Thoughtful Catholic

We’re back to our march through the Old Testament and in this episode we’ll linger at the oasis that is the Book of Ruth and see how it points to the coming of the King.

During the pandemic we often heard talk of actions taken for “the common good.”  Just what is this “common good?”  How does the Church define it?

On this Feast of Pentecost, it’s appropriate to talk about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Let’s do that.

In this episode we’ll continue our discussion of the flawed heroes of the Book of Judges by relating the troubling story of Jephthah and his daughter.

This episode will begin a series on several of the heroes of the Book of Judges.  We’ll start with Gideon.

Why should all men, Christian or not, be subject to a final judgment at the end of the world and upon being resurrected if they were already judged once before?

Happy Easter!  What will our resurrected bodies be like?  In this episode we’ll get some insight into this from St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Is the God revealed by Jesus Christ jealous?  Listen to this episode to find out.

In this episode we’ll learn about five of the false gods of Israel’s neighbors in the Promised Land and what they might mean for us.  Spoiler alert: it’s time to repent!

The holy season of Lent is well underway, and in this episode we’ll review several instances of 40-day periods in the Bible and see what insights they may give us.

In this episode we’ll hear about St. Thomas Aquinas’s intriguing interpretation of the six days of creation described in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis.

Is the Bible a science book?  How should we react when we read things in the Bible that seem to contradict well established scientific facts?  In this episode we’ll hear what St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas had to say about the matter.

In this episode I’ll relate a disturbing story from the Book of Joshua that’s reminiscent of the story of Annanias and Saphira in the Book of Acts of the Apostles.  It’s a story of a Israelite soldier named Achan who made a terrible mistake.  What I say may not make the story any less disturbing, we will hear a great spiritual lesson related to it from St. John of the Cross.

In this episode we’ll open up the Church’s treasury and bring out the four senses of Sacred Scripture that are four ways to appropriate the spiritual gifts of the Scriptures to our lives.

In this episode we’ll discuss the startling implications of Jesus’s use of the phrase “I AM” in the Gospel of John.

In this episode we will take a look at the story of Miriam the Prophetess, the sister of Moses, and discover who she might prefigure.

In this episode we’ll talk about the Song of the Ark, the song sung by Moses and the Israelites when they broke or pitched camp in the wilderness.  The Church Fathers had a startling insight into it, an insight that has everything to do with the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Advent season we are just beginning.

In this episode we’ll continue to linger in the Sinai desert, just as the Israelites did, and consider one of the oldest blessings in the Bible, one which we still use today.

In this episode we’ll return to the scene of the last episode, at the base of Mt. Sinai with Israelites during their journey in the desert, and hear God say something even more startling than last time.

As God was leading the Israelites through the desert, He stopped them at the base of Mount Sinai and made a few startling promises.  What might these promises mean for us?

In this episode we’ll unpack that long list of biblical names found in the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.  They seem so boring, but are they? And what could those boring names possibly mean for us?

In the last episode, I briefly  broached the problem of suffering.  In this episode we’ll dig a bit into the biblical Book of Job and look at some of its insights into this topic.

If God is good, why does He allow us to suffer?  In this episode we’ll start what I hope turns out to be a continuing discussion on this topic.

In this episode we’ll consider Pharaoh’s hardened heart in the Book of Exodus.  Did God harden Pharaoh's heart in such a way that he didn’t really have free will?  Does this mean that Pharaoh was predestined to be evil?

In this episode we’ll investigate an intriguing, but infrequently used Old Testament title for God, "the Terror of Isaac."  What could it possibly mean for us?

A brief introduction to the Thoughtful Catholic Podcast.

The Song of the Sword.  In this episode, we’ll meet the Bible’s first polygamist, and hear the song he sang to his wives.  What on earth could this have to do with us?