“Seek first the Kingdom of God, and all these other things will be given to you besides.” When the Lord speaks to his disciples about anxieties, about busyness, about the hustle and bustle of the world, he does not lead them to abandon everything and run away; rather, he leads them to put the first thing first, and allow everything to come into the proper place thereafter. The life of integration, of wholeness, indeed of true holiness is rooted in putting God first and giving Him the authority to form you, guide you, and send you on mission. The monastic tradition has long offered pathways to this ordered, harmonious, rightly prioritized life, building communities where God is pursued first and in all things, while work and play and rest and learning and daily needs are organized with this first and truly necessary thing. But for those of us who do not enter monastic life, who live in the midst of the world with worldly anxieties and busyness and the hustle and bustle, we might think ourselves cut off from that wisdom.

Enter my guest today: John Cannon. He knows his way around the world, but he was significantly and definitively formed in a Carmelite monastery, where he was a monk for seven years. His mission now is to bring the order and harmony of the monastery, the fruits of that integrated life lived for and with the Lord, into the world. In particular, he serves and works with Catholic CEOs, founders, and investors to help them grow their ventures and their faith. He also launched Monk Mindset, which offers all of us, regardless of our jobs or stations in life, the opportunity to incorporate the simplicity, order, and harmony of the monastic life into our everyday lives.

Follow-up Resources:

• Learn about SENT Ventures, which helps you lead your business with the collective wisdom of a faith-aligned community.
• Find information about the SENT Summit 2024, which will take place September 3–6, 2024, in Dallas-Fort Worth.
• Visit Monk Mindset, where you can sign up for a weekly newsletter, find a guide for building your daily and weekly schedule in alignment with monastic wisdom, and begin to seek greater order, harmony, and simplicity.
• “Monastic Life and Human Ecology, with Abbot Austin Murphy, OSB,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “You Gotta Confront Who You Are!” by Travis Lacy, article in Church Life Journal

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I in him will bear much fruit” (John 15:5).

Disciples are Christ’s branches. We grow from him. His life courses through us. The fruit we bear is the sign of his love.

As the Eucharistic Revival in the United States reaches its culmination this summer, we at Notre Dame are marking the occasion in a special way, with the performance of an original, three-act musical called “Behold God’s Love.” The first of the three acts is “Root”, which draw us into the Book of Exodus, where we encounter the Passover and the Manna in the Desert. The second act is “Vine,” which focuses on the Last Supper and Jesus’ meal ministry. And the third act is “Branches,” where we join the early Christian community at Corinth to receive the Eucharistic teaching and gift.

Today, the creator and composer of this new musical joins me to talk about what we can expect and how we will benefit, in our faith and reverence, from enjoying this work of art. Carolyn Pirtle is Program Director of the Center for Liturgy, here in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. She and her cast are preparing this musical now, which will be performed twice on July 6, 2024, both at 1pm and at 7pm in the O’Laughlin Auditorium at Saint Mary’s College. It is a free but ticketed event, and you can get your tickets before they run out at the link in our show notes.

Follow-up Resources:

• Find more information about and tickets for “Behold God’s Love”
• “Eucharistic Beliefs among Adult Catholics, with Tim O’Malley,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Preparing for First Communion, Part 2: The Passover and the Last Supper,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Rekindling Eucharistic Amazement, with Jem Sullivan,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “The Passion, with J.J. Wright,” podcast episode via Church Life Today

This episode is sponsored by Catholic Charities USA. Help Catholic Charities serve your neighbors in need. Join us at www.WeAreThere.US

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

The Lord gives us what we cannot make or do for ourselves. Our first task in life is to receive. And from what we receive, we are to be changed. The mystery of the Eucharist abides in that exchange: receiving, becoming.

In a new book titled Eucharist: The Real Presence of Christ, my longtime friend Tania Geist presents twelve substantive Eucharistic reflections that help small groups discover, discuss, prepare for, and respond to the gift and mission of the Eucharist. Our conversation today will touch on the meaning of the Eucharist, the gift of peace, God sustaining us with simplicity and joy, and the movement from possessiveness to gratitude.

About today's guest: Tania M. Geist has worked as an editor and writer of Catholic books, newspapers, journals, and other media. Her reflections in these pages have been especially shaped by her time studying theology and philosophy at Blackfriars of Oxford University; her years translating and editing Pope Benedict XVI’s preaching for L’Osservatore Romano newspaper inside Vatican City, and the decade during which her young family was part of the community at the University of Notre Dame. There, she received a master’s degree in systematic theology and served as an editor for Church Life Journal.

Geist currently resides in Providence, Rhode Island, with her scripture-scholar husband and their four spunky young children. As a small business owner, she runs Book Pocket, LLC, which provides editorial and audio event services.

Follow-up Resources:

• “The Folly of Mine” by Tania Geist, article in the Church Life Journal
• “Matter Matters: One the Need for a Pastoral Theology of Radical Particularity” by Tania Geist, article in the Church Life Journal
• “Motherhood and the Paschal Mystery” by Tania Geist, article in the Church Life Journal
• “Eucharist Beliefs Among Adult Catholics, with Tim O’Malley,” podcast episode on Church Life Today
• “Augustine on the Eucharist, with Elizabeth Klein,” podcast episode on Church Life Today

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Jessica Bross helps people find their stories, craft their stories, and tell their stories. In fact, she usually writes out other people’s stories in their own voice. Jessica ghostwrites memoirs. She listens to people, she listens more, she helps them find the desire that shapes a story or theme in their lives, then she writes that story for them and with them, creating a memoir that contains that story for themselves and others. You could say that she is in the business of helping people grasp and communicate the meaning, uniqueness, and importance of their own lives’ stories.

Jessica is the founder and owner of Cider Spoons Stories, an Austin-based company that specializes in ghostwriting, editing, teaching, and coaching. Today Jessica joins me to talk about the memoir writing process, the impact it has on the memoirist, her skill and responsibilities as the ghostwriter, and the effect deep listening can have for all of us.

Follow-up Resources:

• Cider Spoons Stories online at ciderspoonstories.com.
• Follow Jessica Bross on LinkedIn

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

It’s hard—and getting harder—to discern the proper relationship between our Catholic faith and American political life. Perhaps it is time to reset the framework for how we engage politics as Catholics, even by broadening our understanding of our duty to public life beyond merely politics. In his new book, Citizens Yet Strangers, Kenneth Craycraft challenges Catholics to move away from individual liberal impulses of American political identity. He seeks to set out a vision for how we orient our moral and civic lives based on the dignity of the human person, through the practices of solidarity and subsidiarity, and toward a true and worthy vision of the common good.

Kenneth Craycraft is the James J. Gardner Family Chair of Moral Theology at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary & School of Theology, the seminary for the Catholic Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He writes a monthly syndicated column for OSV News, a weekly column for Our Sunday Visitor (“Grace is Everywhere”), and monthly columns for The Catholic Telegraph and the U.K.-based Catholic Herald. Dr. Craycraft is also the author of The American Myth of Religious Freedom. He is a licensed attorney in Ohio, who holds a Ph.D. in theology from Boston College and a J.D. from Duke University School of Law.

Follow-up Resources:

• Citizens Yet Stranger: Living Authentically Catholic in a Divided America (OSV, 2024), by Kenneth Craycraft
• “‘Say my name’: Self-Deception, Transparency, and Redemption in Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul, with Ken Craycraft,” podcast episode via Church Life Today

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

You can’t take a souvenir from Hell into Heaven; likewise, you can’t fit the realities of Heaven into Hell. That is Gospel truth for C. S. Lewis, especially as he imagines the separation between Heaven and Hell, vice and virtue, corrupt loves and the fullness of joy in his brief, brilliant eschatological novel, The Great Divorce.

As we make the turn from Lent and Passion Week to the glory of Easter, Josh McManaway returns to the program to share a conversation with Leonard DeLorenzo about a book they both love.

Follow-up Resources:
●Learn more about The Inklings Project, a new intercollegiate initiative that invites people to pursue meaning and joy by entering the world of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and the other Inklings at inklingsproject.org.
●“Giving Up Descartes for Lent,” by Josh McManaway, essay in Church Life Journal
●The Chronicles of Transformation: A Spiritual Journey with C. S. Lewis, edited by Leonard J. DeLorenzo (Ignatius Press, 2022)

This episode is sponsored by the NCEA: Find out more about NCEA Rise at www.ncearise.org

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Because of Christ, the spiritual life is practical, and the practical life is spiritual. The Incarnation guarantees that. In this special episode, Leonard DeLorenzo shares some of the fruits of his newly published work, In Search of a Full Life: A Practical and Spiritual Guide. This book is especially well suited for young adults, perhaps upon Confirmation or graduation from high school or college. It also bears promise for those who are unsure about their spiritual life, who are seeking direction and bearings. It is also useful for not-so-young-anymore-adults, who are either involved in mentoring younger people, or who are looking for new bearings or fresh perspectives for their own lives.

Follow-up Resources:

In Search of a Full Life: A Practical and Spiritual Guide (OSV 2024) by Leonard DeLorenzo

This episode is sponsored by Saint Meinrad Seminary.
Register for the Saint Meinrad Summer Chant Workshop and find other workshops, concerts, and programs at the Institute for Sacred Music by scrolling down under “Events” at www.saintmeinrad.edu/ism.

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.

Suffering is universal. But how do we understand suffering? Does it have meaning? Can it have meaning? And most of all, what is the meaning of suffering in Christian life? Questions like these inform the work of my guest today, Dr. Mark Giszczak, author of the new book Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know. Dr. Giszczak is Professor of Sacred Scripture at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, where he teaches a course on the Theology of Suffering that gave rise to this new book. In our discussion today we will talk about whether and how God suffers, how Christians might suffer well, obstacles to suffering well, and the importance of confronting rather than perpetually running from death.

Follow-up Resources:

• Suffering: What Every Catholic Should Know, by Mark Gisczak
• Salvici Doloris, Apostolic Letter by John Paul II
• “The Mystery of Love and the Redemption of Suffering,” by Lorenzo Albacete, essay in Church Life Journal

This episode is sponsored by Saint Meinrad Seminary: Register for the Saint Meinrad Summer Chant Workshop and find other workshops, concerts, and programs at the Institute for Sacred Music by scrolling down under “Events” at www.saintmeinrad.edu/ism.

Church Life Today is a partnership between the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame and OSV Podcasts from Our Sunday Visitor. Discover more ways to live, learn, and love your Catholic faith at osvpodcasts.com. Sharing stories, starting conversations.