For our first episode of Season 6, we are thrilled to welcome back to the podcast our former co-host, Louie Hotop, SJ, who is the Assistant Principal for Mission at Arrupe Jesuit High School in Denver, CO. Louie is helping us launch the Lenten theme for this season by sharing the moving experience of celebrating Ash Wednesday in the camp in Matamoros last year. He reflects on the theme of repentance as we enter Lent, and shares stories of some of the people whom he continues to carry with him even as he has moved on from the border. Plus, he talks about the time he heard confessions while sitting on an overturned bucket crammed between tents in a migrant camp.

In this episode, Brian and Joe talk about moments of repentance and God’s healing mercy. Joe reflects on the importance of discernment with feelings of guilt and sin. He shares the story of a young girl carrying a guilt that she needed to free herself from, to be able to see the way God was looking on her with love. Brian shares a time he responded uncharitably over text in a conversation with Yurlin, a pregnant woman who was in Reynosa. It didn’t take long for him to remember that a pregnant single mother of two young girls living in a shelter in northern Mexico deserves a little more compassion and respect!