Kresta in the Afternoon

Route 60 is a concrete and asphalt road that cuts 146 miles through rocky desert and historic ruins in the Promised Land, connecting Jerusalem with Nazareth on the north, and with Beersheba on the south. People long ago would travel that ancient road to reach Jerusalem for three feasts each year. Its meaning and history are being explored in a new movie – Gail Buckley has more.

Have you ever found yourself challenged by non-Catholics to defend Church teachings? John Martignoni joins us with tips on how to answer.

September is the Month of the Seven Sorrows of Mary, with the official feast falling on September 15. Most of us probably can’t name those sorrows of the top of our heads. Steve Ray joins us to discuss them and takes it one step further – looking at the unknown sorrows of Mary

We don’t typically think of the professional world, especially the business world, as a place for building the Church. It’s easy to fall into the trap that work should stay at work and Church should stay at home. But that’s not how Robert Tunmire sees it. He joins us to share his journey to faith, how we shares his faith and his work, and how we can encourage men to do the same.

Ali Ghaffari’s story is an all-American one. His Muslim father named him Ali, which means “champion.” But he would grow to be a different sort of titleholder. Outcast. Scholar. Warrior. Teacher. Servant. And now, champion for Christ. He shares his story.

In his book Heart of the Christian Life, Pope Benedict XVI wrote that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist “is not static. It is a dynamic presence that grasps us, to make us his own, to make us assimilate him. Christ draws us to himself, he makes us come out of ourselves to make us all one with him.” We examine his Eucharistic Christology with Marcus Peter.

This summer, Pope Francis marked the four hundredth anniversary of the birth of Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher who remains one of the most important thinkers in the Western tradition. In his apostolic letter Sublimitas et Miseria Hominis, the Holy Father praises Pascal as a “tireless seeker of truth.” We talk more about Pascal’s Wager and his legacy with Andrew Petiprin.

Data from the General Social Survey finds that the share of LGBTQ Americans under the age of 30 has risen from 4.8 percent in 2010 to 16.3 percent today. But rates of non-heterosexual behavioral experience have not risen nearly as sharply. Sexual behavior once comprised the key distinction to homosexuality – is that no longer the case? Mark Regnerus joins us.

St. Francis of Assisi once observed that “Men should tremble, the world should vibrate, all Heaven should be deeply moved when the Son of God appears on the altar in the hands of the priest.” It was this realization – this understanding of the power of the Mass – that brought Dan Gonzalez back to the faith of his childhood. He joins us.

When Jesus was presented in the Temple, Simeon told Mary that “this child is set for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that is spoken against. And a sword will pierce through your own soul.” It’s a story that we commemorate in this Friday’s Feast of Our Lady of Sorrows. We talk more about it with William Albrecht.