In this Fifth Sunday of Lent reflection, Msgr. John Esseff turns to the Gospel of the raising of Lazarus and the promise spoken through the prophet Ezekiel that God will open the graves and restore life to his people. He proclaims that apart from Christ, humanity lives in a state of spiritual death, but through faith in Jesus, the resurrection and the life, new life is given even now.

Msgr. Esseff reflects on Jesus’ question to Martha, “Do you believe this?” as the central call of Lent. Faith is not simply intellectual agreement but a surrender to the life of Christ offered through baptism and the Holy Spirit. The raising of Lazarus reveals not only Christ’s power over death but also the deeper truth that all are invited to share in his life through union with him.

The reflection concludes with a call to renewal for both the elect preparing for baptism and those already baptized. Lent becomes a time to reject sin, renounce the power of evil, and embrace fully the life of Christ within. Through the work of the Holy Spirit, believers are invited to move from death to life, preparing to celebrate the victory of Christ at Easter.

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In this episode of Building a Kingdom of Love, Msgr. John Esseff reflects on the Gospel of the man born blind and the deeper meaning of spiritual sight during Lent. Humanity enters the world marked by original sin, unable to see clearly without the healing grace of Christ. The Gospel account reveals that Jesus is the one who opens the eyes of the human heart, leading souls out of darkness and into the light of truth.

The Lenten liturgy links the themes of water and light as signs of baptismal grace. Just as the blind man washes in the pool of Siloam and receives sight, the baptized are invited to rediscover the grace already given to them. Lent becomes a time of awakening, when the soul allows Christ to reveal areas of blindness and bring healing through repentance and humility.

Msgr. Esseff also contrasts the openness of the blind man with the Pharisees’ resistance, who judge by appearances and refuse the light offered by Christ. True vision comes from a heart willing to encounter the Lord honestly. Through prayer, conversion, and renewed trust in Christ, the Christian life becomes a journey from darkness into the radiant light of God.

In what ways might spiritual blindness keep a person from recognizing Christ’s presence in daily life?

Why does the Gospel story of the man born blind speak so powerfully during the season of Lent?

How does baptism help open the eyes of the heart to the light of Christ?

What attitudes or habits might resemble the resistance shown by the Pharisees in the Gospel?

How can prayer and humility help a person receive the healing sight Christ offers?

During this Lenten season, where might Christ be inviting you to move from darkness into His light?

The post The Fourth Sunday of Lent: Spiritual Blindness – Building a Kingdom of Love w/ Msgr. John Esseff Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

In this Third Sunday of Lent reflection, Msgr. John Esseff invites listeners into the mystery of the Transfiguration from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus reveals his glory on the mountain as he prepares to face suffering and death. The mountain of light is inseparable from the mountain of Calvary. Jesus stands between glory and the cross, revealing that resurrection is reached only through suffering freely embraced in trust and obedience to the Father.

Msgr. Esseff reflects deeply on baptism as participation in Jesus’ own suffering, dying, and rising. Many, he notes, have been baptized yet avoid this interior journey by relying solely on reason, control, or self-protection. Through the story of a young man discerning priesthood, he shows how attachment to reasoning alone can block the step of faith required to follow Christ fully. Faith is not figuring everything out. Faith is listening and responding when God speaks.

Drawing from the witness of Abraham and the teaching of St. Paul, Msgr. Esseff reminds listeners that God’s plan precedes time itself and unfolds within each person through Christ living within. Whether in family separation, illness, financial struggle, prison ministry, or global suffering, Jesus continues to suffer, die, and rise in his people. Lent becomes an invitation to interior listening, where the Father’s command on the mountain is heard anew: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

The post The Third Sunday of Lent: The First Scrutiny – Building a Kingdom of Love w/ Msgr. John Esseff Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

In this Second Sunday of Lent reflection, Msgr. John Esseff invites listeners into the mystery of the Transfiguration from the Gospel of Matthew, where Jesus reveals his glory on the mountain as he prepares to face suffering and death. The mountain of light is inseparable from the mountain of Calvary. Jesus stands between glory and the cross, revealing that resurrection is reached only through suffering freely embraced in trust and obedience to the Father.

Msgr. Esseff reflects deeply on baptism as participation in Jesus’ own suffering, dying, and rising. Many, he notes, have been baptized yet avoid this interior journey by relying solely on reason, control, or self protection. Through the story of a young man discerning priesthood, he shows how attachment to reasoning alone can block the step of faith required to follow Christ fully. Faith is not figuring everything out. Faith is listening and responding when God speaks.

Drawing from the witness of Abraham and the teaching of St. Paul, Msgr. Esseff reminds listeners that God’s plan precedes time itself and unfolds within each person through Christ living within. Whether in family separation, illness, financial struggle, prison ministry, or global suffering, Jesus continues to suffer, die, and rise in his people. Lent becomes an invitation to interior listening, where the Father’s command on the mountain is heard anew: “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.”

The post The Second Sunday of Lent: The Transfiguration and Listening to Christ – Building a Kingdom of Love w/ Msgr. John Esseff Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

In this First Sunday of Lent episode of Building a Kingdom of Love, Msgr. John Esseff reflects on the universal story of humanity’s fall and redemption, beginning with Genesis and culminating in the Gospel of Matthew’s account of Jesus’s temptation in the desert. He reminds listeners that every human person shares a common origin in God’s breath of life and a shared inheritance of sin, temptation, and death through Adam and Eve.

Turning to Matthew’s Gospel, Msgr. Esseff walks through the three temptations of Christ and shows how Jesus succeeds where humanity failed. By refusing bread apart from the Father’s word, rejecting the testing of God, and refusing false worship, Christ overcomes the devil, reverses the disobedience of the desert, and opens the way to freedom from sin and death. Lent becomes a forty-day journey of conversion, mirroring Christ’s own path of fasting, prayer, and trust in the Father.

The episode closes with a direct invitation to renewal. Msgr. Esseff calls listeners to examine their own temptations, pray Psalm 51 with honesty, and entrust their weakness to God’s mercy. Whether preparing for baptism or renewing baptismal vows, Lent is presented as a turning back toward God, stepping out of darkness and into the light of Christ, who alone brings redemption.

Where do I most experience temptation in my daily life during this season of Lent?

How am I being invited to trust God more deeply rather than testing or doubting him?

What does conversion look like for me right now in prayer, fasting, and self discipline?

Where do I need to ask for mercy and allow forgiveness to reshape my heart?

How can I more intentionally renew my baptismal commitment to follow Christ this Lent?

Psalm 51

Have mercy on me, God, in your kindness.

My offenses truly I know them;

That you may be justified when you give sentence

Indeed you love truth in the heart;

Make me hear rejoicing and gladness,

A pure heart create for me, O God,

Give me again the joy of your help;

O rescue me, God, my helper,

For in sacrifice you take no delight,

In your goodness, show favor to Zion:

The post The First Sunday of Lent: Temptation, Conversion, and New Life in Christ – Building a Kingdom of Love w/ Msgr. John Esseff Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

Day 5

From the Sayings of St. Anthony of the Desert:

Some brothers came to find Abba Anthony to tell him about the visions they were having, and to find out from him if they were true or if they came from the demons. They had a donkey which died on the way. When they reached the place where the old man was, he said to them before they could ask him anything, “How was it that the little donkey died on the way here?” They said, “How do you know about that, Father?” And he told them, “the demons showed me what happened.” So they said, “That was what we came to question you about, for fear we were being deceived, for we have visions which often turn out to be true.” Thus the old man convinced them, by the example of the donkey, that their visions came from the demons.

Dear God,

St Anthony of the Desert accepted your call to renounce the world and to love you above all things.

Amen

St. Anthony of the Desert, pray for us.

The post St. Anthony of the Desert Novena – Day 5 – Discerning Hearts Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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My dear Sisters, in this third week of Advent following upon Gaudete Sunday, we find a deep call, a profound call, to the understanding of penance. I think the Church is trying to teach us that real penance is always characterized by joy, that joy is a property of penance. When we look at penitence, we could perhaps list many properties, many characteristics and effects of penance; and we can all develop this in prayer. For today, I would like to linger a bit on three outstanding characteristics and effects of penance, three which I would venture to say are the most prominent. They are both property and effect; they are both descriptive of what is there and are a function of what is there. These three are: purpose, alertness, and joy.

Now, when we really become aware of how much we need to do penance, of how much we have sinned and are at fault, we could question (if we look at it in a superficial way) how we could be joyful. Would we not grow sadder and sadder? But, no, this is not true. And so let us look at that first property and effect: purpose. Real penance is always purposeful. And this characteristic is also an effect; that is, the more we truly realize our state as penitents, the more purpose we have to amend. We know that, in the Sacrament of Penance, we cannot be absolved from our sins if we do not have a firm purpose of amendment. Contrition is not real—it is not only incomplete, but it is not real—if there is no true purpose of amendment. This does not mean that we may not fall again, but it does mean that I am full of purpose, that I am not going to go on like this, that I am not going to keep doing this. That is what characterizes real penance. A weak wailing about my faults, with no evident purpose to do anything about them, has nothing to do with penance. It has a lot to do with cowardice, it has a lot to do with pride, and it is an expression of lack of purposefulness.

But real penance is a driving force. We see this dramatically in our Father Saint Francis. He wept because “Love is not loved.” He just could not get over this, and he was so driven by this, that Love was not loved enough by him. He went on with such purpose that in the sacred stigmata, love finally broke out all over him.

Francis P.C.C., Mother Mary. Come, Lord Jesus (pp. 135-136). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., (1921-2006) was for more than forty years the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. She became recognized as an authoritative voice for the renewal of religious life through her many books, including A Right to Be Merry, But I Have Called You Friends, and Anima Christi.  To learn more about Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, NM visit their website at https://poorclares-roswell.org

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Cluny Media whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

The post CLJ6 – Joyful Penitence – Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

My dear Sisters, in the second week of Advent we have so rich a liturgy encompassing the great solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary and rounding its weekly cycle off with the tender feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. It is enough to make one feel drunk with new wine just to think about all that is opening out before us in this week. We want to linger especially today on that great solemnity of our Immaculate Mother. It could be that this great solemnity which is meant to bring us so close to our Mother could really separate us from her if we did not enter profoundly into its meaning. She was immaculate; she was born without sin, and she lived without sin; and death could not hold her in the tomb because she was without sin and therefore the penalty of death had nothing to do with her.

And so, we could think, what does this have to do with me? I, who have a whole life of accumulation of sin and dreary faults committed again and again. What do we mean—in that prayer of the Church—that we should come with clean hearts to God? How can we ever come with a clean heart to God? Is this not something reserved to our Immaculate Mother? We just seem to get dirtier and dirtier all the time. How can this be a real prayer, a sincere prayer? It seems that no sooner have we got a little bit clean than we are soiled again; and Scripture itself could seem very depressing when it says the just man, the man in perfect holiness, falls seven times a day. We could sit back and say, “Oh, dear!”—and then we want to pray to come to God with a clean heart?

None of us would stand up and say, “Well, I None of us would stand up and say, “Well, I None of us would stand up and say, “Well, I am the just woman.” But even then I would fall seven times a day!

Francis P.C.C., Mother Mary. Come, Lord Jesus (p. 77-78). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., (1921-2006) was for more than forty years the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. She became recognized as an authoritative voice for the renewal of religious life through her many books, including A Right to Be Merry, But I Have Called You Friends, and Anima Christi.  To learn more about Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, NM visit their website at https://poorclares-roswell.org

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Cluny Media whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

The post CLJ5 – A Cleaned Heart – Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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“My dear Sisters, today in the Gospel our Lord praises the faith of those who lowered the paralytic through the roof so that Jesus could heal him. Let us continue to reflect on the theme we had in the Sunday readings of giving evidence that we wish to reform our lives, and let us examine the evidence of our own willingness to be healed, which pertains to faith, hope, and charity. To reform literally means, not to make a new form, but to go back to the original form. The Cistercian abbot Dom Gabriel Sortais, O.C.S.O., said, “Our Lady was exactly as God dreamed her.”

She never had to be reshaped; the form never had to be reintegrated. Unfortunately, we often need to be reshaped and reformed. Yet that, too, is beautiful: that we are formed again, not in a different way, but back to that dream (a lovely expression) that God has of each one of us, that dream-form in the mind and the heart of God of what he intends each of us to be. This is what we mean by reform. Faith, we are told in Scripture, is the substance of things unseen. It is easy to say, “I believe in God.”

But to say that “I believe that God is in control” can be very hard—to really give him the evidence of the heart, of the soul bowed down before him, sometimes in confusion at what he seems to be doing (and not doing) and sometimes in real anguish—and to believe. This is the evidence he is asking of us. We tend to think of faith as a lovely thing. Faith is not just a matter of speaking, but it is a matter of believing when it is difficult to believe.”

Francis P.C.C., Mother Mary. Come, Lord Jesus (pp. 86-87). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., (1921-2006) was for more than forty years the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. She became recognized as an authoritative voice for the renewal of religious life through her many books, including A Right to Be Merry, But I Have Called You Friends, and Anima Christi.  To learn more about Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, NM visit their website at https://poorclares-roswell.org

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Cluny Media whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

The post CLJ4 – Faith, Hope, Love – Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

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THE CHURCH is saying to us again and again, “Now is the acceptable time” (2 Cor 6:2). This Advent will never come again. Perhaps God will bless us with other Advents, although, with the condition the world is in right now, one could have large question marks about that. But even if he does, this one will never come again.

We recall the classic words of the poet: “The tender grace of a day that is gone will never come back to me.” The graces of this day will never come again. The opportunities for being loving and humble and generous and self-forgetful in this day will never come again. That is a large thought, and we should fill our minds with large thoughts in this season.

In the liturgy of this Sunday, the Church is saying, “You have to do something.” And she is saying, “I want to see something.” As I was reflecting in prayer on these three readings which our wise Mother the Church puts before us, our dear Lord showed me that, in a sense, we need to “read” them backward—that the conclusion, the very strong point, is in the Gospel: we begin there and then go back and see how these fruits appear.

Francis P.C.C., Mother Mary. Come, Lord Jesus (p. 65). Ignatius Press. Kindle Edition.

Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C., (1921-2006) was for more than forty years the abbess of the Poor Clare Monastery of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Roswell, New Mexico. She became recognized as an authoritative voice for the renewal of religious life through her many books, including A Right to Be Merry, But I Have Called You Friends, and Anima Christi.  To learn more about Mother Mary Francis and the Poor Clare Nuns of Roswell, NM visit their website at https://poorclares-roswell.org

Discerning Hearts is grateful to Cluny Media whose permission was obtained to record these audio selections from this published work.

The post CLJ3 – Giving Evidence – Come, Lord Jesus: Meditations on the Art of Waiting by Mother Mary Francis, P.C.C. – Discerning Hearts Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.