Fr. Nate Wills has been the chaplain for the Notre Dame football team since 2018. He’s been along for exhilarating triumphs and devastating losses. He’s seen and felt the energy of packed stadiums and the nervous focus of the pregame rituals. He’s watched young men try and fail, then recover and succeed. But through it all, maybe the most important thing of all is simply this: he’s been there. He’s been present. And because of that, he’s witnessed the presence of God in unexpected and otherwise unseen places, and he’s helped other people to take note, too.

After collecting stories of these rich and humbling experiences, Fr. Nate has crafted these stories into short, illuminating reflections for the rest of us. His new book, Pray Like A Champion Today, opens up for us stories of the Notre Dame football program as seen in relation to the Gospel, with a call to prayer. Fr. Nate joins me today to talk about culture, character, and the presence of Christ as seen from the sidelines and beyond.

Follow-up Resources:

• Pray Like a Champion Today, by Fr. Nate Wills, C.S.C.
• Follow ”Pray Like a Champion Today” on Instagram
• Check out the hugely popular “Saturdays with the Saints” lecture series, where a public lecture on a saint is offered (in-person, plus available online) every Notre Dame home football Saturday.

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.

Many of us have learned to see the world differently because of C. S. Lewis. But how did Lewis learn to see the world the way he did? From whom did he learn to see the marriage of the spiritual and material, of heavenly things right along with scientific things? If we go in search of answers to such questions, we find ourselves plunged into the Medieval world and encountering, among others, Dante.

In his book, The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis, Jason Baxter helps us uncover the influence of great books on Lewis’s great mind. Dr. Baxter joins me to continue our conversation which began on his work of translating Dante, to move now from Dante to Lewis, who was himself a man who lived in modern times but was not of those times.

Follow-up Resources:

• The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis: How Great Books Shaped a Great Mind, by Jason M. Baxter
• Learn more about Dr. Baxter’s work at https://www.jasonmbaxter.com/

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.

Translating Dante is not a matter of rendering words in one language for words in another language. Indeed, no act of translation is so direct or basic. But as with Dante’s Comedy when the style itself is part of the art – the sound of the thing, the movement, the embodiment – the translator needs to feel as much as think, relying on sense along with knowledge. Why? Because the hope of giving us – the readers of a translation – an encounter with the great good found in the art depends on the more holistic, more full-bodied work of scholarship and personality, at once.

Jason Baxter has studied Dante for years and written on him before, including with his marvelous and illuminating book, A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy. Now he is completing the work of translating the master’s poem for English readers that brings us into not just what the poem says, but what it feels like. 

Follow-up Resources:

• Inferno, A New Translation by Jason M. Baxter
• Purgatorio, A New Translation by Jason M. Baxter
• A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine Comedy, by Jason M. Baxter
• Learn more about Dr. Baxter’s work at https://www.jasonmbaxter.com/

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.

On our last episode, I welcomed two of our Sullivan Undergraduate Saints Fellows to talk about the pilgrimage through France that our cohort completed at the start of summer. The final destination on that pilgrimage was Lourdes. As follow up to that episode, I want to share with all of you a relatively short reflection on thirst. In particular, I want to talk about a pilgrim’s thirst. But in the end, I really want to talk about the waters of Lourdes. 

Follow-up Resources:

• Read this episode in article form at OSV Magazine under “A thirsty American pilgrim drinks his fill at Lourdes” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo
• The Song of Bernadette, by Franz Wurfel
• Learn more about the Sullivan Undergraduate Saints Fellowship
• “Pilgrimage and the Urgent Question of Faith,” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo, essay in the Church Life Journal
• “A pilgrimage of sacred art,” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo, article in Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly

“Encountering Christ on Pilgrimage, with Joan Watson,” 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.

Arising from the McGrath Institute for Church Life, the Sullivan Undergraduate Saints Fellowship forms Notre Dame students as leaders in the study and spirituality of the saints. We launched this fellowship in 2025 with an inaugural cohort of 12 students selected from a pool of many, many applicants. As part of their fellowship, our saints fellows completed a course this past semester (with yours truly) on praying with the saints. Next year they will become leaders of other undergraduate students, as they form groups of students who pray together and serve together in a manner common to a saint each fellow selects. But in between the course they complete and the year of leadership they undertake, the whole cohort of 12 fellows, along with me and a chaplain, make a pilgrimage to immerse ourselves in the cultures that gave rise to particular saints––cultures which, in turn, these saints renewed and enriched. This year’s pilgrimage was to France, specifically: Paris, Chartres, Lisieux, LeMans, Tours, and Lourdes.

 Today, two of our Sullivan Undergraduate Saints Fellows join me to talk about the meaning and significance of this pilgrimage with the saints. Macy Vance is a rising junior and Kate Apelian is a rising senior at Notre Dame, but really I should let them introduce themselves.

Follow-up Resources:

• Learn more about the Sullivan Undergraduate Saints Fellowship
• Check out the wildly popular “Saturdays with the Saints” lecture series
• “Pilgrimage and the Urgent Question of Faith,” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo, essay in the Church Life Journal
• “A pilgrimage of sacred art,” by Leonard J. DeLorenzo, article in Our Sunday Visitor Newsweekly
• “Saints who flew, with Carlos Eire,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Encountering Christ on Pilgrimage, with Joan Watson,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Saints, for Real, with Meg Hunter-Kilmer,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “The Theology of the Saints, with Katie Cavadini and Leonard DeLorenzo,” 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.

Hi everyone. For today’s episode I do not have a guest joining me; instead, I am just going to share with you directly. You see, my dad died a few weeks ago and just last week we celebrated his funeral Mass. I’ve written a few books over the years and I dedicated one of those books to my dad, who raised me. That book is about fostering communion with our beloved dead. The beloved dead now include my dad. So what I wanted to do today is share with you a portion of the book in remembrance of my dad, specifically the book’s brief epilogue where I highlight five pastoral priorities for this communal task of fostering communion with the dead. These are priorities for those of us who mourn, for those who accompany – or should accompany – those who mourn, for families, for parishes. The book’s is title Our Faithful Departed: Where They Are and Why It Matters, published by Ave Maria Press in 2022. After I share the epilogue with its five priorities with you, I then read my dad’s obituary, which I wrote. 

Follow-up Resources

• Our Faithful Departed: Where They Are and Why It Matters, by Leonard J. DeLorenzo
• Our Faithful Departed Discussion Guide, a free resource for parishes, schools, families and friends.
• “Heaven in the Midst of Death, with Laura Kelly Fanucci,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Life is changed but something ended, with Stephanie DePrez,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Life in Death in Life, with Robert Cording,” podcast episode via Church Life Today
• “Praying for the Dead, with John Cavadini,” 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.

In our previous episode of Church Life Today, I was joined by Professor Christie Kleinmann of Belmont University, who talked with me about her fascinating and truly original course on Strategic Public Relations for the Inklings (specifically, C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, and Dorothy Sayers). This is a follow up to that previous excellent episode where things get even better because today I am joined by three of Professor Kleinmann’s undergraduate students.

Ryleigh Green is a senior at Belmont University who was part of the C. S. Lewis group in Professor Kleinmann’s class.

Jed Mangrum is a sophomore at Belmont who was part of the Tolkien group.

And Adriana Alosno is a junior at Belmont who was part of the Dorothy Sayers group.

I’ve done a lot of podcast episodes over the years, and this one is one of my favorites. Enjoy.

Follow-up Resources:

• Learn more about The Inklings Project. Interested in applying as a fellow for 2026–26? Check out the call for applications here (due July 1, 2025). 
• Check out the Dorothy Sayers Instagram account from the Sayers group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Check out the C. S. Lewis Instagram account from the Lewis group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Check out the J. R. R. Tolkien Instagram account from the Tolkien group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Find syllabi from Inklings Project fellows in our free syllabus repository.

Read and subscribe to the “Inklings Quarterly.”

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.

“Habemus Papam.” We have a pope. We have a papa. We have a father. 

 The announcement of a new pope is a startlingly joyous and even spellbinding moment, when not just the faithful but also many who seemingly have no interest in the Church stop and cheer together. What is being proclaimed? What is the significance of the pope for the Church and, through the Church, for the world? What are we all struck by when the announcement echoes through the arms of St. Peter’s square to every corner of the world?

John Cavadini joins me today to talk about the announcement of the election of Pope Leo XIV. We hope this conversation offers you something a little different than what the typical news commentary on this historic occasion offers. 

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.

Have you ever thought about becoming a brand expert for C. S. Lewis or J. R. R. Tolkien? On the one hand, these seem like authors who need no introduction. On the other hand, how many people today really know the work of these towering 20th Century authors, beyond what made its way onto the silver screen? And what about one of the authors closely associated with them – Dorothy Sayers – who is far from well known in the general public but whose work is of similar creative and literary quality with her more famous friends and interlocutors?

Maybe you haven’t ever thought about launching a public relations campaign for one of these authors for the sake of a modern audience of young adults, but my guest today has. She is Christie Kleinmann, Professor of Public Relations at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee. Professor Kleinmann is one of a dozen fellows in our second annual cohort of the Inklings Project, run out of the McGrath Institute for Church Life. Along with the other eleven fellows who come from colleges and universities across the United States and in four foreign countries, Professor Kleinmann developed and offered a new course this spring that draws the work of the Inklings into her own area of expertise: strategic public relations. The students in her course were divided into three semester-long groups, which each took as their “clients” one of these three Inklings: Lewis, Tolkien, and Sayers. 

Today, Professor Kleinmann joins me to talk about the project of her course, the relevance of the Inklings, and the creativity of her students.

This is the first of a two-episode set. The second episode will feature three of Professor Kleinmann’s students, one from each of the three Inklings groups. 

Follow-up Resources:

• Learn more about The Inklings Project. Interested in applying as a fellow for 2026–26? Check out the call for applications here (due July 1, 2025). 
• Check out the Dorothy Sayers Instagram account from the Sayers group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Check out the C. S. Lewis Instagram account from the Lewis group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Check out the J. R. R. Tolkien Instagram account from the Tolkien group in Prof. Kleinmann’s course.
• Find syllabi from Inklings Project fellows in our free syllabus repository.

Read and subscribe to the “Inklings Quarterly.” 

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.

When we say the name “God”, have we assumed too quickly that we know what we mean? We use that word quite regularly, without much strain or prolonged consideration, as if the meaning of the word were self-evident. But what if you had to explain – indeed, translate – the word “God” into a language that had no such concept? That would force you, I think, to really reckon with what you mean and what you assume when you use that word: the name, “God”. 

That is not merely an intellectual exercise; that was in fact the experience of the 16th and 17th Century Jesuit missionary, Matteo Ricci. His primary mission was to China, where he strove to bring and share the Gospel of Jesus Christ to those who often had not only a different language but also a different imaginary landscape than that which European Christians were accustomed to.

In our episode today, the eminent scholar of the Sino-Western Exchange, Professor Anthony Clark, talks with me about Matteo Ricci, evangelization, inculturation, and the legacy of dialogue. Anthony Clark is Professor of Chinese History at Whitworth University, where he also holds the Edward B. Lindaman Endowed Chair, and he directs the Oxford Lewis-Tolkien Program, the Rome History and Culture Program, the area of Asian Studies, and the Study in China Program. He joins me today, in studio, while visiting Notre Dame to deliver a lecture titled “In the Footsteps of Dialogue: China and the Legacy of Matteo Ricci.” 

Follow-up Resources:

• Find out more about Professor Anthony Clark at his website: https://anthonyeclark.squarespace.com/
• China's Saints: Catholic Martyrdom During the Qing (1644–1911), by Anthony Clark
• “China’s Religious Awakening after Mao,” by Ian Johnson, article in Church Life Journal
• “Religion in China, with Ian Johnson,” 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.