When all feels lost, see what God is doing in Acts
The emboldened disciples in Acts 5:12-16 perform signs and wonders of the risen Christ to a crowd gathered at Solomon’s portico in Jerusalem. Witnessing the good news of the Resurrection for the first time, astonished onlookers bring the sick and wounded for the apostles to heal through the power of God. “I just hope people feel some desire to get together with other people in their community and do a little Bible study on the Acts of the Apostles,” says Casey Stanton, co-director of Discerning Deacons, a project helping the Church listen more deeply as it discerns the role of women in the diaconate. “The church has given us this gift of a text that offers us a way to recover something that feels lost right now: a common life together.”
Joining host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., on this episode of “Preach” ahead of the Second Sunday of Easter, Casey connects the first reading to the current situation facing many immigrant and migrant Christians in the U.S., who live in fear of deportation and detention. “What will our testimony be in this generation in our time?” she asks. “We are called to be in community, especially with and as those who are called criminals. Those who are deemed unworthy, those who think they do not have a right to speak, those whose land is being stolen, whose waters are polluted, whose lives are under siege, who struggle for life and dignity.”
Casey Stanton has spent over a decade in ministry working on social concerns in parish settings, as well as engaging with broader faith-based networks focused on justice and inclusion. She lives in Durham with her husband Felipe and their three children—Micaela, Teddy and Oscar. Her work is rooted in Pope Francis’ call to a synodal Church—a Church that listens, walks together, and follows the lead of the Holy Spirit.
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46:26
Father Greg Boyle on living the resurrection this Easter—and every day
In John’s account of the Resurrection, “the other disciple” enters the empty tomb, sees, and believes. Why is this detail included? “I think the hope here is that we not focus on some historical moment that happened, but rather an understanding of what the risen life is here and now,” says Greg, founder and president of Homeboy Industries, the largest gang intervention, rehabilitation and reentry program in the world.“ The risen life is meaningful now, or it’s not meaningful at all.”
In this Easter Sunday episode of Preach, Greg shares with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., how we might recognize and receive God’s “tender glance” not only at Easter but every day. “How do we notice the notice of God?” he asks. “And then become that notice of God in the world?” For Greg, the Resurrection isn’t only about what happened to Jesus more than 2,000 years ago. “We’re all going to die, and none of us will live forever, but we really can live in the forever,” he says. “The risen Lord is here and now—in the struggle, in the loss, in the grieving, in the delighting, in people sharing their lives with each other. You want to be able to say, ‘I’m right here, and I’m right now, and I’m breathing in the spirit that delights in my being, and now I’m breathing that out into the world. ‘Cause the world could use it.’”
Greg is also the bestselling author Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion and Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship and his newest book, Cherished Belonging, the Healing Power of Love in Divided Times. In 2024, he received the nation’s highest civilian honor: the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
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“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.
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49:23
Luke Timothy Johnson on how to read Jesus’ Passion in Luke and John
Luke’s account of Jesus’ Passion offers a distinctive perspective: “The ordinary people are not only not complicit in the death of Jesus, but they repent of what has been done to him,” says Luke Timothy Johnson, a leading scholar of Luke-Acts and Woodruff Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Christian Origins at Emory University. Unlike the other Gospels, Luke paints a vivid image of repentance in Jesus’ final moments: a great crowd of people turning their backs on the city after his death, beating their breasts—an action that Professor Johnson says is significant because it is the “classic body language of repentance” used throughout the Scriptures.
“Luke thereby sets up the conversion of the people in the story of Acts, where thousands of faithful Jews hear the word of the resurrection and join the Jesus movement in Acts,” Professor Johnson argues. Recognizing this, he suggests, offers us “a much more positive view of the people of Israel.”
Returning to “Preach” for the second time this Lent, Professor Johnson joins host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to discuss the Passion narratives in both Luke and John—accounts that we will hear during the principal liturgies of Holy Week, on Palm Sunday of the Lord’s Passion, Year C, and on Good Friday. With liturgies requiring long stretches of attention and involvement from the congregation, the preacher’s role is, as Johnson observes, “fundamentally, to get out of the way.” He adds that, on these days, “preaching should be very succinct, if practiced at all.”
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“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.
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32:50
Reading the woman caught in adultery in John’s Gospel: A Latina theologian on sin
“This passage is about sin, but I want to ask about whose sin, right?” asks Amirah Orozco, a doctoral student in systematic theology at the University of Notre Dame. Raised on the U.S.-Mexico border between El Paso, Texas, and Juarez, Chihuahua, Amirah reflects on the woman caught in adultery(Jn 8:1-11), whom Jesus stops from being stoned to death by a group of men who want to punish her, and test Jesus. “The woman is concerned about her sin,” Amirah reflects. “What if we made it also about the sin of the men who want to kill her?”
On this episode of “Preach” for the Fifth Sunday of Lent, Year C, Amirah joins host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to offer a woman’s perspective on the adulterous woman that draws insight from liberation theologies. “Although personal sin is real, it is clear to us now that structures are set up in such a way that social sin becomes possible for us to talk about.” Amirah says. “The God of great mercy reminds us that if social sin is possible, so too is social mercy and forgiveness.”
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“Preach” is made possible through the generous support of the Compelling Preaching Initiative, a project of Lilly Endowment Inc.
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34:51
Pain, shame, and family trauma: Fresh perspectives on the prodigal son
The older brother in the parable of the prodigal son voices a common frustration: “The unfairness of somebody else getting what we think they don’t deserve,” says Stephen Tully, pastor of All Saints Catholic Church in Ballito, an affluent coastal town just north of Durban, South Africa, and chairman of the Napier Centre 4 Healing. Loyal and hardworking, the older brother feels overlooked when his father celebrates the younger son’s return with a lavish feast—a welcome he’s never received. “I think his pain and shame is that he’s done everything right. So why don’t I get more?” Stephen reflects. “Maybe the father never thought of doing a fatted calf for him because he was just so everyday happy with him.”
On this week’s “Preach,” for the Fourth Sunday of Lent, Year C (Laetare Sunday), host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., is joined by Stephen, whose years of ministry among marginalized communities have shaped his reading of the parable—and even led him to question the younger brother’s motivations for leaving home. Could family dynamics and trauma have played a role in his departure? “For all we know, the prodigal son may have run away because the older brother was so arrogant, a horrible person to be with,” says Stephen. “You can go back to the older brother, but if he’s the toxic person that made you run away, stuff’s got to be done.”
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What makes a great Catholic homily, and what goes into the art of delivering it well?
“Preach” is a new weekly podcast from America Media that features a diverse cast of the finest Catholic preachers. Each week, preachers open up their hearts and minds, sharing their spiritual lives, approaches to interpreting scripture and techniques for preparing the best homilies.
On each episode, listeners will meet Catholic preachers, learn about their communities and hear their Sunday homilies, delivered with a podcast audience in mind. In the second part of the show, preachers will unpack the making of their homily with the show’s host, Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to offer a privileged peek into their lives as ministers of God’s Word, to enable all preachers to keep preaching the Good News.
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“Preach” is made possible through a generous grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc, as a contribution to its Compelling Preaching Initiative, funding the development of preachers across the United States.
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