Living Catholic with Monsignor Don Wolf

In this episode, we trace Christmas beyond the manger to Epiphany, where the Magi reveal a Messiah meant for every nation and not just one people. From creation’s scope to early Church debates, we show why inclusion is baked into the Gospel and how to watch for God in nature and culture.

• Epiphany as culmination of Christmas 
• Gift giving rooted in the Magi’s homage 
• Creation narratives showing God for all nations 
• Prophetic vision of peoples streaming to God 
• Tension of chosen status and universal mission 
• Natural revelation guiding the Magi by a star 
• Early Church debates on Gentile inclusion 
• Reading God’s work in science and the cosmos 
• Seekers moving while insiders hesitate 
• Call to openness, pilgrimage, and welcome

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

The year handed us a headline few expected: an American chosen as Pope. From the first moments of white smoke and Latin announcements to the weight of global expectations, we explore what this means for a church that must listen beyond its borders. I share why international experience matters in a leader who represents the message of Jesus to the world, and how the name Leo XIV quietly nods to the legacy of Catholic social teaching and the dignity of work.

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

What does Christmas look like when you’re 15 million miles from home with no space for gifts and no time for tinsel?

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

A forgotten herald stands at the water’s edge, and his voice still changes how we hear the Gospel. In this episode, we revisit John the Baptist not as a narrative warm-up but as a towering witness whose movement endured for centuries, whose courage confronted power, and whose finger pointed a generation to the Lamb of God. Along the way, we wrestle with why modern preaching sidelined him, how an overreliance on slogans and proofs shrank our imagination, and why a sacramental way of seeing helps us meet Christ with our whole selves.

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

A cloak without brushstrokes. Roses blooming out of season. A bishop on the brink of giving up. In this episode, we follow the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe from the hill of Tepeyac into the charged world of 16th‑century New Spain, where evangelization faltered, questions about human dignity raged, and a simple message—build the church—carried a meaning far larger than a construction site. Along the way, we examine why the tilma’s image refuses easy explanations, what the Church actually teaches about private revelation, and how humility makes room for both rigorous inquiry and genuine wonder.

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Advent begins where few expect it: not with soft lights and carols, but with an unveiling. In this episode, we open the new liturgical year by facing the word apocalypse in its original sense—revelation—and asking what it discloses about our time, our communities, and our hearts. From a journalist who tried to expose church hypocrisy and instead found ordinary generosity, to a parish in Soweto that read Revelation while apartheid pressed hard on their doors, we trace how faith shows up when the world feels like it’s unraveling.

If this speaks to you, follow the show, share it with a friend who needs hope, and leave a review so more people can find these reflections. What stable are you preparing this week?

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

Start with the paradox that changes everything: the same Jesus who hangs condemned on a cross is the one who reigns as King of the universe. In this episode, Monsignor Wolf traces how that tension—cross and crown—does not dilute faith but sharpens it, turning the liturgical year into a slow, bright unveiling of love that actually orders a chaotic world. From Advent’s apocalyptic readings to the steady rhythm of Sunday Mass, he connects the dots toward a single revelation: Jesus is all in all.

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

In this episode, Monsignor Wolf reflects on his 70th birthday and uses small annoyances to open a larger reflection on civility, hidden suffering, and the danger of loose talk about civil war. History, media literacy, and prayer guide us toward mercy, truth, and peace, with a closing poem on the gifts of age.

• loud noise and fraying civility as signals of respect
• hats in church as a cultural practice of reverence
• grades and metrics failing to measure real life
• living with an unseen disability and fear
• choosing charity because most pain is hidden
• historical lessons on civil war rhetoric and cost
• media bias, sincere belief, and critical listening
• prayer for enemies as the only way forward
• poem “An Odd Plus” on the strange gifts of age

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

A minute of silence on November 11, 1918 did not end the world’s turmoil—it exposed it. In this episode, Monsignor Wolf opens with the Armistice and follow the shockwaves: empires dissolving, borders reshaped in Central Europe and the Middle East, and a fragile “peace” that many leaders privately admitted would last only twenty years. From Austria-Hungary’s collapse to the reassembling of the Ottoman lands, from Germany’s chaotic republic to Japan’s strategic rise, the map changed faster than the moral reckoning that should have guided it.

He also examines how the United States stepped from hesitant observer to decisive actor. Wilson’s ideals, the politics at home, and the raw numbers of American troops turned the tide, yet conflict persisted far beyond the armistice. Civil war in Russia, shifting lines in Ukraine and Poland, and fighting between Greece and Turkey all underscored a hard truth: ceasing fire is not the same as making peace. The Versailles settlement left most parties convinced they had sacrificed more than they gained, sowing grievances that would erupt again by 1939.

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.

In this episode, Monsignor Don Wolf explores All Souls Day through the lens of communion across time and the hope of purgatory as purifying love. A hospital story, Scripture, and the saints help illustrate why praying for the dead is not empty sentiment but solidarity in Christ.

• one Church that includes the living and the dead
• universality of grace from Adam to the apostles and to us
• communion with saints and ordinary faithful across centuries
• why prayer for the dead matters and how it helps
• purgatory as the experience of cleansing love, not a place
• forgiveness in Christ and the truth of our lives held together
• time and presence rethought in light of eternity
• practical invitation to remember and pray for specific souls

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Monsignor Don Wolf is a priest of the Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. Living Catholic also broadcasts on Oklahoma Catholic Radio several times per week, with new episodes airing every Sunday.