The Restless Hearts Podcast

Episode 146: The Hard Work of Jesus to Heal the World's Hearing (Fr. Ray's Homily from 9/8/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time on September 8, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 145: Whom Will You Serve If Not The Lord? (Fr. Ray's Homily from 8/25/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Twenty-First Sunday of Ordinary Time on August 25, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 144: The Food of Freedom (Fr. Ray's Homily from 8/4/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time on August 4, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 143: A Shepherd That Will Not Fail (Fr. Ray's Homily from 7/21/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Sixteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time on July 21, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 142: Don't Minimize Our Weakness (Fr. Ray's Homily from 7/7/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Fourteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time on July 7, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 141: Life...God's Desire For Us (Fr. Ray's Homily from 6/30/24)

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Thirteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time on June 30, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 140: Life Will Overwhelm Skill—Fr. Ray's Homily from 6/32/24

This episode of the Restless Hearts Podcast includes the Proclamation of the Gospel and Father Ray's homily from the Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time on June 23, 2024. You can view the full liturgy of the Word for this Sunday under Daily Readings at usccb.org.

Episode 139: Our Call to be Human as Jesus was Human—Session 10, Happiness, Joy, and Love (7/14/23)

The final conference of this retreat calls our attention to those experiences in life that evoke the emotion of happiness because they are meeting our conscious or unconscious needs.  Easily overlooked in self-awareness and powerfully reinforcing due to the pleasant and positive emotions they evoke, these experiences may well distract us from our call to be fully human in that they may satisfy desires that do not contribute to our health, holiness, or growth as persons.  In contrast to happiness, joy is not an emotion but a choice to be mindful and aware of the goodness of life, the gift of love, and the hope for the fullness of both in eternity.  Finally, listeners are invited to review the various stages of life to note how love has come to them, possibly in fragmented and incomplete ways, but still love that calls us to the fullness of our humanity.

Episode 138: Our Call to be Human as Jesus was Human—Session 9, The Paradox of Power (7/14/23)

Power, which is understood as our ability to influence others, is as pervasive as sexuality in human relationships and is constantly being exercised by everyone over everyone in  a myriad of different strategies and styles and often without our conscious awareness that we are both exercising power and having power exercised over us.  As such, power can be both very dangerous and very beneficial.  This conference invites listeners to reflect on their own relational styles and ways of attempting to satisfy their needs by exercising power and invites them to note whether their exercise of power is effective, ineffective, mutual and respectful, or dismissive and destructive.

Episode 137: Our Call to be Human as Jesus was Human—Session 8, The Dangerous Blessing of Sexuality (7/13/23)

In this eighth conference, listeners are invited to reflect on the pervasive experience of sexuality in our lives, the most powerful force in the universe, and to note how its power can and has been used as a destructive force through dominance and control, as a weapon and as a toy, and as something that takes life rather than gives life.  At the same time, sexuality is our most direct sharing in the life of the Trinity characterized by free and full giving and receiving for the sake of creativity and love.  Aware that sexuality is an experience that can tempt us in many ways to be both less than human and more than human in our expression of it, it also contains within it the invitation to be fully human as it calls us into relationship, self-gift, and love.