A Resounding Yes!

Christina Sabo and co-host Fr. John Johnson welcome veteran astronaut and planetary scientist Dr. Tom Jones, who flew four space shuttle missions and made three spacewalks helping build the International Space Station. Tom traces the yeses that carried a fourth grader's dream all the way to the launch pad, and tells the story of the Sunday in April 1994 when three Catholic astronauts received the Eucharist aboard Endeavour. He also describes the sunrise that broke into the cockpit moments after communion, and the five minutes on a spacewalk he calls the best he has spent in space.

What We Talk About:

• Growing up during the space race, and the parents, teachers, and nuns who kept telling a fourth grader he could be part of it someday
• A failed Air Force Academy medical exam, a bomber assignment instead of fighters, and the five years of graduate school that followed
• Three hours strapped in on the launch pad, the prayers said during the wait, and the eight and a half minutes to orbit
• The Sunday aboard Endeavour when three Catholic astronauts shared the Eucharist, and the sunrise over the Pacific that followed
• Wonder, beauty, and what Tom and Fr. John offer anyone who believes faith has no place in science

Resources Mentioned:

• Sky Walking: An Astronaut's Memoir by Tom Jones: Tom's Website | Smithsonian
• Jesus in Space: A True Story That's Out Of This World 
• Turn Left at Orion by Guy Consolmagno and Dan M. Davis
• Would You Baptize an Extraterrestrial? by Guy Consolmagno, SJ and Paul Mueller, SJ
• Vatican Observatory

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and introducing Dr. Tom Jones
• 02:31: Mary's fiat and the yeses that led to space
• 05:33: Asthma, a bomber assignment, and the long road to the astronaut corps
• 09:32: What a shuttle launch feels like from the inside
• 16:51: Fear, prayer, and an engine shutdown on the pad
• 20:03: Explorers or active participants in creation?
• 24:04: How the Eucharist came aboard Endeavour
• 27:07: Sunrise over the Pacific and the blue of the Virgin's veil
• 30:14: Beauty as a language for God that science cannot give
• 34:13: The view from orbit and the best five minutes of a spacewalk
• 40:10: Faith and science: Georges Lemaître and Brother Guy Consolmagno
• 47:29: What brings Tom the most joy now

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Christina Sabo talks with writer, editor, and publicist Brian O'Neel about SaintsTombs.com, the twenty-three-year project that maps where servants of God, venerables, blesseds, and saints are buried across 133 countries. Brian traces it back to a 2003 trip to Rome, where he visited the tomb of Saint Monica without knowing that Venerable Giuseppe Minocchio lay beneath a small square of black marble in the same church. He and Christina talk about pilgrimage, relics, forgotten martyrs, and what happens when a person goes to pray where the saints are laid.

What We Talk About:

• The 2003 Rome trip, a guidebook that raised more questions than it answered, and the venerable buried steps from Saint Monica
• What a pilgrimage actually is, and why medieval penitents were sent to the Holy Land and Rome to make one
• Venerable Patrick Peyton, the reopening of his center in Massachusetts, and what a visit to a tomb can stir up in an ordinary person
• The 300-plus people who have died for the faith on US and Canadian soil—and the anti-Catholic history most Americans were never taught
• Twenty-three years of daily research: Google alerts, tombs that get moved, cloistered nuns who ask for privacy, and the three question marks that mark an unknown grave

Resources Mentioned:

• SaintsTombs.com
• 39 New Saints You Should Know
• Saint Who?
• 150 North American Martyrs You Should Know
• Hagiography Circle

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 02:01: Opening Prayer
• 03:53: The Yes Behind SaintsTombs.com
• 11:17: The Aha Moment in Rome
• 13:20: Praying at the Tomb of a Saint
• 15:45: What a Pilgrimage Is—and Why It Matters
• 20:28: Writing About the Saints No One Remembers
• 23:02: The North American Martyrs and Catholic America
• 29:16: Twenty-Three Years of Research
• 32:58: How the Site Is Organized
• 38:34: The Camps and a Litany of the Unknown
• 45:29: What's Next for SaintsTombs.com

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Steve Walton is an author, former Army Ranger, father of four, and grandfather of five. Steve joins Belle Meade to talk about converting to Catholicism at fifteen, a career built on writing, and his new board book, Loving God: A Mass Book for Little Hands. 

Steve describes finding illustrator Claudia Corrales in Savannah, why he set out to make the Mass book he never found as a young parent, and how the finished book is reaching parishes and Catholic bookstores. He also covers the free coloring sheets on his website, the Mass book for older children now in progress, and twenty years as a Scout leader.

What We Talk About:

• The yes at fifteen: converting to Catholicism in southern Louisiana, meeting one-on-one with a priest before the RCIA program existed
• Why Brother Lawrence's The Practice of the Presence of God is the book Steve keeps returning to
• Finding illustrator Claudia Corrales in Savannah, and what her artwork brought to the board book
• What Steve says to the parent whose child is loud at Mass—and why his parish calls it a training room, not a cry room
• Where the book is available now, the free downloadable coloring sheets, and the Mass book for older children in progress

Resources Mentioned:

• Loving God: A Mass Book for Little Hands
• The Practice of the Presence of God (TAN Books)
• Steve's Substack
• Paloma&Fig

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 00:30: Welcome and Opening Prayer
• 02:28: The Yes at Fifteen
• 04:33: Louisiana, Oscar Romero, and the Road to Writing
• 10:10: The Practice of the Presence of God
• 13:04: The Book and Its Illustrator, Claudia Corrales
• 17:59: Bringing the Book to Mass
• 20:36: Why Mass Came First
• 22:56: The Parent Just Getting Through Sunday Morning
• 30:41: Where to Buy the Book
• 33:56: Coloring Sheets and a Book for Older Children
• 38:59: Twenty Years as a Scout Leader

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Belle Meade welcomes Fr. Carter Griffin for a conversation about chastity as the power to love well rather than a list of restrictions. Fr. Carter is a priest of the Archdiocese of Washington, a former Navy line officer, and the author of Reclaimed: Win the War of Freedom, Self-Mastery, and Holy Purity. 

Fr. Carter recounts his conversion at Princeton, the four years at sea that shaped how he understands discipline and fatherhood, and the dissertation that grew into Why Celibacy? He then walks through the practical battle plan behind his new book: honest limits on screens, real boundaries, friendship, and a daily habit of prayer.

What We Talk About:

• Why chastity is the virtue that enables us to love well as body and soul—and why angels have no need of it
• Where to begin when someone feels stuck: screen usage, boundaries around the near occasions of sin, building real friendships, and three Hail Marys at night
• Why Fr. Griffin could not disagree more with the counsel that occasional falls will always be part of the picture
• How a doctoral dissertation on the theology of celibacy became Why Celibacy?, and the part the Amazon Synod played in bringing it to a popular audience
• The Gerasene demoniac as an image of what chastity restores: clothed, in his right mind, and no longer harming himself

Resources Mentioned:

• Reclaimed: Win the War of Freedom, Self-Mastery, and Holy Purity by Fr. Carter Griffin
• Why Celibacy?: Reclaiming the Fatherhood of the Priest by Fr. Carter Griffin
• Forming Families, Forming Saints by Fr. Carter Griffin
• Covenant Eyes
• Paloma&Fig

Chapters:

• 00:00: Intro
• 00:31: Meet Fr. Carter Griffin and Reclaimed
• 04:38: Raised Presbyterian, Reading His Way into the Church
• 08:29: The Navy, Discipline, and a First Taste of Fatherhood
• 15:51: How Why Celibacy? Began as a Dissertation in Rome
• 20:15: What Chastity Actually Means
• 23:42: Freedom From and Freedom For
• 26:51: Signs of Hope in a Pornography-Soaked Culture
• 32:38: Where to Start: Screens, Boundaries, and Friendship
• 39:26: Why a Field Manual for a Real Battle
• 47:20: What It Means to Be a Herald of Freedom
• 54:28: One Field Order: Never Surrender

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Christina Sabo is joined by co-hosts Fr. Kevin Braski and Belle Meade for a conversation with Catholic evangelist, author, and speaker Tanner Kalina about his new book, All Your Heart: How to Live for Christ Without Holding Back. Tanner traces the yes that took him from chasing acting and comedy in Los Angeles to campus ministry in Colorado, then opens the question at the center of his book: what the heart actually is, and why loving God with all of it depends on the intellect and the will as much as the affections. Fr. Kevin brings a priest's perspective on daily prayer, discipline, and the kind of witness that reaches people when arguments cannot.

What We Talk About:

• Tanner's yes: the pull between the faith he professed and the life he was building while pursuing acting and comedy in Los Angeles
• Why the word "heart" kept surfacing—in Scripture, in ordinary speech, and in a season of heartbreak—and what it led him to write
• Dietrich von Hildebrand's case for the heart as its own spiritual center: the intellect tells us what something is, the will what to do with it, the heart how deeply to value it
• Fr. Kevin on putting a peg in the day: the holy hour, the link between disciple and discipline, and why starting small beats attempting everything at once
• Why witness reaches people where argument cannot, and why Tanner says the first step in prayer is admitting you don't know how to pray

Resources Mentioned:

• All Your Heart: How to Live for Christ Without Holding Back by Tanner Kalina (Ascension Press)
• Paloma&Fig review of All Your Heart by Teagan Byrne
• Tanner Kalina's website
• Tanner Kalina on Instagram

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and Opening Prayer
• 03:30: Summer Check-In and Time Outdoors
• 11:04: Tanner's Yes: Los Angeles, Conversion, and Campus Ministry
• 15:37: Putting a Peg in the Day
• 19:11: Training to Become Like Christ
• 25:50: What Inspired All Your Heart
• 31:29: Common Misunderstandings of the Heart
• 35:19: A Threefold Conversion of Intellect, Will, and Heart
• 43:09: The Lukewarm Heart, Stars, and Black Holes
• 51:36: Scripture, the Saints, and Protestant Voices
• 59:51: The Only Wrong Way to Pray
• 01:05:39: What Brings You Joy

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

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Guest host Belle Meade welcomes Catholic author, speaker, and Notre Dame campus minister Meg Hunter-Kilmer to talk about her own everyday yes and her new twelve-week Bible study, Who Is Jesus? Discovering Christ in the Gospels, published by Ave Maria Press. Along the way she shares the moment a familiar parable broke her open in the middle of Mass and why she thinks fifteen minutes a day of silence — one percent of your life — is within reach of almost anyone.

What We Talk About:

• The daily habit for growing closer to God that Meg hopes every reader walks away with
• The two distortions of God people bring to Scripture: the disinterested God and the God of wrath
• How the humanity of Christ consecrates our grief, our fear, and even our mistakes
• Why the big yes is only ever built on a thousand ordinary ones
• What makes Who Is Jesus? different from most Catholic Bible studies — and who it's actually for

Chapters:

• 00:00: Introduction
• 00:16: Welcome and Opening Prayer
• 02:31: The Everyday Yes
• 05:20: Why Meg Wrote Who Is Jesus?
• 09:08: Meeting Jesus as Someone Alive Now
• 12:12: The Gift of the Incarnation
• 15:09: Two Misunderstandings About God
• 18:11: When Scripture Feels Difficult
• 25:33: The Prodigal Son and Her Father
• 27:53: Scripture as a Love Letter
• 31:31: A Daily Habit in the Word
• 34:14: Holy Hour and the Source of Joy

Resources Mentioned:

• Who Is Jesus? Discovering Christ in the Gospels (Ave Maria Press)
• Eyes Fixed on Jesus, Vol. 1: A Journey into the Gospels
• Held By His Pierced Hands
• The Chosen
• Magnifica Humanitas (Pope Leo XIV)

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Guest host Kaylee Stoll sits down with Father Tony Stephens, CPM, rector of the National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion, for a conversation about his own yes to God and the only Church-approved Marian apparition in the United States. From a farm in western Kansas to the Fathers of Mercy, Father Tony traces the series of yeses that shaped his vocation, then tells the story of Adele Brice, the 1859 apparitions, the Miracle of the Fire, and the annual Walk to Mary pilgrimage.

What We Talk About:

• Father Tony's path from a Kansas farm to the Fathers of Mercy and the priesthood
• The 1859 apparitions of Our Lady of Champion to Adele Brice, now a Servant of God
• The four-part message of Our Lady and why it still speaks to Catholics today
• The "Miracle of the Fire" during the 1871 Peshtigo Fire
• Making a pilgrimage to the Shrine and the annual Walk to Mary

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and Introduction
• 01:32: Opening Prayer
• 03:04: Father Tony's Journey to the Priesthood
• 07:03: The History of Our Lady of Champion
• 11:45: The Message and Its Relevance Today
• 15:16: The Miracle of the Peshtigo Fire
• 20:42: Opening Adele Brice's Cause for Canonization
• 22:59: Stories of Healing and Answered Prayer
• 26:17: Making a Pilgrimage to the Shrine
• 29:07: The Walk to Mary
• 35:38: Upcoming Events and the American Saints Project
• 39:06: The Joy of the Priesthood

Resources Mentioned:

• Servant of God Adele Brice
• National Shrine of Our Lady of Champion
• Walk to Mary

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This episode is a re-air.

Jeff Cavins never planned any of it. A confirmation Bible at thirteen, a stack of colored markers and a sheet of butcher paper at twenty-six, and a habit of walking through whatever door opened. That is how the Great Adventure Bible Timeline was born and how a former Protestant pastor became one of the most recognized voices in Catholic media. In this conversation, Jeff traces his yes across five decades, from Mother Angelica's studio to the Holy Land to the balcony of St. Peter's, and lands on the single priority that orders everything else.

What We Talk About:

• How a Bible received at confirmation set the course of a life that had comedy and broadcasting in view
• The 48-hour stretch in which Jeff drafted the entire Bible Timeline chart—and the fifteen years it sat before taking off
• What Emily's archaeology and 69 Holy Land pilgrimages taught the Cavins family about walking where Jesus walked
• The morning The Bible in a Year hit number one, and why Jeff and Fr. Mike Schmitz say they would have ruined it had they aimed for that
• Why Jeff refuses to describe popes as liberal or conservative, and what he heard echoing when Pope Leo XIV stepped onto the loggia

Resources Mentioned:

• When the White Smoke Clears: A Guide to Pope Leo XIV's Early Days
• Jeff Cavins
• The Jeff Cavins Show
• The Bible Timeline: The Story of Salvation
• Paloma&Fig

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and opening prayer for Pope Leo XIV
• 01:40: Comedy, radio, and a confirmation Bible at thirteen
• 03:31: Walking through open doors—Steubenville, Mother Angelica, EWTN
• 09:04: Emily, archaeology, and 69 pilgrimages to the Holy Land
• 12:23: Butcher paper, markers, and 48 hours that made the Bible Timeline
• 18:42: Coming home to the Catholic Church and filling in the silent years
• 20:59: Scott Hahn, Matt Pinto, and the birth of Ascension's Great Adventure
• 24:50: The phone call that said The Bible in a Year was number one
• 28:19: Advice to young Catholics—incubation, passion, and a sixth-grade verdict
• 35:28: Catholic media, ideological gladiators, and doing what Jesus said
• 45:00: Pope Leo XIV in Rome and the echoes of John Paul II
• 1:00:34: One priority, not twelve—and the story of Jeff's last ride

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

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Father Augustine Wetta, O.S.B.—Benedictine monk, teacher, surfer, and former professional juggler—joins the show to talk about Georges Bernanos's classic novel Diary of a Country Priest and the new unabridged translation that restores it to its full power. 

Along the way he traces his own half-hearted, failure-strewn "yes" to God: riding waves at the beach that inspired Jaws, blessing a Los Angeles street gang at two in the morning, and praying the rosary beside the very protesters he came to disagree with. 

What We Talk About:

• How Father Wetta describes his own "yes" to God as a half-hearted, tentative string of failures—and why that puts him in the good company of saints like Moses the Black and John the Baptist
• What surfing and juggling taught him about patience, silence, and learning to laugh at yourself, and how both became unlikely preparation for monastic life
• Why Diary of a Country Priest reads like the opposite of an action movie, delivering small, quiet bursts of grace instead of explosions
• What the new unabridged translation restores: the more Catholic passages cut from the English edition readers have had since 1937
• How the novel speaks to loneliness, distraction, and despair by recovering silence, boredom, and true leisure

Resources Mentioned:

• Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos, translated by Michael R. Tobin
• Story of a Soul by St. Thérèse of Lisieux
• Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper
• Paloma&Fig

Chapters:

• 00:00: Welcome and Monk Camp Chaos
• 01:28: A Half-Hearted Yes to the Lord
• 03:51: Surfing, Sharks, and the Contemplative Life of Failure
• 09:37: The Flying Fettuccine Brothers and Learning to Laugh at Yourself
• 13:21: Shut Up, Keep Your Head Down, and Listen
• 16:37: Praying the Rosary at a Black Lives Matter Protest
• 22:10: Fourth of July and Blessing a Gang in LA
• 28:13: Diary of a Country Priest: Quiet Bursts of Grace
• 36:10: The Restored Translation and the Passages You've Never Read
• 39:43: Silence, Boredom, and Leisure in a Distracted Age
• 44:19: Failure, the Atheist, and a Faith Deeper Than Argument
• 55:05: Grumbling, Priesthood, and the Joy of the Eucharist

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Lisa Hendey, founder of CatholicMom.com and bestselling author of fiction and nonfiction for adults and children, joins the show to share her own yes to the Lord and discuss Chime Travelers — the animated children's series based on her beloved books. Geared toward ages six to eleven, the series follows twins Katie and Patrick as they travel back in time to walk alongside saints like Saint Patrick, Saint Clare, Saint Francis, and Saint Joseph. Along the way, they face real-life struggles and discover how faith forms us into the people God is calling us to become.

What We Talk About:

• Lisa's yes to the Lord — what it means to give God your yes at every stage of life, including transitions, health journeys, and the everyday moments of motherhood and ministry
• The origin of Chime Travelers: from a backyard conversation before a godson's First Communion to a book series, and now an animated show
• How the characters, animals, and locations in the series are drawn from people in Lisa's own life — and how personal devotion shaped the choice of each saint
• What makes Chime Travelers unique among faith-based children's entertainment: modern kids encountering ancient saints and learning to apply those lessons to real struggles
• How families can engage with the series beyond the screen using discussion guides, prayers, activities, and the companion resources at chimetravelers.org

Chapters:

• 3:21: Lisa reflects on her yes to the Lord and writing The Grace of Yes
• 6:03: The origin of Chime Travelers 
• 8:02: Characters and locations named for people in Lisa's family and life
• 9:56: Francis the frog and the joy of bringing animals to life in the series
• 11:34: Choosing which saints to include and an unexpected devotion to Saint Kateri
• 14:59: Children as saints in the making and what they can teach the rest of us
• 17:30: How storytelling helps children understand and live the virtues
• 22:39: What makes Chime Travelers unique among faith-based entertainment for children
• 24:24: Companion resources and how families can go deeper
• 26:46: Where to watch — available now on Hallow and Formed
• 34:06: Seeing the animated characters come to life: from animatics to the finished series
• 42:47: One small way families can help children see themselves as saints in the making

Resources Mentioned:

• Lisa Hendey
• CatholicMom.com
• The Grace of Yes by Lisa Hendey
• Chime Travelers
• Watch Chime Travelers on Formed
• Watch Chime Travelers on Hallow
• Paloma&Fig

Produced by Saint Kolbe Studios

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