In Your Embrace

31 October 2022 | Vigil of All Saints | Menlo Park, Calif.

I may not have managed to get it up by 6:00, but I’m delighted to be back this week with a new episode of In Your Embrace podcast! This Hallow’s Eve, we join the founders of the Dickens Chronological Reading Club to discuss Oliver Twist: how lost souls find a home, how hospitality can be a double-edged sword, and just why this novel is tremendously compelling and relevant for readers today. Plus, what is the dark night of the soul, and how can St. John call it “more lovely than the dawn”?

Opening music: “Gaudeamus omnes,” composed by WIlliam Byrd, dir. John Rutter, sung by The Cambrige Singers, 2021. All rights reserved.

17 October 2022 | St. Ignatius of Antioch | Menlo Park, Calif.

This week, I share my experiences teaching my first confirmation class of the year, and some thematic resonances between Poulenc's Dialogues of the Carmelites and Dickens’ Barnaby Rudge. In our latest Carmelite conversation, Daniel Murphy returns to discuss some of the basic virtues and dispositions necessary for progress in prayer, and shares one tip for beginners who want to set out into the deep.

Opening music: “Ave Maria,” act II of Dialogues des Carmélites, composed by François Poulenc, dir. Yannick Nézet-Séguin, sung at the Metropolitan Opera, New York, 2019. All rights reserved.

10 September 2022 | XXVIII Monday in Ordinary Time | Menlo Park, Calif.

As its first season draws to a close, let’s return this week to Amazon’s Rings of Power: the highs, the lows, the reasons I’m cooling on the show, and why I’m still holding out hope for a surprising conclusion. We also welcome back friend of the podcast Daniel Murphy to discuss the distinctive Carmelite “style” of prayer and how it stands as a sign of contradiction to certain modern tendencies in spirituality.

Opening music: “Ecce quam bonum,” sung by the Discalced Carmelite Friars of Czerna Monastery, 2016. All rights reserved.

26 September 2022 | Ss. Cosmas and Damian | Menlo Park, Calif.

We’re four and a half years old, and this is our one hundredth episode! This week, I share some new things I’m trying for better sleep and intentional rest, and some thoughts on the commandment to rest on the Sabbath. Rachel and I discuss the themes of friendship and fatherhood in the Pickwick Papers, including celibate love and the motif of the benevolent bachelor. Finally, we rejoin the Prophet Elijah in the cave and consider what it means to wait for God.

Send me a message at inyourembrace.com/contact to let me know you’re listening!

Please note there will be no new episode next Monday. The podcast will resume the following Monday, Oct 10.

Opening music: “The Lord’s Prayer,” from the Mass in Honor of Saint Isaac Jogues, composed by Jeff Ostrowski, sung by Corpus Christi Watershed, 2022. All rights reserved.