Fr Scott Reilly LC: Recent Episodes
Fr Scott Reilly LC
I love Christianity, the Catholic faith, and being a Catholic priest in the Legionaries of Christ. I pastorally work in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia, founded in 1808. Philadelphia is home to many saints, such as St. Katharine Drexel and St. John Neumann. This podcast concerns the Gospel truth, which I joyfully share through homilies and talks I preach.
“God has created me to do him some definite service; he has committed some work to me which he has not committed to another. I have my mission” St. John Henry Cardinal Newman.
Jesus makes us aware that, before God, we are in a similar situation: we are God’s servants, not his creditors.
How much good he could have done, but it was all not to be because of his naval gazing.
According to St. Faustina, If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering...
Ten genuine followers of Christ will prove more fecund in new believers than a thousand whose faith is lukewarm or non-existent.
The people following Jesus all made a decision to put Christ in the center of their lives.
Saint Teresa of Ávila, in the “Interior Castles,” stated that one of the first steps on the path to holiness is self-knowledge.
Looking back at sin, we can perceive what we had not realized in the past: that God in an utterly personal manner was present in a perseverance of love through that lost time.
“For it must be recognized that before anyone else it was God himself, the Eternal Father, who entrusted himself to the Virgin of Nazareth, giving her his own Son in the mystery of the Incarnation.”
“Who can know God’s counsel, or who can conceive what the Lord intends? For the deliberations of mortals are timid, and unsure are our plans.”
Christians should not become discouraged in the face of hardship and opposition, but should be invigorated by it, knowing that God permits it for the perfection of their faith.
“To have made a decision for Jesus is not the end but the beginning. This decision has to be lived out every day. The whole of our life must be lived in its light. It will be tested” Sister Ruth Burrows.
“What incites us to nervousness or panic is never God’s will! It is our own illusion that makes us believe that we must absolutely do certain things within a certain time.”
(St. Bernard) Let us consider, brothers, how here in our home the ordering of love assigns these three things: service to Martha, contemplation to Mary, penance to Lazarus.
“The most significant signal-sending actions you can take to demonstrate that you live the values are: how you spend your time and what you pay attention to, the language (words and phrases) you use, the way you handle critical incidents, and your openness to feedback. These actions make visible and tangible your personal commitment to a shared way of being.”
— The Leadership Challenge: How to Make Extraordinary Things Happen in Organizations (J-B Leadership Challenge: Kouzes/Posner) by James M. Kouzes, Barry Z. Posner
“The Evil One uses the pain and confusion of a fallen world to shadow doubt over God’s goodness. As long as the laughter of being forgiven is silenced by the somber tones of doubt and anger, God’s goodness will be shrouded in the darkness of this world. Forgiveness is the light that penetrates the dark and frees the somber, shamed heart to leap with love.”
— Bold Love by Dan B. Allender
We are practiced in pleading inadequacy in order to avoid living at the best that God calls us to. How tired the excuses sound!” Run with the Horses: The Quest for Life at Its Best (Peterson, Eugene H.) .
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference” (Robert Frost).
“On the other hand, whenever a step forward in relations with God involves a fruitful step, it is often because a passage across a barrier with God has been courageous in our self-offering. A risk must be taken in which all security and sense of direction might be lost, and sometimes all security does disappear for a while, both in the interior life and in a worldly sense. Yet crossing a boundary of no return seems to be precisely the kind of spiritual gamble that God likes to see in souls.”
— The Hour of Testing: Spiritual Depth and Insight in a Time of Ecclesial Uncertainty by Donald Haggerty
Fasting helps one to keep one’s mind clear and sharp and one’s heart free from desires that are not of God.
The act of faith and adherence they are expected to achieve does not limit itself to an intellectual assent. The act of total adherence to Jesus—with soul, spirit, will, and body—includes even those subconscious, emotional recesses we normally think cannot be governed by the deliberate exercise of the will. On this boat during this storm, it is the disciples’ very emotions and deepest survival instincts that are being redeemed.”— Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word: Meditations on the Gospel According to St. Matthew by Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis
So when Jesus looked up and said, “I have come to bring fire to the earth and I wish it were blazing already”, you and me are answering his dream.
Indeed, today we often hide it under a thousand apologies. So often it disappears in the convolutions of our methods. But we have no reason to apologize for the Gospel. We must apologize for hiding it.” Teaching and Learning the Love of God: Being a Priest Today" by Joseph Ratzinger -
“Much of the first mistake can be traced to one basic error: we make an attribution about another person’s intentions based on the impact of their actions on us. “ — Difficult Conversations: How to Discuss What Matters Most by Douglas Stone, Bruce Patton, et al.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him” John 6:53-56 .
“The only force I believe in is prayer, and it is a force I apply with more doggedness than attention” Flannery O’Connor.
Instead, the Trinity is first a communion of Persons we are invited to know. We do not primarily come to know God through intellectual deduction. We come to know God through prayerful union with Him.
“The love for Christ is a live current that comes from God, is transmitted from person to person, and returns to God. It runs a sacred cycle reaching from God to an individual, from the individual to his neighbor, and back through faith to God. He who breaks the circuit at any point breaks the flow of love. He who transmits purely, however small a part of that love, helps establish the circuit for the whole.”
— The Lord by Romano Guardini
The Catechism teaches us that hope is the theological virtue by which we desire the kingdom of heaven and eternal life as our ultimate happiness, placing our trust in Christ's promise and not relying on our own strength, but on the help of the Holy Spirit's grace.
"Hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies." — Andy Dufresne
It is just not possible to invite the Holy Spirit to come, to visit, and to fill us on condition that the Spirit leave us, thank you, just as we were before.
“Jesus wants you to know him in truth and can be relied on to help you if you do what you can, humbly, trustfully. Eat his words, take them right down into your heart, live with them.” —Sister Ruth Burrows, Essence of Prayer
“If you want to approach the Bible in a way worthy of it, you must surrender to the Word present in every syllable, and be totally defenseless before him. You are placing yourself unconditionally before a living person, ready to follow him as soon as he gives you a sign.”
— This Is the Day the Lord Has Made: 365 Daily Meditations by Stinissen Wilfrid
“She knows that God will give as much as we can or desire to receive. That is why she does all she can to clear away all obstacles, so that we become total openness. Wherever she discovers the beginning of a Yes, she lets something of her absolute Yes slip in.” — Mary in the Bible and in Our Lives by Wilfrid
Christian joy is born on the cross.” — This Is the Day the Lord Has Made: 365 Daily Meditations by Stinissen Wilfrid
We need a faith that is a radical personal decision for God that will allow us to discover the light and the strength we need to face the challenges of today.
To make the switch from this addictive habit of looking only at the negative to being present to the world around us in praise and gratitude to God can be difficult.
A post-mortem exam revealed that he had an enlarged heart, so much so that two of his ribs were dislocated.
The Person of the Holy Spirit does not exist in himself; he exists in two Persons: the Father and the Son.
But living loved isn’t just their mind-set; it is a choice they make daily. It isn’t just a possible thing they should try. It’s the only solution that actually works. We have to tell our minds to live loved.
Love is not violent or bullish; it is never insistent. Love is a quiet whisper, a discreet invitation, a careful knock on the door. Love does not restore law and order by decree and mandate, and it doesn’t revenge itself by oppressing the guilty.
What incites us to nervousness or panic is never God’s will! It is our own illusion that makes us believe that we must absolutely do certain things within a certain time.
From a sermon by Saint Ephrem, deacon
“He whom the whole world cannot contain, Mary alone embraces. Mary was made heaven on our behalf by bearing the divinity which Christ, without leaving the glory of the Father, enclosed in the narrow confines of her womb so as to lead men to greater dignity.”
Pope Leo XIV first homily, “Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God: the one Saviour, who alone reveals the face of the Father.
Unless you eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink His Blood, you have no life in you.
Through the Apostles, Christ is obliterating the kingdom of darkness: exorcisms galore, healings, faith increasing.
This is the great challenge for us! We can focus so much on giving ourselves to Jesus and our neighbor, but lack accepting Jesus and others into our hearts.
“When we rise from our prayer, it means, not that we “finish” it, but that we let it flow out into our work.”
“Fear paralyzes. Fear in its mildest, tamest form is a party pooper. It is a wet blanket that smothers the fiery passion God deposited in your heart when he formed you. Fear freezes us into inaction. Frozen ideas, frozen souls, frozen bodies can’t move, can’t dream, can’t risk, can’t love, and can’t live. Fear chains us.” (Becoming Myself: Embracing God's Dream of You by Eldredge, Stasi)
“When Christ came into our midst to redeem us, says a great theologian, he descended so low that after that no one would be able to fall without falling into him.”
That cross will be his sword; with it, he will vanquish death and defeat sin by his obedience and the shedding of his blood.
What makes the temptation of power so seemingly irresistible? Maybe it is that power offers an easy substitute for the hard task of love. It seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life. (Reflections on Christian Leadership Henri J.M. NOUWEN)
PInecrest Academy 7th Grade Girls’ Retreat: Temptation: looking around and comparing yourself
But the paradox with Christianity is that the future is fundamentally already the present. The future has shifted to the present. In and with Christ, the kingdom of heaven has come. “The kingdom of God is in your midst” (Lk 17: 21).
“Indeed, the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart.” Hebrews 4:12
Jesus went up to the feast secretly. Saint Augustine explains that this means that though Jesus was present, the full revelation of His divine identity was hidden from many.
Water also conveys newness—the waters of creation and recreation. Water covers the earth at the beginning and it brings about physical and spiritual cleansing. It makes things new again.
Christ crucified is God’s sign of Love for us. No matter what externally happens, we can trust that love.
o“When Christ came into our midst to redeem us, says a great theologian, he descended so low that after that no one would be able to fall without falling into him.”
Prayer in the name of Jesus is especially powerful against the Devil. “In my name,” Jesus said of His followers, “they shall cast out devils” (Mk 16:17).
Elisabeth Leseur († 1914) was a French laywoman whose atheist husband, upon reading her spiritual journal after her death, experienced a profound conversion and later became a Dominican priest.
The more God is cast off and forgotten, the more those who still live their faith will receive a gaze of tender love from God.
By your yes today to God’s will, you make Jesus present to our world that finds it so difficult to believe that God is love.
“What some people think is freedom is nothing more than license that leads to bondage.” Victory Over the Darkness: Realize the Power of Your Identity in Christ (Anderson, Neil T.)
It isn’t difficult for God to make something good and blessed out of human errors. Such confidence gives an enormous freedom. You do the best you can and leave the rest to God. And he does manage!
Popular trust in Saint Joseph is seen in the expression “Go to Joseph ”, which evokes the famine in Egypt, when the Egyptians begged Pharaoh for bread.
As important as faithfulness is, discharging duty and maintaining a commitment do not satisfy God as much as we may think. There is a deeper interior dimension in a personal love for Our Lord that awaits our soul and that we do not realize initially.
Much of the first mistake can be traced to one basic error: we make an attribution about another person’s intentions based on the impact of their actions on us
The core of the Good News is that it is not by our own strength we act as true Christians—it has to be Jesus acting in and through us.
Jesus himself questioned out loud when talking about his second coming: “When the Son of man comes, will he find faith on earth?” (Lk 18:8).
When our hearts are stuffed with worldly desires, worries, anxiety, anger…keep going, God will impose a fast on them.
The first reading puts a premium on attitude: Be joyful in your giving and GENEROUS! The Lord loves the cheerful and generous give.
Being a child means accepting ourselves as we are. We know we have plenty of limitations and imperfections, but we don’t make a production of it and we don’t turn it into a major problem
“A person decides himself if his past is a heavy burden that he drags along with him and makes him act in a stereotypical and compulsive way or if it is an asset. What happened in our earlier life is not made of granite. It is more like dough that we can knead and to which we can constantly give new form. It is an extremely exciting work to let what seemed to be deprived of all meaning become meaningful.”
— Eternity in the Midst of Time by Wilfrid Stinissen
The Gospel conveys that God is not indifferent to our hearts and actions. “Anyone who gives a cup of water to drink because he belongs to Christ…”
oPride is the most corrosive force in our lives. To conqueror it, Jesus’ efforts would be more than Herculean.
Having seen so many wondrous acts of God on their behalf, Israel had failed to recognize what those deeds revealed about God himself.
oAll our fear comes from the fact that we are separated by God, by sin, or we THINK and therefore FEEL separated from him.
“My sons, in my long experience very often I had to be convinced of this great truth. It is easier to become angry than to restrain oneself, and to threaten a boy than to persuade him.”
(St. John Chrysostom) “The most important thing of all to him, however, was that he knew himself to be loved by Christ.”
It’s clear that the paralytic wanted healing, but he was unable to come to our Lord by his own effort.
“Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed” St Anselm.
“Hope is born of love and based on the love springing from the pierced heart of Jesus upon the cross”
Christ asks you never to be ashamed to tell others, with all due discretion and respect, about your friendship with him.
We are called to vigilance, and this involves proactive and preemptive defense against potential temptation.
The Christian must therefore exercise discretion about what enters the heart, because that which enters the heart spreads.
Jesus called out the greedy heart of the man who wanted his inheritance from his brother.
The will of God is at each moment before us like an immense, inexhaustible ocean that no human heart can fathom
God’s glory is manifesting to mankind how great his love is. This is a especially shown through Jesus Christ on the cross.
Jesus met people where they were and allowed for the experience, the encounter, to happen.
The memorial of Saint Teresa of Benedicta. Edith Stein searched for peace and found it in Christ.
So many things impede our hearing the Lord. He can heal us and bring peace to our hearts and minds.
Practical atheism blinds the mind and hardens the heart making them incapable of hearing the call
God is always faithful. Eli and his sons simply did not love the Lord; they did not care about him. The Lord respected that decision.
Chastity a key to interior integrity giving one the capacity to hear and respond to God’s call.
Jesus, the way the truth and the life, never gives up on us. He is there forever, offering his truth and love to us.
The Korean laity’s essential role in the Church’s development from the beginning in Korea
The only way, a disciple of Christ can live at his or her best is in the life of radical faith in Him
We no longer live in Christendom, we live in an apostolic age. May your joy from living in Christ have an explanation for non-believers.
Jesus loved us fully. Let us love him and listen to his voice without looking for shortcuts.
God has given us the great gift of human freedom. He does not force us to choose the good, he leaves that to us. He will judge us on our love.
The Canaanite woman revealed her power over Jesus, his heart through faith and humility.
Trusting God unconditionally gives Him permission to work His miraculous power in our lives.
The gospel thrives in hearts that seek to live the message of Christ authentically. It is not always easy, but it always brings fulfillment, peace and joy.
By the Incarnation, Jesus came to our history, came to our present to bring us light, hope, and forgiveness.
Too often we give up on Jesus. It’s not because we have fallen out of love, but rather we have let wayward desires take up space in our hearts because of a lack of tenacious attention to Jesus.
Thanks to Mary’s yes to God, we are brothers and sisters of Jesus and sons and daughters of the heavenly Father. She is our Mother and Mother of the Catholic Church.
What Jesus did in his body, he will do in his mystical body, the Church. The cross is not a source of frustration, rather the means to salvation. Jesus’ presence is our joy.
It’s hard to trust God. True trust requires repentance which means a change of mentality.
Waiting with hope is a choice that gives a person purpose and direction. Without hope, we have no meaning, which leads to discouragement.