​Topics we discussed:​​

• What it means to strive for virtue
• What Aquinas had to say about the journey from vice to virtue
• How habits make good servants but bad masters
• Building good habits with cues, triggers, and rewards 
• Self-knowledge and the four tendencies of habit formation  ​
• Keystone habits

Resources we mentioned: 

• "Better Now Than Before" by Gretchen Rubin
• "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg
• ​Covenant Eyes 
• Exodus 90
• Dave Ramsey and the Debt Snowball
• Episode 39 of The Catholic Podcast on micro-progress 

​
​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online

Topics we discussed:​​

• What it means to strive for sainthood as a woman today
• Receptivity and what a woman's body reveals to everyone about the Lord's desire for us
• Why sensitivity and vulnerability are courageous strengths
• Rejecting the idea that taking care of ourselves is selfish
• The opportunities Christ gave women for human connection and communion on earth
• How all women are called to maternity (physical or spiritual)
• The humanity of Our Lady ​

Resources we mentioned: 

• Saint Pope John Paul II's Letter to Women 

• Life of the Beloved by Henri Nouwen
• Meg Hunter-Kilmer on Instagram
• Christopher West
• Brene Brown and the courage of vulnerability 
• Saint Edith Stein and her writings on women ​

​
​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online

Topics we discussed:​​

• How American Christians do theology wrong 
• Saint Jerome's test for seeing what Church is founded by Christ
• Why Catholicism isn't just another Christian denomination ​
• How Christ established the Catholic Church and why we should participate in it​
• Flannery O'Connor and Church history 

Resources we mentioned: 

• Reason #7 to Reject the Reformation: History
• "Mere Christianity" by C.S. Lewis
• "Screwtape Proposes a Toast"
• "No Mere Christianity" by David Mills ​
• Flannery O’Connor on the Eucharist and Church History​​

​
​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​​​

Topics we discussed:​​

• The theology of drinking
• Why answering whether it's "good" or "bad" to drink is the wrong question to ask
• What Aristotle's three levels of friendship teach us about our own friends and how we drink with them
• Thinking of alcohol as a work of art
• Snowbirds and the seasons
• Dramatic beauty and relating it to our experience of drinking
• Celebrating people instead of actions
• The qualities that set apart the true artist of celebration from everyone else who just parties 

Resources we mentioned: 

• "Barstool Theology: Crafting the Good Life" by Trevor Gundlach​
• Bishop Robert Barron on truth, goodness, and beauty​
• Pope Francis' 'Amoris laetitia'
• Find Trevor online​  ​

​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​​​

Topics we discussed:​​

• Why your interior life is important
• What the Catechism of the Catholic Church has to say about the three types of prayer
• How a daily examen can change your life
• Why you shouldn't put prayer on your to-do list
• Why there isn't one perfect way to pray 

Resources we mentioned: 

• Catechism paragraphs 2700-2724
• ​Daily Rosary Meditations podcast with Holy Family School of Faith 
• 3-2-1 Examen
• The Power of Habit 
• 10 Useful Prayers for the Busy Seasons of Life
• ​The Way of the Pilgrim 

 ​

​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​​​

Topics we discussed:​​

• Steve Wagner's 10-second pro-life argument
• Avoiding the abortion "double-bind"
• Learning argumentative martial arts
• Letting those who are pro-choice argue for the pro-life cause
• The moral act and double effect
• How to answer common pro-choice objections with charity​

Resources we mentioned: 

• "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie 
• "The Developing Human: Clinically Orientated Embryology" 7th Edition 
• How to Win the Person Instead of the Argument by Joe Heschmeyer
• "Maria Goretti Didn't Die for Her Virginity" by Simcha Fisher 
• Undeniable Pro-Life Quotes from Norma McCorvey – the Woman Behind Roe v. Wade
• The movie Joyeux Noël

​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​​​

Topics we discussed:​​

• What acedia is
• How we battle against the noon-day devil
• Why acedia is rooted in an idolatry of ourselves
• Working with our hands
• Taking a cue from Christ and fighting the devil with Scripture 

Resources we mentioned: 

• Daily Rosary Meditations with Holy Family School of Faith 
• The Noonday Devil: Acedia, the Unnamed Evil of Our Times by Dom Jean-Charles Nault
• The Art of Manliness Podcast: The Quest for a Moral Life
• Father Mike Schmitz's video on Acedia
• St. Benedict Knew How to Beat the Blues by Elizabeth Scalia​​
• Acedia and Me by Kathleen Norris
• iBreviary app
• Rebecca K. Renyold's poem about Psalm 23​

​ Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​​

Images mentioned in this episode:

• L'Angélus by Jean-François Millet

Having lived through the scandal as a newly-ordained priest, Fr. Joseph Scholten, a priest of the Diocese of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, offers a Christological perspective on the sexual abuse scandal from which the Catholic Church is still reeling. Along the way, he offers some good advice on how to deal with our own brokenness, and how to speak into the pain of those who have suffered from, or been scandalized by, abuse.

One of the tactics being used in an increasing way within the "culture wars" is "deplatforming," trying to cut people whose ideas you disagree with off from having a platform with which to speak. In today's episode, Joe talks with a Catholic artist named Brett Lempe whose art show was cancelled simply because he's personally pro-life (amazingly, the show itself had nothing to do with abortion).
Links:

• Brett's website
• A pro-deplatforming article from Mashable
• Zack Whittaker, "Black Hat scraps Rep. Will Hurd as keynote speaker amid voting record controversy," Tech Crunch

From claims of "evangi-dating" to being "unequally yoked," a lot is said about Catholics dating non-Catholics. But what does Catholic conversion look like in a relationship (dating or marriage) when one of you is Catholic, and one isn't? To get a better look at that up close, I interviewed Peter and Jessica Poindexter. Peter grew up Baptist, Jessica grew up Catholic, and here's the story of how they navigated questions of faith and conversion in the context of friendship, dating, and marriage. 
​
Resources we mentioned:

• An example of Topic Tabs
• Alan Schreck, Catholic & Christian

Topics we discussed:

• Catholic and Protestant views on Redemptive Suffering
• Imputed vs. Imparted Justification
• The need for Tradition

Resources we mentioned:

• Christian Smith, How to Go from Being a Good Evangelical to a Committed Catholic in Ninety-Five Difficult Steps

As part of our Easter series on conversion stories, we're profiling Dawn Eden Goldstein, author of the book Sunday Will Never Be the Same. She's a convert from Reform Judaism to Christianity: first to Protestantism, and then to Catholicism. Along the way she's been everything from a rock historian to a dogmatic theologian. So how did get from there to here?

Topics we discussed:​

• Our Lady of Sorrows
• What Mary can teach us about ministering to those who suffer
• The reality of human trafficking

Resources we mentioned:

• ​​Way of the Cross at the Colosseum meditations by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger​
• The Catholic Podcast Episode 24 - Natural Family Planning for Sinners
• Polaris Project
• Restore Hope

Interviews in this episode: 

• Simcha Fisher 
• Deacon Brad Sloan 

Find Holy Family School of Faith:

• Online​​