Holiness for the Working Day

Feast of the Ascension 2026
I will be on vacation the next two weeks and will not be posting to the podcast. Please pray for me on the journey to Europe and I look forward to posting again soon. All listeners are in my daily prayers. - Fr. James Searby

What if the restlessness you feel is not a problem to be solved but a compass pointing you home? In this third meditation, we go to the very root of that restlessness: eros. Not the shallow, pornographic version our culture has reduced it to, and not the sanitized, nervously-avoided version some Christianity has offered in response, but eros in its full, ancient, and serious meaning, the primal human desire to satiate in beauty and be happy. We trace it from Hesiod and Homer through Plato's ladder of love, through the boldly erotic imagery of the Old Testament prophets, through the Eucharist itself, and into the great question Thomas Aquinas forces us to face: is your soul ascending toward Beauty-itself, or has acedia quietly starved your desire until the climb no longer seems worth it? Along the way we tell the story of Eros and Psyche, one of the most theologically rich myhts ever told, and we let it do what great stories do: show us who we are, where we are in the journey, and why the Beloved who is already looking for us is worth every impossible task on the way up.

Children's homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter and Mother's Day

6th sunday of Easter 2026 and Mother's Day

5th Sunday of Easter, Year A
Gospel
John 14:1-12

Jesus said to his disciples:
"Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You have faith in God; have faith also in me.
In my Father's house there are many dwelling places.
If there were not,
would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back again and take you to myself,
so that where I am you also may be.
Where I am going you know the way."
Thomas said to him,
"Master, we do not know where you are going;
how can we know the way?"
Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life.
No one comes to the Father except through me.
If you know me, then you will also know my Father.
From now on you do know him and have seen him."
Philip said to him,
"Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us."
Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time
and you still do not know me, Philip?
Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.
How can you say, 'Show us the Father'?
Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?
The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own.
The Father who dwells in me is doing his works.
Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me,
or else, believe because of the works themselves.
Amen, amen, I say to you,
whoever believes in me will do the works that I do,
and will do greater ones than these,
because I am going to the Father."