The Discerning Hearts Blog Archives - Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts

The Gift of Grace – The Way of Mystery with Deacon James Keating

Deacon James Keating describes the spiritual journey from attachment to sin into a life shaped by Christ’s light. This shift usually begins through pain or restlessness that awakens a desire for something deeper. As a person moves away from sin and leans into virtue, the presence of Christ becomes clearer, forming the mind and heart through prayer, scripture, worship, and especially the Eucharist. Over time, a person stops acting in isolation and instead makes choices with Christ dwelling within, seeking His guid...



A Christmas Novena – Day 1 – Joy

O Lord, infant Jesus, fill us with Joy! The birth of any child is a cause for joy and so much more is the birth of You our Savior. We pray in union with Mary, Your mother, for a greater joy this Christmas.

Divine Infant,
after the wonders of Your birth in Bethlehem,
You wished to extend Your infinite mercy to the whole world
by calling the Wise Men by heavenly inspiration to Your crib,
which was in this way changed into a royal...

Caryll Houselander Icon used with permission from TRINITY ICONS 

Day 16: Trusting Christ’s Quiet Growth in Us

It is only necessary to give ourselves to that life, all that we are, to pray without ceasing, not by a continual effort to concentrate our minds but by a growing awareness that Christ is being formed in our lives from what we are. We must trust Him for this, because it is not a time to see His face, we must possess Him secretly and in darkness, as the earth possesses the seed. We must not try to force Chr...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Part Three: Listening Through Trials, Weakness, and Silence

DAY 17 – Suffering

“For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too.”
2 Corinthians 1.5 RSV

Suffering is one of the most difficult interior places for a listening heart. It can come through physical pain, emotional wounds, grief, loss, or the heavy silence that settles during spiritual darkness. Suffering makes prayer feel harder...



Day 1 – Joy
O Lord, infant Jesus, fill us with Joy! The birth of any child is a cause for joy and so much more is the birth of You our Savior. We pray in union with Mary, Your mother, for a greater joy this Christmas.

Divine Infant,
after the wonders of Your birth in Bethlehem,
You wished to extend Your infinite mercy to the whole world
by calling the Wise Men by heavenly inspiration to Your crib,
which was in this way changed into a royal throne.
You graciously rece...

Two Modes of Discernment – “What am I to do?” The Discernment of God’s Will in Everyday Decisions with Fr. Timothy Gallagher

Fr. Timothy Gallagher continues his teaching on St. Ignatius of Loyola’s three modes of discernment, focusing here on the first and second modes. The first mode is a clarity beyond doubting, in which a person receives an unmistakable certainty about God’s will that cannot be shaken. This is illustrated through vocation stories. Such clarity may arise suddenly or gradually, but remains stable over time. It’s important in confirming this kind of clarity with a wise sp...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 15: The Sacred Vigil of Love

The fostering of an infant’s life is a thing of terror as well as of beauty. We are face to face with life at its most precious, housed in its frailest. That life depends for its survival upon us, upon the intelligence, the skill, the perseverance, the unceasing, untiring vigilance of our love.

It requires of us love that is as strong as the worn and hollowed rock, as delicate as the dew that trembles in it.

We...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Part Three: Listening Through Trials, Weakness, and Silence

DAY 16 – Weakness

“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
2 Corinthians 12.9 RSV

Weakness is one of the most vulnerable places in the spiritual life. It is where we feel limited, fragile, unable to do what we desire, or unable to rise in the ways we once could. Weakness is uncomfortable. It exposes how mu...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 14:  Patience in the Hidden Growth of Sorrow

Sometimes this Advent season of the soul is a recurring rhythm through life, deliberately chosen as such or simply given to us. Sometimes it is the immediate result of conversion or of a new awareness of God or of an increase of Love.

Sometimes it is a painful experience. It may be that a soul brimmed with love becomes dumb, inarticulate, blind, seeing only darkness, unable to give things that it longs to give to a world of c...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Part Three: Listening Through Trials, Weakness, and Silence

DAY 15 – Confusion

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight.”
Proverbs 3.5 RSV

Interior confusion is one of the most painful trials in the spiritual life. It is the moment when the heart cannot see clearly, when intentions feel tangled, when choices seem uncertain, and when prayer does not of...

The 3rd Sunday of Advent – The  Joy of Christ’s Coming – Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff

In this Third Sunday of Advent reflection, Msgr. John Esseff proclaims the joy of Christ’s coming and the deep mystery of Jesus dwelling within those who are baptized. Drawing from the prophet Isaiah and the Gospel of Matthew, he reflects on the signs that reveal the Messiah: the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the dead are raised, and the poor receive the good news.

Msgr. Esseff focuses on Jesus’ response to...

An Advent Journey for the Discerning Heart:
Prepare your heart for Christ through Scripture, the saints, and the gentle practice of daily listening.

Week Two: Following the Voice of Christ

DAY 14 – Dryness

“O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is.”
Psalm 63.1 RSV

Dryness is one of the most common and most misunderstood experiences in the spiritual life. It is the season when prayer...

Caryll Houselander image used with permission from TRINITY ICONS

Day 13: The True Fruit of Advent in Suffering

“We need the season of Advent; we need it in suffering, in joy, and in thought. We need it in everything that is to bear fruit in our lives. People sometimes get disheartened because they have read that suffering ennobles and have met people who seem to have come out of the crucible like pure silver, made beautiful by suffering; but it seems to them that in their own case it is quite the opposite. They find that, ho...

St. Therese of Lisieux said the following: “If I did not simply live from one moment to another, it would be impossible for me to be patient. But I only look at the present. I forget the past, and I take good care not to forestall the future.” In these remarks, St. Therese is trying to point to the truth that is buried deep within the Christian revelation. God only lives in the present moment. He holds all time together in the present. For ourselves, we get lost many times in the past, which could breed nostalgia and grief. Or w...

Our Lady of Guadalupe – Building a Kingdom of Love with Msgr. John Esseff

Msgr. John Esseff reflects on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe as a decisive moment of renewal for the Church, set against the turmoil of 16th-century Europe and the vast conversion that followed in Mexico. He situates Mary’s 1531 appearance to Juan Diego within salvation history, drawing connections to the woman clothed with the sun in Revelation and to the Annunciation in Luke’s Gospel. Her request for a simple church and her choice of a poor, elderly Indigenous man reveal a mate...