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Why did Catholics become so obsessed with the Heart of Jesus?

In this episode, we explore the forgotten mysticism of the Sacred Heart—from St. Augustine and the restless heart, to medieval devotion to Christ's wounds, to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque and the Sacred Heart revelations. Along the way, we'll look at how the Sacred Heart challenges a cold, purely intellectual faith and calls us into a deeper life of love, mercy, and transformation.

The Sacred Heart is more than a devotion. It is a vision of the Christian life itself.

In this Mass Prep for the Mystic Heart, we reflect on John 6:51-58, where Jesus tells us that His flesh is true food and His blood is true drink.

Catholics often talk about the Eucharist in terms of truth, doctrine, and the Real Presence — and we should. But in this Gospel, Jesus also reveals the Eucharist as union. He does not merely want to be admired from a distance. He wants to be received.

So this week, we look at three spiritual fruits from John 6:

Come hungry.
Let yourself be joined to Christ.
Become what you receive.

The Eucharist is not only something we defend. It is the mystery that slowly turns us into love.

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Welcome back to The Holy Fool Hotline, where Catholic Q&A gets weird, tender, chaotic, and somehow still spiritually useful.

In this episode: faceless saint art returns, and this time… one of them may have a knife. We also talk scrupulosity and John 15, joy and suffering, annoying coworkers, whether the saints had tempers, why be Catholic in the least apologetics-bro way possible, folk Catholicism, Catholic masculinity, the Sacred Heart, animals, Jack White, the B-52s, and why being angry all the time is not the same thing as spiritual zeal.

Also: Catholic grandmas remain the hidden infrastructure of grace.

Send in questions for the next Holy Fool Hotline via Patreon, and please, for the love of all that is holy, stop buying faceless saint art.

Trinity Sunday can feel intimidating, but the Gospel begins somewhere simple:

“God so loved the world.”

Catholic AI is here. But Catholic AI companies need to answer some serious questions.

In this episode, I respond to Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical on artificial intelligence and ask what Catholic AI companies owe the faithful in terms of transparency, accountability, data privacy, theological review, environmental impact, and moral responsibility.

What model powers your Catholic AI? Is it using OpenAI, Claude, Gemini, Grok, or another major LLM? Where do user prompts go? Who reviews the theology? What happens when someone asks about mortal sin, confession, scrupulosity, sexuality, grief, or despair? And if a company markets itself as a Catholic alternative to “secular AI,” shouldn’t Catholics know what is actually under the hood?

This episode is a call for greater transparency. And to stop treating the faith like a religious answer machine, and start living it as an incarnational encounter with the living Christ.

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Pentecost is weirder than we usually let it be.

In this episode, we’re keeping it simple and talking through three mystical and slightly strange things about Pentecost: the Holy Spirit as holy possession, the Holy Spirit as contagious joy, and Pentecost as the reversal of the Tower of Babel.

This is not a giant theology lecture. Just a coffee-sipping reflection on fire, joy, language, and the strange beauty of the Holy Spirit dwelling within the Church.

Come, Holy Spirit.

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Joy is not denial. Joy is not pretending everything is fine. Joy is not ignoring suffering, grief, anger, doubt, or the very real darkness of the world.

But joy is resistance.

In this episode of From the Margins, I’m talking about why so many Catholics mistake misery for zeal, why self-hatred is not humility, and why Christ does not want us tense, bitter, and spiritually exhausted all the time.

We’ll look at joy as spiritual warfare, joy as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, joy as something deeply human and incarnational, and why the devil seems to hate a soul that can still laugh, sing, feast, and hope in God.

This episode also serves as a deeper look at the theme behind Issue II of The Margins, my Catholic zine: Joy Against the Machine. This is not simply me telling you to buy a zine. It’s a chance to explore what inspired the issue and to bring a few of its pages into video form.

Because in a world of rage bait, doomscrolling, division, anxiety, and spiritual heaviness, joy may be one of the most rebellious things left to us.

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St. Philip Neri may be one of the most punk rock saints in Catholic history.

Known as the Apostle of Rome and the Apostle of Joy, St. Philip Neri rebelled against religious gloom, spiritual ego, cold preaching, and closed-room Catholicism — not by rejecting the Church, but by making Catholic life joyful, human, embodied, and alive.

In this episode of Punk Rock Saints, we look at how Philip Neri’s devotion to the Holy Spirit set his heart on fire, how his humor and holy foolishness fought pride, and how the Oratory became a kind of sacred scene for the spiritually restless: prayer, music, confession, friendship, Scripture, saints, and laughter all in one room.

Philip Neri reminds us that holiness does not have to be grim, polished, or impressive.

Sometimes the most radical Catholic thing you can do is laugh, confess, open the doors, and let the Holy Spirit make your heart bigger.

St. Philip Neri, pray for us.

In this casual Ascension Sunday reflection, we sit with one of the strangest and most beautiful moments in the Christian story: Jesus rises from the dead, appears to His disciples, speaks with them, promises the Holy Spirit… and then ascends into heaven.

But the Ascension is not abandonment.

The disciples still have questions when Christ ascends. Mary receives Gabriel before she understands the whole road. Joseph follows dreams one step at a time. Moses sees the burning bush before he understands the Exodus. Again and again, Scripture shows us that God gives Himself before He gives the full map.

We’ll also talk about spiritual dryness, prayer, the indwelling of God, the Holy Spirit, the Eucharist, and why a changed form of God’s presence is not the same as His absence.

The Ascension reminds us: Jesus is not gone. Christ ascends with His wounds, brings our humanity into heaven, and prepares to send heaven into us at Pentecost.

What does God actually call you?

Not the names your shame gives you. Not the names your anxiety gives you. Not the names your failures, wounds, scruples, or self-hatred have taught you to answer to.

In this episode of St. Anthony’s Tongue, we linger with some of the strange and tender names God gives the soul throughout Scripture, especially in the Song of Songs: my dove, my darling, my sister, my perfect one, along with bride, friend, little flock, and temple.

This is not about cute religious nicknames. It is about Catholic mysticism, identity, prayer, and the healing of the soul. God does not flatter the soul. He tells the truth about it. And sometimes the truth is more merciful, more intimate, and more beautiful than we are prepared to receive.

We’ll explore the Song of Songs, the Farewell Discourse, the words of Christ in John 15, “fear not little flock” in Luke 12, and what it means to stop answering to names God never gave you.

God never called you failure.
God never called you disgusting.
God never called you a lost cause.
God never called you too much or not enough.

So what does He call you?

Let’s talk about the secret names God gives the soul.