Today I’m on The Catholic Podcast . . .

talking with Joe Heschmeyer and Chloe Langr about Mary, Our Lady of Sorrows, for their series on the way of the cross. This episode, #57, is called “The Women of the Way,” and includes passages by the great Josef Ratzinger.

You can hear and download the episode here.

I talk about how I came to understand why and how Mary truly understands our suffering; and about the sensation of helplessness that so often comes along with motherhood and with love in general, and how that sensation can either tear us away from God or help us meet him more intimately. (This conversation was the impetus for my essay, Mary who stays.)

Their other guest is Deacon Brad Sloan who works with women who’ve been caught up in sex trafficking in the midwest. He says so many of them have never experienced what it means to be loved, by anyone else and certainly not by their maker.

The podcast isn’t just discussion; it’s intended to help you meditate on various themes in the stations of the cross. The goal is to help us understand that we’re not alone in our suffering, and to give us the courage to confront evil in our lives. 

The Catholic Podcast homepage is here and feed is here; and you can follow them on Facebook @TheCatholicPodcast.

Image: Station of the cross, Saint Symphorian church of Pfettisheim, Bas-Rhin, France. XIXth century. Detail of the 4thstation : Jesus and his mother. Photo by Pethrus [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Contest winners + I’m on The Catholic Podcast with Joe Heschmeyer

Sorry for the delay in the list of winners! Everyone on this list has been notified using the email they provided to enter the contest.

Monday
Christine Dumouchel
Julie Von Rotz

Tuesday
Victoria Treboschi
Theresa Hardy

Wednesday
Lori Magelky
Stacia Demeulenaere

Thursday
Jamie Piper
Jake Casey
Jessica Marsh

Friday
Rachel Nesbitt
Debbie McGeehan
Catherine Burnham

If you entered and see your name here and haven’t seen an email from me, please check your junk folder, or make sure that you didn’t provide an obsolete email to Rafflecopter. (If you entered using Facebook, Rafflecopter showed me the email address that is associated with Facebook.)

Congratulations! And thank you so much, one more time, to all the generous sponsors. You are wonderful.

Next order of business: I had a wonderful (well, that’s how I remember it) conversation about NFP, Humanae Vitae, chastity, and Jell-o with Joe Heschmeyer of The Catholic Podcast (unfortunately Chloe Langr, the regular co-host, couldn’t be there). You can hear the podcast here, and check out tons of other resources we mentioned in the conversation.