Season 2 TEASER: Radical Family - Coming Soon!

[00:00:00] Hey, everyone! This is Christina.I am tuning into today with some exciting news, and that is that Moderate Catholic has officially wrapped its first season on acedia! I hope y’all had a good time listening to the episodes and exploring the bonuses. And believe it or not, it is now actually time to move on to season two.So, what started at a sub podcast, which was kind of like, yeah, we’ll see where things go, has now grown up into toddlerhood, and hopefully it won’t be the terrible twos! So, we are approaching season two, and I’m just dropping a quick note to let you know that the theme of season two will be…Radical Family! [drum roll sound effect followed by applause sound effect][00:01:00]Now, you might be saying, okay, what is that? “Radical Family” is a phrase that came to me as I was starting to think about season two, and it was inspired by a homily that I heard when I was living in Boston with one of my favorite priests there, and he was talking about how radical means “roots.”And so, if you think of like a radish, right? Radish…grows underground. It has roots, soil, earth, that sort of thing. That’s the extent of my Latin connecting the dots. So radical means to get to the root of something.And he was saying that, on its face, radical seems like extreme, right? Like we usually use radical as someone or something that’s like way [00:02:00] over on one end of the spectrum or defies all the typical paradigms when really. Radical means to get to the essence of something if we’re looking at those Latin underpinnings, and I got to thinking about that. What I realized was our faith is radical in both ways, right?What does it mean to be a radical Catholic? One, it could mean those big, huge bold ideas that we use when we talk about being radical secularly, the big ideas, breaking the norms, all those things. But it also could mean, like, getting down to the essence of our faith, and if we really distill down to the root of our faith, what emerges is ironically actually something quite radicalTo follow Jesus, [00:03:00] really in a true way, the essence of what He taught, upending what had been taught up until then to get to the root of Jesus’s message is actually to live a radical life.So, I started kind of playing with that double meaning of radical, both bold, but also foundational essence, and I started thinking, you know, what would it mean to be a radical family in today’s world? And I’ve always had an interest in family since I am a birth doula, and have studied a lot of marriage and family ethics and theology, and I started to think about what would it mean if a family was radically living out their faith?On the one hand, it would be families that are making really bold choices. So maybe it’s they’re living [00:04:00] their home life a different way, or maybe the way that their family comes together is different, or the service or the mission or the social justice that they’re committing themselves to as a family looks a little different than your average family in society, but also, if we’re talking about the faith aspect of all of it, it also means like how is this family really embodying the essence of what Jesus was calling all of us to do, but in this case, as a family unit.When I put those two together, that phrase “radical family,” I started to think about families who I know who I would point to, to say, hey, they’re doing something a little different. They’re not just doing the norm. Not that the norm is necessarily bad or lacking, but they’re inspiring. They’re trying to do things with intentionality.And when I [00:05:00] was an undergrad and really into marriage and family ethics, I really looked up to my theology advisor and how she was intentionally living out faith in her family, and when you walked into their house, you kind of knew in little and big ways that this family had something that they were really committed to. So, using that inspiration, I started to think about other people in my life who were doing similar exemplary things, inspirational things, faith-filled things.And I started coming up with a short list of people I knew I wanted to interview, but then I started talking to people and asked, hey, if you were to pick a radical family, and this is what that kind of sort of means in my head, who would you think of? And it was really inspiring honestly, to hear from people as to who comes to mind when they think of that phrase what resulted was [00:06:00] just a lot of really cool, interesting conversations. I have somehow whittled down all those amazing conversations to the episodes that you’re going to hear in this season.But I hope that you’ll hear it and not think of it as like, oh my gosh, that is so amazing, [but] there’s no way me or my family could ever do that. That’s not the point! It’s not to make it seem impossible, but maybe what they’re saying or how they’re saying it will spark something in you to allow you to dream bigger or dream a little bit farther or nudge yourself a little bit more on how you can intentionally live out your faith with the people who are closest to you, your loved ones, however you would choose to define your family.So, that is where we’re heading. And I think you’re gonna be really just inspired by these [00:07:00] stories of faith. A lot of times we hear stories of faith about the individuals: saints, exemplary people, et cetera, et cetera.But to do it in family life, I think, personally, is an above and beyond commitment because it involves other people in such a deep and intimate way. And like individuals in our modern-day world, families also have a lot going on when it comes to wrestling with the modern-day kind of autopilot, and it takes a little bit to break out of that and think really intentionally, especially when it comes to faith.So, if any of that was like, huh, that sort of makes sense, or that might be interesting, I hope you’ll join me in season two. We have a lot of really great people and excellent conversations ahead! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit christinagebel.substack.com