Hunger for Righteousness Podcast Series

Dear listeners,

On Monday, February 17th, 2025, I had the honor of doing my first in-person book event for Hunger for Righteousness at St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Theological Seminary in New York, an event in collaboration with Axia Women. On today’s podcast episode, I’m sharing the recording of that event for you.

Fittingly for this week’s theme, we focused on forgiveness, as Coptic Orthodox, Ethiopian Orthodox and Eritrean Orthodox Christians began Great Lent, and the rest of the Oriental and Eastern Orthodox churches begin next Monday.

I usually try to edit the transcripts for these episodes before sharing them, but unfortunately this week I have not had the opportunity, so please bear with the imperfect transcript generated by Substack here if you are using it. You can also read a summary of the talk and a reflection on it by Axia Women here.

In addition to, of course, Hunger for Righteousness, I mentioned three additional books during this talk:

A Children’s Guide to Confession

From Red Earth: A Rwandan Story of Healing and Forgiveness by Denise Uwimana

Putting Joy Into Practice: Seven Ways to Lift Your Church from the Holy Spirit by Phoebe Farag Mikhail

As always, please share your thoughts in the comments below!

Thank you for being part of this community,

Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Dear listeners,

Reminder! Get your Hunger for Righteousness reading calendar here.

Jennifer Brady and I had an eye-opening conversation about food insecurity, food pantries and soup kitchens on this fourth episode of the Hunger for Righteousness podcast series. Jennifer is the executive director of Oasis: A Haven for Women and Children in Paterson, New Jersey. Oasis started off as the only soup kitchen in Paterson that served children, so mothers would bring their children to Oasis for a hot meal. Over time, Oasis began to grow more programs to serve this population, including a complete afterschool program for children, and for the adults ESL, G.E.D., and other classes.

I learned from Jennifer that the leanest period for food pantries is right now—right now, as churches prepare for the Lenten season. As I write in chapters 2 and 3 of Hunger for Righteousness, one of the purposes of fasting during Lent is to give to others from what he have saved while abstaining from food. So the food pantries should be overflowing right now as we prepare for Lent. If they are not, shame on us.

On the podcast, Jennifer also told Claudia’s amazing story. I have the honor of meeting Claudia myself, because she is a recipient of the Michelle Sous Foundation Paterson Scholarship (I am a board member of the Michelle Sous Foundation).

To support the work of Oasis, visit their website here:

To support the Paterson Scholarship Fund through the Michelle Sous Foundation, click here:

If you are looking for a local food pantry to support, or you are need of the services of one, check out the Foodfinder app:

Thank you for being part of this community!Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Dear listeners,

For most Oriental Orthodox Christians, today marks the Passover of Jonah, the feast day after a strict three day fast that heralds the coming of Great Lent. To discuss this on the podcast is my special guest Fr. Sujit Thomas of the Indian Orthodox Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church.

Fr. Sujit and I met in college at our Orthodox Christian Fellowship on campus. He took a whole group of us to visit his Indian Orthodox Church in Queens, NY one Sunday, and it was an unforgettable experience.

The practice of Jonah’s Fast came to the Coptic Orthodox Church from the Syriac Orthodox Church of Antioch. Because of the Indian Orthodox Church’s liturgical relationship with the Syriac Orthodox Church, the Indian Orthodox Church also practices this three day pre-Lenten fast.

A highlight of our conversation was learning about the Indian Orthodox/Syriac Orthodox Lenten lectionary, which differs from the Coptic Orthodox one. The first Sunday of Great Lent in the Indian Orthodox Church begins with the Wedding of Cana in the Gospel of John. Fr. Sujit explains why:

“The prayer on the first day of Cana reminds us of the transformation that is expected of the participant during Great Lent. Just like water is transformed, water, that which was plain, is transformed to something that is sweet and pleasing; in the same way our life is supposed to be transformed through the Great Lent” - Fr. Sujit Thomas

May this Lent be a transformative one for all of us!

You can follow Fr. Sujit on Bluesky, Facebook, X, and Instagram. And you’re always welcome to visit his church in Philadelphia.

REMINDER! The 2025 Hunger for Righteousness Reading Calendar is available for download now.

Please share your thoughts on this episode in the comments, and happy Passover of Jonah!

Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Dear listeners,

Welcome to the second episode of the Hunger for Righteousness podcast series! This episode is a bit longer, but we had SO MUCH FUN. This is definitely one episode you might want to watch instead of listen to, because Mary Jasmin Yostos shares some of her amazing photographs on the video. However, I am also going to put the Instagram links of those same photos in this post, so if you do listen to the audio, you can click on the links to see the photographs we are talking about later.

Before we get into it, I have a FREE GIFT for you: a downloadable reading calendar for Lent 2025 to help you get through Hunger for Righteousness in time for the Resurrection! Just print it out, choose your reading plan, and fold it over or cut it out and use it as a bookmark in your copy of the book:

In Chapter 1 of Hunger for Righteousness, I mention a friend whose perspective about our climb totally changed mine. That friend was Mary Jasmin Yostos (MJ for short) and on this episode she shares her side of the experience. She also found an old photo of us on the mountain!

We had an amazing conversation about both physical and spiritual climbs, and how her photography links with her relationship with God. We kept talking after recording, and in that conversation, MJ mentioned how she often goes through grueling efforts to take her nature photos, and doesn’t know if she even got a good shot until she goes back home to process all her work. That’s often our experience, too, in our relationship with God. We pray, we go to church, participate in the sacraments, serve others, and go through many challenges in the process. We don’t always see the results of that until much later, when we are able to evaluate and reflect.

Here are the photos MJ shared on the episode, in order:

The Coptic Quarter in Jerusalem:

Photo Mount of Temptation, Holy Land:

White Mountain National Park in New Hampshire:

Northern Lights, Lofoten Islands, Norway:

Moonrise, New London Edge Light:

Puffin at Machias Seal Island, Canada:

Northern Lights, Sleepy Hollow Lighthouse, NY:

Solar Eclipse, Plattsburgh, NY:

Moonrise, Statue of Liberty, NY/NJ:

Censer, St. George Coptic Orthodox Church, Brooklyn, NY:

Moonrise at St. Mary & St. Moses Monastery, Texas

Sunrise at St. Mary & St. Moses Monastery, Texas

Lofoten Islands, Norway

Check out MJ’s guest post on Being in Community, back in 2017, about finding beauty in the ordinary.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as MJ and I enjoyed making it! Please share your thoughts in the comments, and stay tuned for the next episode, also dropping this week.

Thank you for being part of this community,

Phoebe Farag Mikhail

Dear listeners,

Welcome to the first episode of my Lenten podcast series based on Hunger for Righteousness! Since Lent is a fast practiced by many Christian denominations, I couldn’t think of a better person to kick off this series than author Traci Rhoades. Traci is well known on the internet for her holy curiosity and her ability to facilitate respectful and meaningful conversations about all things church and Christianity online. She says, on the podcast, “One of my favorite compliments that I receive is when people tell me that I made them think.”

Traci is an Evangelical Protestant and most recently, she has started the process of joining the Roman Catholic Church. We talk about that transition, and what it means for her practice of Great Lent, on the podcast.

Traci is the author of Not All Who Wander (Spiritually) Are Lost: A Story of Church and Shaky Ground: What to Do When the Bottom Drops Out. She also has written some devotions for the forthcoming The Message Women’s Devotional Bible, releasing in August 2025, with the Gospels releasing in March 2025.

You can subscribe to Traci’s “Saturday 7” email here. She runs a Facebook group for reading the Bible chronologically that you can join here.

Some highlights from our conversation:

About converting to Catholicism:

“I can tend to get really excited about the book knowledge part. And Catholicism and my daughter are teaching me what it could do for my spirit and my heart if I were to remove some of the intellectual pursuit from it.” - Traci Rhoades

On inviting others into your tradition:

“The strongest evangelism is the welcome. Not so much the convincing, but the welcome” - Phoebe Farag Mikhail

I hope you enjoy this first episode! Please share your thoughts in the comments, and stay tuned for next week’s podcast.

Thanks for being part of this community,Phoebe