Catholic Heritage with Dr. Italy

The Proverbs 31 woman and Jesus's parable of the talents proves that bold initiative, not timid passivity, is what true faith is all about.  If we are to bear abundant fruit, our faith must be seasoned with boldness. I've seen it time and time again. Someone decides to seek a better paying job, or pursue an investment strategy, or launch a new business. Invariably some pious person in the parish objects that maybe this is too worldly, that it will be a distraction from Church and family priorities, that one should be satisfied with what one has.

The parable of the foolish virgins who let the oil in their lamps run out recalls the recurring nightmare that so many experience, of being caught totally unprepared for a test or presentation.  For the 32nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle A.

A reflection on the Solemnity of All Souls, November 2, touching on the mystery of death and the afterlife including heaven, hell, and purgatory, and the validity of prayers for the dead.

Each November 1st Catholics are obliged to attend Mass to celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints.  This feast is more than a dutiful remembrance of the various saints that don't make it into the Roman calendar of feast days.  It is celebrates us - the fact that all of us are destined to attain the heights of holiness, that all of us are called and equipped to become saints, and will do so if we don't get in the way of the Holy Spirit.  Dr. Italy discusses where the feast comes from and why some consider it to be even greater than Easter in a curious way.

Just returned from a New Year's pilgrimage to the Holy Land, Dr. Marcellino D'Ambrosio fields questions from Matt Swaim that many people are curious about. Can we trust what we see in the news when it comes to the situation in Israel and the Palestinian territories?  Do Americans feel safe in the Holy Land? What's it like learning about the Bible in the very place where it was written? And most importantly, what's it like to walk in the footsteps of Jesus?

When his enemies quiz him about what commandment is the greatest, Jesus reveals just how radical he really is.  His answer goes to the very root of every single one of the 613 commandments found in the law of the Old Testament – the distinct kind of divine love known as charity or agape is the great commandment.  For the 30th Sunday in Ordinary Time, liturgical cycle A.

When the Pharisees and the Herodians brought up the issue of paying taxes to the Emperor, Jesus uttered the famous line "render to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."  So what does this say about the role of government in our lives?  What do we owe to the state?

Ignatius of Antioch, whom the Church remembers on October 17, is one of the most important of the apostolic fathers, the Fathers of the Church who lives overlapped the lives of the last of the apostles.  Ignatius was, in fact, only the second successor of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas in the important city of Antioch, where the followers of Jesus were called Christians for the first time.  He is, therefore, a crucial link between us and the generation of the apostles who preceded him, a witness to the apostolic tradition. Ignatius was apprehended by the Roman authorities and sentenced to die in the arena in Rome.  He was chained to a squad of brutal soldiers and marched overland from Antioch to the Northwest coast of Turkey.  Along the way, local Christian churches sent delegations to meet with him.  Ignatius afterwards wrote seven short letters to these various churches in which he gives us a window into the soul of an early Christian martyr on his way to execution.  In this podcast we talk about the kinds of things he thought it was important to say as his "parting shot" to the Christians of Asia and Rome.  His comments touch on matters such as the divinity and humanity of Christ, Christian Unity, the eucharist, heresy, the structure of the local church, the meaning of martyrdom and much more.

In this podcast Dr. Italy describes the great Carmelite mystic, Teresa of Avila, pointing out how she combined practical wisdom, mysticism and a sense of  humor in an extraordinary way.

Why would people decline a royal invitation to a wedding feast, a banquet fit for a king?  This parable of Jesus describes a situation we see around us everyday – pervasive apathy in the face of the offer of salvation and eternal life in the Kingdom of Heaven.  The cause?  A sneaky but deadly sin called sloth.