The Novitiate: Recent Episodes
MGL Media
Is holiness possible when you are living a busy life in the world? The Novitiate is a podcast based on the training one would receive in religious life but presented in a way that applies to people living out lay vocations in the world, helping them to understand how the richness of spiritual tradition is relevant to them and guiding them on their journey to becoming saints.
How can you invest your gift for the Kingdom? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the parable of the talents, explaining the temptation to run away and spend what God has given you on yourself and sharing the challenge to do something with your gift that will build the life of Heaven on earth.
How does God call you to look at money? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that Jesus did not say money is bad but rather that it can become a trap for the heart and explores your vocation to care for those around you, explaining the importance of having your eyes open to see the needs of others.
What is God calling you to step away from? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores why Jesus told so many parables about finance and explains the importance of trusting the Father in order to be free from enslavement and hold lightly to the things of this earth.
How do you abandon your desire to be all powerful? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL reveals that at the core of the ministry of Jesus is an uncomfortable mystery, that God saved the world by becoming nothing, and shares that He calls us to go where He has gone.
What does it mean to live for eternity? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores a confrontational element of what discipleship truly is, sharing how obedience is intentionally listening to the call of Christ and uncovering that often we like the benefits of christianity but turn a blind eye to the cost.
Why do we need to change the way we live? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL confronts the way our modern society accepts sinful behaviour as being moral and explores how Jesus is calling us out of our culture to live for eternity.
How much are you prepared to surrender yourself to Christ? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the purpose of life and the heart of discipleship and shares that the greatest joy you can experience is by giving everything back to Him for His glory, even when you can’t see the end of the story.
Does your life match what you profess to believe? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains the importance of faith going beyond just words and into actions, sharing how generations of christians have shaped the values our culture has today and exploring why belief in life after death should change everything about how you live.
What does it mean to be a disciple? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the power of discipleship, sharing that the message of Christianity is not meant to be only informative, but transformative, and explaining the need in our modern culture for saints to be Christ in the world.
How can you become more spiritual? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the great misunderstanding that in order to be spiritual you have to leave your humanity behind, sharing that you should actually do the opposite and explaining that there is a deep mystery to be discovered in the midst of the path that Christ laid out for us in becoming man.
What is a spirituality of hunger? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the desires of the human heart, explaining how sinning is an expression of hunger for relief in the human soul and sharing that you should not try to hide that brokenness from God out of shame, but rather bring it to Him so that He can reveal His love to you in that place.
What is contemplation? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the mystery of God and the experience of comprehending Him as a whole, sharing the importance of learning how to still your intellect during an encounter in order to love Him in His entirety.
How can you make sense of spiritual darkness? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores what it means to grow and encounter God and explains that the dark night of the soul is not actually when He is absent from your life, but rather when you are encountering Him so closely that you are blinded to His presence.
What is love? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that as you progress along the spiritual journey love will become more and more mysterious and shares that the way you encounter God must gradually change from being focused on the senses to a decision of faith.
Can you find a place in your life of stillness? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains how encountering God in the silence has always been deep at the heart of Christian spirituality, exploring that we live in a world which is constantly creating noise and sharing the importance of meeting Him in the desert in order to hear His whisper.
Do you find it difficult to pray? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the battle between the head and the heart in prayer, explaining that the essence of growth in prayer is learning a level of self mastery where you can silence the distractions and encounter God.
How can you learn how to become a child again? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that the purpose of the whole Christian life is to know that God loves you as His child and shares the importance of prayer in learning to call Him Father.
What do you love? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that you meditate on the things you love and love the things you meditate on, sharing that at every point we are surrounded by opportunities to dwell on the mysteries of God and that no matter how busy you are, you always have time in your mind for the things you love.
Can you see how God is actively at work in you? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains the stages of the spiritual journey and explores different forms of prayer, sharing that the way you pray should change as you progress along the path of holiness.
Do you have a burning desire to love God? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that the level of your faith is really measured by the level of your desire and shares the importance of allowing His love to lead and guide you.
How do you imagine God to be? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that there comes a time on the spiritual journey when He does not fit the image you have created and shares that instead of turning to an idea of how you want Him to be, you should pray for a contemplative spirit in order to encounter Him within the realities of your ordinary everyday life.
How can you maintain a relationship with God? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that you need to allow Christ to conquer every part of your heart and explains the importance of identifying the places where you are still in rebellion so that you can let God in to be your strength before the enemy comes.
What actually is sin? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores how we live in a world which decides what is immoral based on public opinion, not on truth, and shares the importance of seeing the commandments through the lens of a Father who loves us.
How do you live in a radical honesty? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that you cannot receive mercy if you do not take ownership of your sin, exploring how the essence of real transformation is when you can acknowledge who you really are and sharing the importance of having the courage to stand in truth.
If your heart was a garden, what would it look like? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares how you need to allow Christ the Gardener to come and work on your heart, exploring why He calls you every day to pull out weeds and explaining the importance of removing them before they grow deep in your soil.
Are you prepared to go through surgery and allow God to remove what is restricting you from being fully alive? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL speaks about the importance of being aware of what your brokenness actually is, explaining that generational family wounds can have a large influence over you and sharing that if you allow yourself to be deeply transformed by the gospel, you are able to change history.
Do you see yourself the way God sees you? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that a desire to look virtuous can be a blockage to knowing the love of God and explains the importance of knowing your absolute weakness in order to know His absolute love.
What do the scriptures actually mean when they talk about love? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores how the love of God is not simply communicated through blessings but sometimes through hardship and explains that He is in everything and using everything to transform you, loving you in the midst of the chaos.
What is the difference between the law and grace? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL investigates the places of both fear and love in your spiritual life and how the latter directly impacts desire for sin, explaining that law changes your behaviour externally while grace transforms you internally.
How is God loving you? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL investigates the four key symbols that God has used to reveal His love for you, sharing the importance of allowing the truth to come into your heart and explaining that the more you meditate on His love, the more you will be transformed as a human being.
How can you receive love? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that sin is in fact a symptom of a deeper disease - your heart being starved of love - and explains that in order to break down your defensive wall, you need to actively be aware of the love shown to you through others on a daily basis and make a conscious decision to receive the messages their actions communicate.
Has your life been changed by your belief in Jesus Christ? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that in order for you to bear witness of God’s existence it is important to let Him bring Heaven into your heart and explains that a key part of the spiritual life is learning how to receive His love which heals and transforms you.
Does everyone have an equal place in Heaven? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL takes us deeper into the mysteries of Paradise and explains how every choice you make on Earth between selfishness and love directly impacts your capacity to receive the fullness of God in Heaven.
How could a loving God send people to Hell? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL unravels how Hell is in fact a place of willingly denying a relationship with God and, expanding on the important elements of Heaven, Purgatory and Hell, explains how your life in eternity is affected by what you value the most while on Earth.
What is infinite love? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explains that your hunger for love can only be satisfied in the Holy Trinity and reveals that you are on a journey of being awakened to the reality that is already taking place. God has already drawn you into His Heart - because Heaven is not something that happens only when you die, but something that happens every time you go to Mass and receive the Eucharist.
If someone told you that in Heaven you will become a part of God, does that sound heretical? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL speaks about a doctrine of the Church rarely heard and shares that the whole work of God since the dawn of time has been for one purpose - that you would enter into the perfect unity of the Blessed Trinity.
What is Heaven? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL explores the idea that Heaven is not so much to be thought of as a place but rather a relationship with God and presents the confronting thought that if Heaven is a matter of relationship, you will only want to be in Heaven if you want to be in relationship with God here on Earth.
Do you believe that becoming a saint is like climbing a huge mountain? In this episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL shares that the journey of holiness is easier than you think and explains that it is not so much about making a thousand good individual decisions each day, but making one good decision for your whole life - choosing your destination.
Is sainthood possible for you? In this first episode, Fr Dave Callaghan MGL addresses the stigma that holiness is meant only for those living out religious vocations and investigates ways of taking the deep spirituality of the Church and applying it to your life as a lay person in the world.