Holiness for the Working Day

Elijah in the Cave  19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A  Aug. 9th, 2026

The final part of the 5 part series on spiritual, emotional and mental freedom in our lives. 

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A  August 1, 2026

The Rise to deep freedom 

Part 4 of 4: The Roman Republic and England In this fourth part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby 

Part 3 of 4: Athens and the influences of Greece   In this third part of our four-part series We travel to Athens and the Greek influences, and we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby 

Part 2 of 4: Jerusalem and the Old Covenant  In this second part of our four-part series we go to Jerusalem and the old covenant , and we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby 

Part 1 of 4 In this first part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby 

17th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A

Part 3 of a 4 part series on real freeom of the will. 

The Parable of the Wheat & the weeds.  16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A July 19th, 2026

Part of a series on real freedom for summer of 2026

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year a 2026 Matthew 13:1-9  On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea.  Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore.  And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow.  And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil.  It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots.  Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it.  But some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold.  Whoever has ears ought to hear."

14th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A  July 5, 2026

In this episode, we sit with one of the most dramatic moments in the Gospels: Jesus asleep in a boat while his disciples panic in a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee. But the real storm in this passage isn't the one on the water. It's the one inside us. We explore the psychology of crisis, why we respond to the stories we tell ourselves more than to reality itself, and what it actually means to surrender, not as passive defeat but as the most courageous act a person can make. From the circus to the football field to the shores of Galilee, this meditation traces the path from terror to trust, and why Jesus sometimes has to let things get hopeless before he can show us what he can actually do.

Feast of St. John Fisher & Thomas More 

12th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A

On The Roots of Sadness & Anger and the inner battles related. 

1th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A. 2026 We are the lost ones. We are all troubled and abandoned. We are the sheep without a shepherd. And in that, He changes everything.  Grâce infinie de notre Dieu, Qui un jour m'a sauvé. J'allais errant de lieu en lieu, Quand Il m'a retrouvé.

A Meditation for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart 

In this series we exploe what it means to be fully human towards a deeper understanding of the Pope's new encyclical on AI. I hope you enjoy, and I hope this summer affords you real rest and active receptivity of reality. 

Corpus Christi 2026

Nice is ignorance with a smile. Kindness is love with a spine. This is the time for a radical revolution of our time, one person, one act, one canvas at a time, a revolution of kindness. 

Feast of the Holy Trinity 2026

Children's homily for the feast of the Holy Trinity 

Feast of the Ascension 2026 I will be on vacation the next two weeks and will not be posting to the podcast. Please pray for me on the journey to Europe and I look forward to posting again soon. All listeners are in my daily prayers. - Fr. James Searby 

What if the restlessness you feel is not a problem to be solved but a compass pointing you home? In this third meditation, we go to the very root of that restlessness: eros. Not the shallow, pornographic version our culture has reduced it to, and not the sanitized, nervously-avoided version some Christianity has offered in response, but eros in its full, ancient, and serious meaning, the primal human desire to satiate in beauty and be happy. We trace it from Hesiod and Homer through Plato's ladder of love, through the boldly erotic imagery of the Old Testament prophets, through the Eucharist itself, and into the great question Thomas Aquinas forces us to face: is your soul ascending toward Beauty-itself, or has acedia quietly starved your desire until the climb no longer seems worth it? Along the way we tell the story of Eros and Psyche, one of the most theologically rich myhts ever told, and we let it do what great stories do: show us who we are, where we are in the journey, and why the Beloved who is already looking for us is worth every impossible task on the way up.

Children's homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter and Mother's Day

6th sunday of Easter 2026 and Mother's Day

5th Sunday of Easter, Year A Gospel John 14:1-12 Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way." Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father."

On a dusk walk through Old Town, a chance encounter with a young man swooning outside his girlfriend's window becomes a meditation on one of the deepest hungers of modern life. Drawing on Joseph Pieper, Thomas Aquinas, and the medieval contemplative tradition, this episode explores why only the lover truly sees, and why that matters for everything from friendship and prayer to the quiet poverty underneath all our productivity. If modern life has trained us to move through the world like a camera, objective and detached, what does it cost us? And what would it mean to become a lover again, to let reality actually get through, and sing?

What does it take to stand firm when everything in you wants to fold — not just on the battlefield, but in the garden at Chelsea, in the courtroom, at the kitchen table with someone you love? In this episode we look at fortitude, what Adam Smith called "the uniquely splendid quality of man," through the eyes of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and some of the most vivid moments in Scripture, literature, and film. We start where the Church starts us this week — with the apostles, sprung from prison by an angel, walking straight back to the temple at dawn to keep preaching. That is fortitude in its purest form. From there we explore why only the vulnerable can be truly brave, why Aquinas says endurance is a harder and nobler act than attack, and why most of what the world calls courage is actually one of five convincing counterfeits. We spend time with Thomas More, standing quiet and unshakeable before the most powerful man in England, and we ask what his daily courage demands of us — not the grand martyrdom, but the ordinary refusal to smile and nod at what is false. Because there is no automatic victory in human affairs. The victory of truth depends, to some considerable extent, on your defense of it.

Divine Mercy Sunday 2026 Our pain, wounds, fears and flaws are "Transubstantiated" by His Mercy 

Easter 2026  HE HAS RISEN! HAPPY EASTER TO ALL! 

Easter Vigil 2026 HAPPY EASTER! HE HAS RISEN! 

Palm Sunday 2026 Enter this week in silence, get rid of the distractions if only for a week, and allow the Lord to invite you on the Way. 

Some years ago, a simple car ride with my young nephew became something unexpected, a window into the deepest structure of the human heart. His endless questions, his wonder at everything from trees to passing strangers, revealed something we are all born with but often lose, what Luigi Giussani calls the religious sense. In this episode, we trace that childlike openness all the way to the Annunciation, where Our Lady, fully awake and receptive, encounters God in a way that awakens everything and demands a response. Drawing from Giussani, Thomas Aquinas, and Joseph Ratzinger, we explore how vocation is not something we construct, but something spoken to us, and how true freedom is not keeping options open, but giving ourselves completely to what is real and good. This is an episode about wonder, encounter, and the quiet, world-changing power of a single yes.

Solemnity of the Annunciation 2026

Monday of the 5th Week of Lent, 2026

The Raising of Lazerus and the Pondering of Death  5th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A 2026

A Great Conversation with Fr. Ken Gerasi I am honored to have Fr. Ken Gerasi on the podcast with me. Fr. Ken recently led our lenten parish mission here at the Basilica of St. Mary and our fireside chat was a real treat for me. I am happy to share it with you. This is the link to the video: https://stmaryoldtown.org/searbygeraciconverse/ Fr. Ken Geraci lived the life of the prodigal son for most of his young adult life. Raised in a nominally Catholic family, who only lived the externals of the faith, as a young man, he left the Catholic Church for many years. During that time, he earned a business degree and achieved business success, but made little room for God. God, however, did not give up on him. During this journey, Our Lord presented him with challenges that forced him to question his personal beliefs and to ask the question "What is Truth?" Through a series of conversions, years of struggle, study and questioning, Fr. Ken found his way from agnosticism, to non-denominational Christianity, and ultimately back to the Catholic Church. Fr. Ken joined the Fathers of Mercy in 2006 and was ordained in 2012.

A talk to Atrium teachers in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd.  A special thanks for all teachers in this episode.