Mystagogy
Episodes
44 episodes
Sayings of the Desert Fathers
To kick off our summer series, we will reflect on some writings that go way back to the third century of Christendom. While the Church was suffering under the Roman persecutions, hundreds of thousands of Christians fled into the desert fi...
Elements of Catholic Prayer
This week, we consider the nature and elements of Catholic prayer from The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), and also a short passage on the four ways to God from th...
Saint Teresa of Avila on Prayer as Watering the Garden
This week we launch a month in the company of the Church’s great Doctor of Prayer, St. Teresa of Avila. We will begin by reading the famous metaphor of the soul as a garden from her autobiography. With Don Quixote, The Book o...
Saint Teresa of Avila and The Interior Castle
We continue our consideration of the spiritual metaphors of Saint Teresa of Avila, the Church’s Doctor of Prayer. We turn to her most famous spiritual work, The Interior Castle<...
The Third to Seventh Mansions in Saint Teresa of Avila's Interior Castle
We complete our brief introduction to Saint Teresa of Avila's writings on prayer, picking up with the Third Mansion in The Interior Castle and continuing on to the Seventh Mansion.
The Stages of the Spiritual Life
This session provides a consideration of Catholic spirituality in the contemporary moment by discussing chapters 6, 7 and 8 of the book
The Spirituality of the Mass and the Eucharist - Part 1
This talk is the first part of a two-part consideration of the spirituality of the Mass and Holy Eucharist. Our primary text for discussion of the Mass is the 20th century classic
The Spirituality of the Mass (Part 2) and the Blessed Sacrament
We continue our spiritual tour through the Holy Mass and give particular emphasis to Jesus’ gift of Himself in the Blessed Sacrament. Our primary text for discussion is a work by the wonderful 19th-century saint of the Eucharist, Sa...
St. Thomas Aquinas on Suffering: A Call and Response
We will be considering Saint Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on suffering from his Literal Exposition of the Book of Job. All-but-forgotten today, this monumental text was considered the greatest work of biblical exegesis in its time. For 20...
Saint Augustine's Confessions
We conclude our summer spirituality series with the work that has arguably meant more to more people than any other written work in human history, except only the Scriptures. In his Confessions, St. Augustine – "the Doctor of Gra...
Saint Augustine's Confessions: Books 3 & 4
We continue exploring the Confessions of Saint Augustine – "the Doctor of Grace" – by discussing Books 3 and 4. You can find the text online by clicking here
Saint Augustine's Confessions: Books 5-7
We continue exploring the Confessions of Saint Augustine – "the Doctor of Grace" – by discussing Books 5, 6 and 7. You can find the text online by clicking here...
The Conversion of St. Augustine: Books 8 & 9 of The Confessions
We examine the conversion of Saint Augustine as he describes it in Books 8 and 9 of his Confessions.You can find the text online by clicking here.
God as 'That Tremendous Lover' in The Hound of Heaven
We begin our fall series with the work that G.K. Chesterton called, "the greatest poem ever written in modern English," namely, Francis Thompson's devastating piece, "The Hound of Heaven." J.R.R. Tolkien credited this work with having a s...
The Hound of Heaven (Part II)
We continue our consideration of the wonderful spiritual poem and testimony by Francis Thompson, "The Hound of Heaven."Here is a copy of the poem to read....
"That Catholic Thing" in Brideshead Revisited
We will be reading and discussing together the classic work that National Review called, "The greatest 20th century work on time and grace." ...
"A Twitch Upon a Thread": The Movements of Grace in Brideshead Revisited
In this session, we continue our tour through Evelyn Waugh's stunning literary classic, Brideshead Revisited, making our way through the...
Hospitality, Grace, and Thanksgiving: The Eucharistic Metaphor at the Heart of Babette's Feast
We will be breaking open the classic Academy Award-winning film, Babette's Feast.&n...
Gregorian Chant: The Summit of Sacred Music
Gregorian Chant has been called "one of the richest and most subtle art forms in music - indeed in the music of any culture." (Catholiceducation.org) Pope Francis has exhorted the Peo...
The Polyphonic Style: The Catholic Church's Other Great Gift to Western Music
Today's episode is a presentation on Polyphony as a development from the tradition of Gregorian chant.Our guest presenter is Dr. Cynthia Nicolosi. Dr. Nicolosi has a PhD in philosophy from the Pontifical University of the Holy Cros...
He Leadeth Me: A Testimony of Divine Providence from the Horrors of the Gulag
In this episode, Barbara Nicolosi Harrington reflects on He Leadeth Me, the spiritual autobiography of
Orthodoxy: G.K. Chesterton’s Answer to Modern Insanity
In this episode, special guest presenter Dr. Michael Goodrich breaks open G.K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy, a book that many pastors and scholars consider the greatest work of...
Temptation in Dostoevsky's "Grand Inquisitor"
This episode is a discussion of the three temptations of Christ through the lens of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky.
Starting the Descent into Dante’s Inferno: The Dark Woods, The Three Beasts
We begin the third part in our five part series: a ten-week tour through Dante’s epic spiritual poem,
Caught in the Whirlwind: The Sins of Incontinence in Dante’s Inferno
This episode is a whirlwind tour through Dante’s whirlwind of the sins of the flesh. We’ll meet the Hoarders and the Wasters, the Gluttons, the Wrathful and the Sullen, and, of course, poor, pathetic, lustful Francesca and Paolo. If you a...
