound call, to the understanding of penance. I think the Church is trying to teach us that real penance is always characterized by joy, that joy is a property of penance. When we look at penitence, we could perhaps list many properties, many characteristics and effect...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Week Two: Following the Voice of Christ

DAY 14 – Dryness

“O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”
Psalm 63.1 RSV

Dryness is one of the most common and most misunderstood experiences in the spiritual life. It is the season when prayer...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 13: The True Fruit of Advent in Suffering

“We need the season of Advent; we need it in suffering, in joy, and in thought. We need it in everything that is to bear fruit in our lives. People sometimes get disheartened because they have read that suffering ennobles and have met people who seem to have come out of the crucible like pure silver, made beautiful by suffering; but it seems to them that in their own case it is quite the opposite. They find that, ho...

St. Therese of Lisieux said the following: “If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient. But I only look at the present. I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future.” In these remarks, St. Therese is trying to point to the truth that is buried deep within the Christian revelation. God only lives in the present moment. He holds all time together in the present. For ourselves, we get lost many times in the past, which could breed nostalgia and grief. Or w...



Saturday of the 2nd Week of Advent – An Advent Lectio Divina for the Discerning Heart

As you begin, take a deep breath and exhale slowly.  For at least the next few moments, surrender all the cares and concerns of this day to the Lord.

Say slowly from your heart “Jesus, I Trust In You…You Take Over”

Become aware that He is with you, looking upon you with love, wanting to be heard deep within in your heart…

From the Holy Gospel of St. Matthew 17:10-13

As they came...

Our Lady of Guadalupe – Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff

Msgr. John Esseff reflects on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a decisive moment of renewal for the Church, set against the turmoil of 16th-century Europe and the vast conversion that followed in Mexico. He situates Mary’s 1531 appearance to Juan Diego within salvation history, drawing connections to the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation and to the Annunciation in Luke’s Gospel. Her request for a simple church and her choice of a poor, elderly Indigenous man reveal a mate...

From the Office of Readings:

From a report by Don Antonio Valeriano, a Native American author of the sixteenth century
(Nicon Mopohua, 12th ed., 3-9, 21)

The Voice of the Turtledove has been heard in our land

At daybreak one Saturday morning in 1531, on the very first days of the month of December, an Indian named Juan Diego was going from the village where he lived to Tlatelolco in order to take part in divine worship and listen to God’s commandments. When he came near the hill called Tepeyac, da...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 12:  The Virtue of Patience in Small Things

“There are things that refuse to be violated by speed, that demand at least their proper time of growth; you can’t, for example, cut out the time you will leave an apple pie in the oven. If you do, you won’t have an apple pie. If you leave a thought, a chance word, a phrase of music, in your mind, growing and cherished for its proper season, you will have the wisdom or peace or strength that was hidden...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Week Two: Following the Voice of Christ

DAY 13 – Surrender

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.”
Proverbs 3.5 to 6 RSV

Surrender is the quiet, interior movement that releases control and entrusts everything to God. It is not resignation. It is not pa...