Thoughts from the Trailer with Fr. John Riccardo

What, then, does it mean to say that Jesus “is seated at the right hand of the Father”? Most succinctly, it means He reigns. To profess in the Creed that Jesus is seated right now at the right hand of the Father means that Jesus, the God-man, Lord of the universe, is “in charge.” It means to profess that He holds the world, the Church, history, and each one of us in His hands. This position is rightfully His because by His loving self-offering on the Cross He defeated the powers of Sin, Death and Satan himself who had held the world captive since that dark day in Eden. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

God is not bound by trends. They mean nothing to Him. And thus, while we certainly don’t want to be unaware of them, they should mean more or less nothing to us. The Spirit of God is power. We are not orphans. The mission of the Church is not dependent on our own strength, our own wisdom, or our own initiative. It is the Father’s desire that His creation be rescued and renewed. That’s what Jesus began with His death and resurrection. That’s what the Church continues until that glorious day of the King’s return. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

In listening to Jesus, in watching Him interact with people, and above all in His freely laying down His life for each one of us on the cross, the enemy is exposed as a deceiver and God is revealed to be a good Father, whom we can trust. Jesus repeats in many ways that He only does what He sees the Father do, and only says what He hears the Father say. Over 180 times He speaks explicitly of His Father in the Gospels. The Father is the Lord’s “one homily.” ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Our lack of unity in the Catholic Church is a scandal. Our lack of unity as Christians is a scandal. As a result of the division that exists within us as disciples of Jesus, those “sheep” who are living the nightmare that is life apart from God are hindered from knowing that God sent His Son out of love for us all, and hindered from knowing their true identity as beloved sons and daughters of God. As such they are easy prey for the one Jesus calls “the thief,” who comes to steal, to kill and to destroy. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

This story, once unknown to me, continues to be the most powerful testimony of God’s mercy I have ever heard. When I first heard it, it was as if I could see Hoess, this man who had done such unspeakable evil, firmly in the hands of the one Jesus calls “the strong man,” that is, the devil. Slowly, as I watched, Jesus – the Stronger One – began to pull Hoess out of our enemy’s grip. As he did so, in my mind’s eye, our Risen Lord, the One who triumphed over Sin and Death, the one who is not only unconquerable and unrivaled but rich in mercy, said, “You. Can’t. Even. Have. Him.” ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

The annual celebration of Liberation Day, not only for the human race but the entire universe, is upon us. To help us better meditate on what Jesus was doing in His passion, death and resurrection, here are some excerpts from a few of our ancestors in the faith from years ago. May the Holy Spirit help us to appropriately celebrate all that King Jesus has done for us! To watch the presentation given by Fr. John this past November entitled, “Priesthood: The Unspoken Crisis, Why Praying for Priests Matters", click here. Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Today, though — March 25 — is also the traditional date of Good Friday. According to tradition, Mary’s Child — the God-man, our Rescuer, the Lord of heaven and earth — was both conceived and died on the same day of the year. To watch the presentation given by Fr. John this past November entitled, “Priesthood: The Unspoken Crisis, Why Praying for Priests Matters", click here. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

“In the midst of life we are in death: dust we are, and to dust we shall return. There we remain unless there is an intervention from beyond this world order. Only a Power greater than that of Death can countermand that strict arrest.” ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

And, so, the psalmist cries out, “The Lord is my shepherd.” In other words, the One who created the universe from nothing, the one who called into existence everything that is, the one who has no rival and is never anxious or nervous, He is the one who looks after me, who cares for me, who leads me to nourishment, who protects and fights for me. It’s as though the psalmist is inviting us to ask ourselves to whom or to what we look for nourishment, care, and protection. We are, I believe, being asked to consider who our shepherd is? Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

What are we to make of this? This Gospel reminds us of the shocking, scandalous truth that far more than we desire God, God desires us! Not out of need, not out of lack, not because He doesn’t know what to do now that football is over and March Madness hasn’t started yet. Because He is Love. This wasn’t just true for that woman. It’s true for you and for me. God, the Creator of the universe, desires you! That’s why He created you. That’s why He became a man for you. That’s why He went to the cross for you. That’s why He gives Himself to you and me in the Eucharist. And on and on. How desperately most of us need to know this. Not intellectually. Experientially. In an increasingly anxious, lonely, isolated world, most people long to know they matter, that they’re seen, that they’re loved. And here’s the reality: you are! I am! ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

"Family. That one word is perhaps the simplest way to get our heads around why God created us. He created us to be His family, His sons and daughters, brothers and sisters all. Given that, in these initial weeks of Lent, perhaps it might especially be worth asking the Father to help us better see both ourselves and all those we encounter as He does. There are no unimportant people to God. There is no one our Father doesn’t want to know His reckless love. There is no one who is not supposed to be here. There is no one for whom God did not become a man, go to the cross, and do battle against our ancient foe. There is no one I will meet today who is not my brother or sister and His son or daughter. No one. I, for one, can easily forget that." ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

How might we best enter into this season of grace, especially the first half, which is something like an extended examination of conscience, before we start to focus on preparing for the celebration of Jesus’ triumphal Passion, Death and Resurrection? ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Jesus’ prayer for the unity of all those who believe in Him is one that I fear many of us — myself very much included — do not usually take anywhere seriously enough. In His farewell discourses in John, the Lord’s motive for this unity is twofold: that the world will believe the Father sent Him and that the world may know that God loves them even as He does His Son (cf. John 17:11-23). ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

...the peace God and God alone can give and does give is able to calm our hearts and minds even when things all around us are on fire, whether literally or figuratively. The peace of Jesus can reign in us regardless of whether or not the circumstances of life or up or down. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As we turn the calendar and continue to read and watch stories of ongoing violence, wars, and division, let us call upon the intercession of Peter and Paul, and invoke the power of the Holy Spirit to fall upon us, that we may somehow further and advance the peace that only God can give and bring to the creature made in His image and likeness whom He so loves. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As we enter into this new year, mindful of the division, resentment, anger, enmity and more that are tearing apart the human race, let us call upon the intercession of St. Stephen and his friend and brother, St. Paul. May their powerful prayers help us to see one another as we should, as brothers and sisters. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Emmanuel doesn’t merely mean “God is with us,” as in “God is in our midst.” It means, “God is on our side.” He has come for us. Because for some unimaginable and unexplainable reason, the Creator of all that is is passionately in love with us! May the Holy Spirit overwhelm us anew in these holy days we are about to enter. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

In these introductory verses to the Church in Rome, Paul tells us that the good news of King Jesus’ victory over the powers of Death and Sin had been promised previously through the prophets. There are scores of prophecies about what and how God is going to defeat these cosmic powers, but none of them just come out and say “God is going to become a man and rescue His creation.” We might be inclined to wonder why the prophecies are often so mysterious and confusing? ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Generally speaking, the Latin word adventus means coming, or arrival. But there’s much more behind this word than meets the eye. You wouldn’t use it to describe, say, grandma coming for Thanksgiving (no offense to grandmas!). Adventus was an empire word. It had to do with a very specific ceremony in the Roman Empire. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Advent is a time to prepare ourselves to celebrate the single most important event in the history of the universe: God becoming man to rescue His good creation from cosmic powers we could never defeat on our own and thus reconcile us to Himself and one another. It’s also a time to prepare ourselves for the very real day when this God-man will return as triumphant King to definitively make all things new. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

This week, as we celebrate with family and friends – and remember and miss greatly those family and friends who once sat with us and are now waiting for us on the other side of the veil – it would seem that burying ourselves in various psalms of thanksgiving would be a most appropriate thing to do. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

This coming Sunday is the Solemnity of Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. What a name for a feast! That said, writing as an American, ours is a nation that doesn’t like kings all that much. Kings often conjure up in our minds images of men seated on thrones, living in luxury, remote from their people, who are often living much simpler and harder lives. How then are we to enter into, let alone celebrate, this feast? ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As we draw nearer to the end of the liturgical year with next week’s solemnity of Christ the King, there is an increasingly urgent tone in the Scriptures. This coming Sunday, God’s Word through the prophet Malachi warns us that “the Day is coming,” that is the Day of King Jesus’ return, of wrapping up history, of judgment, and of making all things new. This “Day” is a certainty. It’s going to happen. And each and every one of us is going to stand face to face before the Lord of lords and King of kings. This King and Lord is gentle, compassionate and merciful – blessed be He! He is also, however, “a consuming fire” ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Paul says that Jesus didn’t lay down His life for His friends. In fact, Jesus died for His enemies! Jesus died, Paul writes, for the ungodly! Who does things like this? Nobody does things like this. Nobody willingly dies for their enemy, for bad people, for the ungodly, for the wicked. Nobody but God that is. And by so doing, Jesus turned enemies into friends and the ungodly and the wicked into beloved sons and daughters of His Father. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Memento mori was a common expression in days gone by. It’s Latin for “remember death.” The expression served as a reminder that one real day we will be like those we pray for now. Hopefully, people will be praying for you and me when that day comes. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Every Sunday morning, a notice pops up on my phone. It probably does on yours too.“You averaged X hours of screen time a day last week,” it proclaims. Some weeks the amount of time is downright alarming. Imagine, instead, what would happen if a notice popped up that said, “You averaged X hours of time in the Word of God a day last week”?  Think our lives would be different — less anxious, calmer, more peaceful, less stressed out and overwhelmed, more hopeful?  ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Paul tells us how important it is for us to persevere. What’s more, he reminds us for what exactly we are persevering: so as to reign! In other words, it’s worth it. The Greek word Paul uses could alternatively be translated as remain, endure, don’t be moved off your spot, be patient. Perhaps, most simply, it means to stand. Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

The fact that the command, “Do not be afraid” is the most common command in the whole Bible tells me that it must be the thing that I need to hear the most! But though I have the feeling of fear, I do not have to let it control me. This is what John Paul II was constantly saying to the world. And this is what Paul is saying to us this week. Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

In these days of intense feelings, often hostile rhetoric, and worse, let us be very careful how we speak about others. And most of all, first of all, with utmost confidence in God’s mercy and power, let us pray for them — perhaps especially for those we find it most difficult to love or like. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Saint Mother Teresa, whose feast day we recently celebrated, heard Jesus one day in prayer give what to me is the single greatest commentary on this ”picture.” In a world increasingly fearful, lonely, and longing for love, it seems so very timely. As you read what He said to her, please know He is saying this now to you and to me. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you hear the voice of the Lord Jesus, the King of glory, the One before whom one real day every knee will bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord, speak these words very personally to you. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As we eavesdrop on Paul teaching Philemon this week, he’s teaching us too. The world is still divided between “us” and “them” — just read the news. The call on the disciple of Jesus is still to announce the good news that the entire human race has been rescued from the powers of Sin and Death, and the subsequent enslaving forces of division, hatred and more. But not just to announce it. To put the power of the Gospel into effect in every dimension of human life, to act like leaven so as to make the world ever more authentically human. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX Special Guest: Albert Faraj.

The most unjust, horrific, hideous act in human history took place on Calvary some two thousand years ago now. There, on that hill, the God who is Love, gave Himself into the hands of the creature He had fashioned out of love for friendship, and was torn to shreds, quite literally. Why? So that we might be rescued from the clutches of the powers of Sin and Death, into whose grip we had fallen as a result of fateful decisions just before Abel’s murder.  ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

So God — God! — came to our rescue. Personally. He didn’t wave a magic wand. He didn’t send an angel. He came Himself. As a man. And the rescue happened by His going to the cross, a most shameful, humiliating and painful way to die. What looked like a defeat was in fact a victory, because Jesus on the cross isn’t just a victim, He’s the aggressor; He’s not just hunted, He’s hunting. Our enemy. And the resurrection on Easter Sunday is the announcement that Good Friday was a victory. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX Special Guest: Albert Faraj.

There’s a reason why teams want to play their big games at home. Tens of thousands of cheering fans, often whipped up into a frenzy by anything from cheer leaders to yell leaders, somehow inspire and perhaps even enable highly skilled athletes to do things that they could never do otherwise. Accordingly, the home crowd is often referred to as “the 12th man” in football. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

We in ACTS XXIX would gently like to suggest, however, that it is not enough in these days in which we are living to simply be pilgrims of hope. We must also be heralds of hope. We live in the midst of a world that is riddled by fear, division, anger, depression, despair and so much more. As disciples of Jesus, that is, as men and women who have encountered Someone who has entirely changed our lives, who has brought us from darkness to light, we are called to proclaim to those with whom we work, study, play, and live that life is not in vain, that there is a God, and that He is good and knows what He is doing.  Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Our speech can be immensely damaging to others, and in our modern society we are exposed almost constantly to harsh, slanderous, malicious, and obscene speech. As disciples of Jesus, the way we talk and write is supposed to stand out, to be different, to be noticed by not sounding like the world at large. In doing so, we can help the world become more genuinely human.. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

I’ve always found analogies wonderfully helpful. I have a simple mind, and I have always appreciated teachers who had the gift of breaking complex topics down in such a way that they become more understandable and digestible. God, of course, is the greatest Teacher. There’s a reason why most of Scripture in general, and especially most of Jesus’ teaching in particular, is story telling: we easily remember stories. Analogies, like stories, tend to leave lasting imprints in our minds. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Pope Pius XII preached in his homily that parents can learn from Maria’s life to train their children such that when put to the test they will come through “undefeated, unscathed and untarnished.” What a triad! As I lingered with this thought, the Holy Spirit led me to remember the speech by Theodore Roosevelt entitled, “The Man in the Arena.” He further held in front of me how fiercely competitive I can tend to be, especially in sports, and certainly when I was young. Putting these together, the Lord has given me a new image that has been very helpful in my morning prayer and perhaps will stay with me for quite some time. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

I’m thinking of Dr. Kreeft this week since we’re going to be celebrating the solemnity of Corpus Christi, that is, the solemnity of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ. A convert to Catholicism, Kreeft has what I consider to be the single most helpful book to start with if we want to dive deep into this most magnificent (and often misunderstood or taken for granted) gift Jesus has left to the Church. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Sports fans often argue about who they think the G.O.A.T. is in any given sport (Greatest Of All Time). Here’s the truth: Jesus is the real G.O.A.T. — and it isn’t even close. He has defeated the power of Death, the power of Sin, and the enemy of our race, the devil. And one day, when He returns to make all things new, He will destroy them, wipe away every tear from our eye, and usher us into the abundant life He has prepared us for. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

"As we prepare this weekend for the great solemnity of Pentecost, I have found myself re-reading this spiritual gem. There is one excerpt in particular that is simply too good to keep to myself; I pray others will find the following as helpful and encouraging as I do." actsxxix.org/trailer/121 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

"Worship is something that I would argue makes up very little of most people’s prayer. Our prayer is usually dominated by intercessions of one kind or another, and that’s alright as Jesus told us to ask after all. But this week, let us be intentional to worship the King. Let us imagine how we would have felt back in 1945 to have heard the war is finally over; to see ourselves on those streets as the soldiers returned home after having fought for us; to know this all happened for us, and to pour out our praise and honor to the One who is Lord and who has triumphed by His love." actsxxix.org/trailer/120 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

The Church is supposed to be a sign of unity and communion for the world, the means by which the human race, scattered by sin and more, is not only reconciled to God but to each other. In fact, nothing else can accomplish this end, so desperately needed right now in a culture and world that is so prone to demonize “the other.” When Pope Leo says that the Church is to be “a small leaven…within the world” he means that disciples are supposed to interact with and touch the world, just as leaven interacts and touches the dough, making the world “rise” and become more genuinely human. actsxxix.org/trailer/118 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Peter must have been aware of the whispers behind his back about his denials, concerns about his past, and various other attacks on his character. Not just from the anonymous crowds, but especially from within the small group of the Apostles. He might even have expected Cornelius to question him about his lack of loyalty. Instead Peter is free because he is the recipient of God’s version of the ”cancel culture.” Unlike the one we currently live in, where people get canceled because of past failures and indiscretions, God’s version cancels the failures and indiscretions — not the people who committed them — thereby enabling us to begin again.  ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

While many in the world and the Church are eagerly awaiting the start of the conclave and the election of the next successor to St. Peter, we are still in what are officially known as the nine days of mourning for Pope Francis. As such, we are called to pray for the repose of his soul in an intentional way. It’s also been a time for me to revisit some of the many things he wrote that deeply inspired and convicted me, both as a disciple and as a priest. In particular, I have found myself returning over and over to a gathering he had with the bishops of Brazil shortly after he was elected in 2013. actsxxix.org/trailer/117 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

In her masterful book, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge writes perhaps better than any author I’m aware of on the sheer horror of death in this fashion. What follows are a series of excerpts from her book, and while this may be a longer post than usual, it might be worth taking with us to the celebrations that are about to begin, to help us better understand what’s happening to Him for us. actsxxix.org/trailer/116 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

We – the guilty, the enslaved, the foolish, the rebellious, the unfaithful, the creatures – go free and have life because He – the Innocent, the Lord, the King, the Creator, the Son – placed Himself into the hands of Death. What kind of God is this? What kind of love is this? Who am I that my King should allow Himself to be torn to shreds when it is I who should be? actsxxix.org/trailer/115 ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Baptism, like the tsunami, causes things to drown. What things? Sin, guilt, the pasts by which we feel haunted. I know few things as a priest that compare with standing inside the font at the Easter Vigil, waiting in the water for those standing outside it to step in... actsxxix.org/trailer/114 Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

Like the blind man who encounters Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday (cf. John 9:1-41), baptism moves us from blindness to sight, and from darkness to light. Those who refuse to believe, who refuse to honestly examine what God has done for us in Jesus, remain in darkness and blindness. And out of love, we should be eager to bear credible witness to them by our words and actions of the difference Jesus makes so that they too might walk in the light and come to know this astounding truth that is increasingly necessary in a lonely and anxious culture: God is Love, and the object of that love…is each one of us. ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX

As He did with Abraham, God is asking you and me again today to put our trust in Him, and perhaps especially for things we cannot yet see. Read it here ======= Have a comment about this podcast? Contact us! Click To Learn More About ACTS XXIX