The Emmaus Pastorate’s Podcast

What drives you, and where does it drive you?  Jesus was driven by his love for the Father, and it drove him into the desert for 40 days!  As we enter the season of Lent - an annual desert-like experience - we should be reminded of all the things that should drive us all year, often things that don't.  Where are your priorities these days?  Do they need some adjusting?

As we begin Lent in the year 2021, we're reminded - as we are every year - that TODAY is the day and NOW is the acceptable time.  How will you challenge yourself this Lent?  How will test the devil as he tests you?  How will you rend your heart, lend your hands, and mend lives?

Do you have leprosy?  Probably not...at least literally.  And that's a good thing!  But maybe we all suffer from some leprosy today, and maybe we all treat some people as lepers.  Do you?  Have you?  Fr. John explains how this disease might still prevail in the 21st century.

Somedays are just Job days, aren't they?  Nothing seems to go right, and it would be so much easier to blame God and cruse him for it!  But Job, Christ, and then St. Paul each show us how perseverance, discipline, and faithfulness have their rewards in the end.  And what's more - our perseverance, discipline, and faithfulness will affect others in ways we just won't know.  Fr. John gives us some tools to get through those Job days, even when the world says to just cave into pressures.

There are so many voices to hear these days, and the same was true back in Jesus' time.  But back then his was a new voice, a strange one, so very contrary to the times.  Perhaps it's just what we need today.  Fr. John implores us, as did King David, "If today you hear God's voice, harden not your hearts!"

An audio recording of the annual Town Hall held at Sacred Heart Parish on January 25, 2021

An audio recording of the annual Town Hall at St. Joseph Parish on January 16, 2021

Being a missionary doesn't usually work well if you go into a heathen town and proclaim everyone's going to hell, even if that's true.  Building relationships - establishing and maintaining net(work)s - is far more effective.  So what's that got to do with Jonah, the whale, and the sons of Zebedee?  Fr. John tells us more in his homily from the Third Sunday in Ordinary Time.

"The harvest of justice is sown in peace by those who cultivate peace."  These are the words of St. James.  The work of peace requires cultivation.  To reap justice and righteousness, we must sow, labor for, and grow peace.  Fr. John has this message as we pray for our country on the eve the inauguration of the next president of the United States.

As we begin Ordinary Time and 2021, we start to think about this new year.  As we do, let us give God a chance to speak to us as young Samuel did.  Let us say quietly, as if waking during the night saying, "Speak, Lord, your servant is listening."