Under An Open Heaven: Recent Episodes
Under An Open Heaven
Under An Open Heaven is a Catholic online ministry that takes the listeners into the reality that Heaven is open and that God wants to communicate with us. We explore scripture and other documents and focus on our own personal lives as we talk about how God is working in our lives. We want to set hearts on fire with joy and passion!
Good Friday - may God bless you this Easter season! Have you ever wondered how the Last Supper, Good Friday, and Easter actually effect our lives? We discuss the impact that some passages in scripture have had on our lives.
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email: underanopenheaven.fire@gmail.com
We do not claim to be a podcast with all the answers but to be open to having difficult conversations and explore the nuances of Truth and grow in our opinions. We discuss what does it look like to be fed by the Holy Spirit, how do we interact in holiness with the world, and the question of dehumanization in our culture. Please share or contact us, we would love to hear from you!
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email: underanopenheaven.fire@gmail.com
What makes a "Good Christian" or a "Good Catholic"? Can there really be such a thing? How do we approach others or even ourselves when mistakes are made? Can we even take credit for being good? These points made by Pope Francis and C.S. Lewis are discussed in today's episode!
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What is faith? Why do we sometimes deal with a crisis of faith? How do we deal with it and move forward? These questions and more are discussed in today's episode. There is a powerful, personal story at the end. So stay tuned to the end!
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We discuss leadership in the church from married priests to expected narcissism in leadership, taking ownership of the gospel, and the importance of discernment with the Holy Spirit and how that looks in our lives.
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What does the phrase "meet them where they are at" actually mean? What dangers await us as we try to preserve our own cultures or try to control how the Gospel looks in others? We discuss these issues and more in this episode where we dive deep into using a few good examples of how we should not build a wall to prevent sinners from joining the Church while not just ignoring sin at the sacrifice of being inclusive. Join us on our adventure through this part of the Joy of the Gospel!
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What is the difference between 'Joy' and 'Happiness'? How does our perception of what is fair change our spiritual life? These questions and more are discussed by Steven Anderson and Arthur Richardson as they dive into the first part of the Joy of the Gospel by Pope Francis. It has been their experience that when people talk about Pope Francis, they usually fixate on what they heard someone comment on what he said on the internet or the news. They would like to take you past the political biases and to the heart of what Pope Francis wants to say to the children of God in the catholic church as he has stepped into the role of 'Papa' for Christians everywhere. Yes, all Christians, since the joy of the Gospel cannot be owned by one denomination, but the the love of Christ urges us all on, to a point that we can say 'woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel.'
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We are back!!!! Introducing our new Cohost, Steven Anderson! We will be starting a new season and circling back to the season with the focus on the Mass at a later date.
In this episode, we focus on Mark 8:15 and discuss the Leaven of Herod, the Leaven of the Pharisees, and the Leaven of Jesus Christ - the Bread of Life. We discuss the rising trend of tribalism in our modern culture, how to position ourselves as Christians when we deal with other people who have different ideologies than us, and the challenge that we believe Jesus is presenting to our modern Church of Christians in how we respond to His love for us individually and giving others the extension of love that we experience who are different from us.
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Today Art and Kolton cover the significance of the liturgy of the word in the mass, focusing on how it is not to be overlooked in its importance and in its ability to reveal the person of Christ to us.
Why does a Catholic Mass or liturgy start with a procession? What is the point of the Penitential Rite? Is each Mass its own sacrifice or is it entering into the living memory of Jesus' Passion?
We embark on a new phase in this season. We will be teaching on how to worship, specifically the Roman Catholic Rite. However we will be following the ancient flow of Christian liturgy and this will be applicable for many Christians.
In today's episode we discuss the principles needed to start: clearing out the clutter in our hearts and minds, baptismal promises, reverence, and how that looks in a healthy Church.
Have you ever thought about your finances in the light of God's wisdom? We discuss the advice on self care and care of our friends and neighbors in Wisdom of Ben Sira chapter 14. It is hard to find balance when it comes to money, and we hope to find it. Join us as we explore what money has to do with our spiritual lives.
Hey folks, today Kolton and Corey discuss the chaos that big changes bring to our lives and how Christ became our example in dealing with that chaos. We hope you enjoy!
Fair warning, this is a heavy podcast. We talk about being hurt by the Church, and the people in it. We talk about handling the breakdown of our ideas. We talk about sex, and those in leadership roles who are obsessed with it and morality around it. We talk about authority. Most importantly, we affirm that we love Jesus, His Church, though we have been hurt by it. It takes a great deal of maturity to allow the false ideas attached to our faith to die, our naive ideals to be refined without becoming jaded. We discuss all this and more in our hunt for spiritual maturity in this season.
John 14:20 - "On that day you will realize that I am in the Father and you are in me and I in you." Ever wonder what this looks like and what effect that has on the world?
Apologies for the short episode this week, with the Mission: Flint, we were a little tired. Please take some time to pray for those who were on the retreat that the fruits continue to grow in their lives!
Looking for rest? It's hard to get it and when we do, it almost never feels like it's enough. We discuss why that might be and what we can do to receive rest. We discuss what Jesus might have experienced in His humanity in this regard as well, and try to use that as a roadmap.
Hi folks, this is Kolton's first solo episode! He focuses on Paul's encouragement in Colossians 3 and gets a little preachy along the way! We hope you enjoy!
Galatians 5:4-6 - What is our hope for righteousness? How do we navigate the tension between our authority as Children of God in building a world we want to live in compared to helping Jesus establish the Kingdom of Heaven? These questions and more are discussed in today's episode!
We made it to 100 episodes, so it has to be a good one! As we continue the conversation about maturity of faith, we talk about Sirach or the Wisdom of Ben Sira Chapter 4 and dive deeper into the mystery of God's care and guidance as we are refined. Please subscribe and share if you enjoyed this episode!
1 Corinthians 13 - Love is patient, love is kind. Growing in how live a life of love is difficult when the people we need to love hurt us. It is easy to enjoy the idea of love, its hard when we must embrace the person and not just the idea of love. It is our hope that you feel inspired to continue growing in learning how to love.
Jesus promises us that we will move mountains - but He shows us that we need to keep our eyes on Our Father in order to know which ones. We continue the discussion of growth in maturity and how to handle deconstruction in a healthy way.
Growth and maturity often can be a byproduct of suffering. When we view our lives, what is our perspective? In this episode we break open the second half of 1 Corinthians13. What does it mean to set aside our childish ways?
In this episode we talk about the significance of the interior discipline of recognizing the things that we hold as true in ourselves and working with God to come into greater relationship with the Person that is Truth (hint: it's Jesus). Enjoy!
Sometimes it can be scary when your life is turned upside down. After years working in the church, we discuss Arthur's journey since Covid ended his youth ministry career. Since Covid, many of us have been questioning, what is next? Who am I and what do I have to offer the world are some of the serious questions that many of us face. Our hope is that this story helps you feel secure to move forward into a needed change or even a forced one.
Corey Luna is back! In this episode, we discussed how to navigate our relationship of trust with Jesus when life seems to feel like a desert and prayer is hard. If you are or have struggled with understanding the Promises of God, we hope that this will help you feel connected to the reality of God even when you feel abandoned. Since we did not end with a prayer, here is our prayer for you:
My God, my God, why have you abandoned me? In our time of need, come back to us, strengthen us. Give us the desire to still say, be praised, my Lord and my God!
Hey audience! This week's episode is about understanding "fear of the Lord" and the changing context that that has had over the course of God's revelation to mankind. We discuss our personal understandings and experiences with this enegmatic phrase and we hope that it sheds some light into your day! God bless, enjoy!
We pride ourselves to be family oriented, therefore, we wanted to give you a fair warning that we do talk about sex in this episode which is it is marked as explicit.
Have you ever challenged yourself to think about your death. How would you react if you knew the date of your death. Would you want to know? We discuss this interesting brain teaser: if you were given an envelope with the date of your death inside, would you open it?
What does it mean when we pray, "Let your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven"? We begin the discussion by reflecting on our own lives and where we found success and struggle in being intentional about this prayer.
There is a tension in the name of Good Friday. How can so much pain, suffering, and death of the innocent be good? What are we celebrating what is called the Passion of our Lord when Jesus seemed so at peace? These questions and more we ponder in today's episode. May you have a blessed Easter weekend!
One of our Co-hosts is moving. Moving means packing, and packing means that you get lost in all the memories that your stuff contains. We take a trip down memory-lane and reflect on the spiritual implications of change and connections that our memories have in shaping us. "A jagged rock keeps its edges in stagnant water." - Kolton Jones
This is no April fools joke; Jesus says, "be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect." Have you ever wondered how we can become perfect and not just act it? Have you ever felt like you have something to prove but only came up frustrated and hurting the very people whom you tried to prove something to? Dive in to learn more about how God changes us to be perfect as He is perfect.
Concerned you might be wasting too much time on entertainment? Have you ever considered the effects of what and how much is consumed? UOH discusses the importance of what we consume and what we produce in this episode. Kolton Jones came up with a phrase that we discuss that gets to the heart of this issue, " eating and procreation are phenomenological diatropes." If you are curious, check it out!
Shame can be a painful and isolating struggle to deal with. Have you ever wondered how to break free of it or what causes it? We discuss the power of breakthrough when Jesus calls us out of our place of shame and empowers us to catch the thoughts that can ruin us.
Let's get intense and talk about some of a hard issue we all face - what is my ideology and is that changing my perception of faith? Have we built up rules and regulations around those ideologies that undermine what God really wanted to give us?
The struggle between serving two masters can be challenging. We discuss what does it mean to have purity of heart, discerning if there is duplicity in our hearts, and learning to desire simplicity.
Have you ever wondered what pushes us to do what we do? We discuss in depth our drive or our 'why' and we hope to inspire you to join in our mission to see the radical and life changing love of Jesus liberate us all.
Life matters and is good. But because there is value, we need to ask some some personal questions to help us navigate and experience life to the full. In this episode, we focus in on these two personal questions: Why do I exist? Why does this podcast exist?
This week we discuss a spiritual breakthrough that Kolton had over the course of 30 minutes in a McDonald's parking lot and the foundational process of ultimately consenting to the will of God in our lives. (So pretty light stuff lol). Enjoy!
Hey folks, in this podcast we continue our discussions around the spiritual nuances of the grey areas of life, opting to focus on the importance of remaining faithful amidst the questions. We
Sorry for the late upload! This week we discuss the importance of considering the relationship between body and soul, and how tending to the unity of these within ourselves is crucial for maintaining spiritual health.
This is one of the more sobering episodes where we discuss the struggles and sufferings of life and how God ultimately works with them to help us be open to graces.
Hey folks, Art and I have an announcement at the beginning of this episode so in case you happen to read the description first, we will be publishing episodes bi-weekly now instead of weekly. We hope you enjoy our discussion on the reluctance of the prophet Jonah as we enjoy our delicious peaty scotch.
This week we discuss what it means to do a prophetic act. We draw on the interesting and unorthodox ways that God called both Jeremiah and Hosea to act and talk about our own experiences with prophetic acts. We hope you enjoy!
In this episode we discuss the call of the prophet Jeremiah who considered himself too young and we learn how to trust God in covering our insufficiencies by providing new ways for us to see what He is doing.
Our new music bits:
chill. by sakura Hz | https://soundcloud.com/sakurahertz
Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0)
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/3.0/
Moses had his excuses, we have ours... And God loves to prove us wrong, in the best way
Hey folks, in this episode we begin by trash talking fast food and end understanding a little more about how God called Moses to be a prophet to God's people. Please enjoy!
Hi fiends, in this episode we cover God's call for Isaiah and the unique way this prophet was prepared for ministry. We reflect on both the message that Isaiah was given and the way that he was prepared to be sent out. We hope you enjoy!
Have you ever wondered why death seems so wrong? We discuss this hard question as we discuss what it means to be human.
Hey folks, this is the last episode of season 5! Art and I wrap up the discussion by talking about how we are made by love and for love to all be brought into one in Christ. We hope you enjoy! Also, here are some links to point you in the right direction if you are interested in our topics of banter!
US government report on UAP: https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf
ZOMIES:
Jimmy Akin episode 1: https://www.sqpn.com/2021/06/zombies-real-haitian-zombies/
Jimmy Akin episode 2: https://www.sqpn.com/2021/06/zombies-sorcery-and-secret-societies-haitian-zombies/
New York post interview with Lou Elizondo:
Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emn6jozxHxU&t=2s
Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkBsbiaIzqw
Additional newer info on Lou: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9B_sC6VG18
This second episode is a doozie. We begin by asking Corey the question, "how do we fix the christian/catholic dating arena?". The following conversation sure did not disappoint. We hope you enjoy the episode and feel free to give us some feedback and check us out on Facebook and Instagram!
She is a strong yet humble leader, incredibly funny, and a great person to get to know. So of course we had to interview her! Enjoy!
In this episode we talk about the not-so-pretty, nitty-gritty aspects of growing in faith and how pursuing the heart of God isn't always a walk in the park. We are pleased to announce a surprise as well! Listen in to hear what we have coming your way. God bless!
What does it mean to live in the Spirit? How do we receive the recreative power of God?
Have you ever wondered how God wants to relate to you? Have you ever wondered how to actually communicate with Him? There is a lot more in learning how to pray than one might think!
Season 5 is all about encountering God's heart! Join us as we dive deep into God's love and our new identity in Him!
Kolton takes us down a fun little rabbit hole of fringe topics - Crop Circles. Enjoy our episode that started out as banter that turned into its own episode!
Wow, it has been exactly one year since we started! We take some time to reflect on how we have grown. Let us know how you have grown with us by email - underanopenheaven.fire@gmail.com or by leaving a comment bellow!
We cover a challenging passage where Jesus calls the Pharisees "Whitewashed tombs" among other things. What is the warning for us? How do we live lives that are filled with life rather than death? Listen in to learn more!
Ever get tired of waiting on God, I do and we discuss what God wanted to speak into our lives as we are dealing with this.
What exactly does Jesus mean when He challenges the Pharisees by saying 'the only sign you will receive is the sign of Jonah'? There may be more to it than you think!
Here is our Lenten experience! Hopefully you will be encouraged and strengthened in the last week of Lent!
Have you ever wanted something and got even more than you asked for? Did you like what you got in addition? We cover the story about the hemorrhaging woman from Mark 5 as we talk about this.
We take a look at the miracle of Jesus healing a paralytic, and we realized how Jesus is trying to put an end to our expectations in our lives and raise them to the goodness of God. Take a listen and share if you liked it!
Jesus Calms the storms of life... and real storms. Have you ever wondered how that changes your life>
We continue our adventure through the parables with Jesus! Listen in to enjoy a personal look at two parables.
We begin our fourth season with Jesus as He teaches on a boat about the four types of people. Where are you in His classification?
We are finishing our season with this episode! Love is the culmination of our spiritual lives and peace is the fruit of this alive in our hearts.
Who is right? Who is wrong? Do divisions based on differences help classify or do they damage?
Sometimes taking a stand... or stealing a stand is not the best option. Jesus is Lord and He is working ALL things for our good!
How does God provide? How do you see it? Download to listen in to our stories on this matter!
Ever try to understand the Will of God and feel confused? Download now for content on this very topic!
Ever wonder about the true meaning of Christmas? Listen in to this fun episode to learn more!
Have you ever wondered why you might do things that you do NOT want to do? Take a listen to learn more!
Spiritual Warfare is the topic of this episode, but keep in mind that Jesus has conquered Sin and Death
Even if we could only podcast via the web, it was still really good to catch up with each other after a period of isolation... dang covid...
Have you ever felt overwhelmed and don't know how to navigate through it all? We discuss this very topic!
***This episode might seem a little scary to kids. Kolton and I talk about our personal experiences with good and evil and a few scary stories that all point to God's Goodness and Glory!
This episode talks about the goal of the Christian life, divinization, theosis, becoming holy. This is what really matters!
Sorry for the repeated episode! It is a little... humbling... to have made that mistake! Thank you for your patience! God bless!
The virtue of temperance can help guide the heart deeper in union with the heart of God! We just have to be honest with our desires and let God heal us!
Meekness and Patience go a long way in helping us navigate a volatile and angry world.
Here is another resource to help navigate:
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/drinks-after-lords-day/id412678859
This episode is adult content, please note that this may not be appropriate for all ages...
"Everything in the world was made for me, but I own none of it - I am only the steward."
"Shame is not the opposite of pride, but its source" - Uncle Iroh
In this episode we talk about the virtue of Humility - or in Latin - humus (of the earth)
What exactly is prudence? How is it the 'mother of all virtues'? Listen in to find out more!
Season 2 will be focused on the Virtues and a what it takes to live a good and full life, but the first step is grace!
This is the last episode of Season 1! Enjoy! Psalm 139 is impacted both Kolton and I in a radical way! God bless!
Seems simple enough, right? We are once again drawn deeper into love and discovering God's affection for us by this psalm!
We are almost to a close with UOH's first season! We are going to start Season 2, The Virtues, after next week! If this was a helpful season, continue reading and praying with the psalms and/or Liturgy of the Hours!
"If we are naturally good at something, we tend to put a lot of stock in it and assimilate it as part of our identity. When it fails, we feel like we have failed."
"Honestly, taking a hard look at myself and realizing my need for God to graciously save me from thinking I can do it all on my own."
"The Psalms are a medicine" Once again, we discover the powerful force of God's word healing our broken hearts and helping us hope again!
"Complacency* - seen as a source of temptation to forget God. Footnotes are great people!" ... "We fall into complacency because we made everything efficient but efficiency is fragile."
God's Glory covers everything, and so do we! We talk about everything from racism to miracles and finding inner-freedom!
Thank you for your patience! We cover psalm 23 and discuss the beauty of the dark valley. Listen in to discover more about what God can do with sin and suffering!
God's Goodness is better than any other 'god'. It fulfills our lives with joy and changes how we approach the world.
If you like this episode, please subscribe and download! Also, please share with a friend! God bless!
It took us a few tries but we got it to work! God answers those who cry out for help, even if it takes a while!
Koltan and Arthur reflect on psalm 8! Divinity and humanity are two things you might not think go well together, yet they do!
Kolton and Arthur dive into Psalm 4 and take a hard look at their own lives when God's promises and personal experience do not match up they way they may want.