Preach: The Catholic Homilies Podcast
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. Read the homilies featured on the podcast and get daily Scripture reflections from America Media by becoming a subscriber: www.americamagazine.org/subscribe “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.
Episodes
At 3 a.m. in the lambing shed on his farm in the Irish midlands, John Connell speaks gently to a ewe in labor. “The wave of willful force doesn’t work,” he says. “It’s about calm and serene and speaking gently, and that’s generally how the thing gets accomplished, certainly on our farm.” An award-winning author, investigative journalist, and organic farmer, John has spent over a decade working with sheep. “They’re very caring, look...
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April 28, 2025 • 41 mins
When fishermen set sail, Deacon Marlowe Sabater says, they place one foot on the deck—and the other, unknowingly, “in the watery grave, because you just won’t know what’s gonna happen out there.” Born and raised in Metro Manila, Marlowe now ministers to seafarers and port workers—many of them migrant workers from his native Philippines—through the Diocese of Honolulu’s Apostleship of the Sea ministry. Facing unpredictable storms an...
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April 21, 2025 • 46 mins
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...
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April 14, 2025 • 49 mins
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 li...
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April 7, 2025 • 32 mins
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 c...
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March 31, 2025 • 34 mins
“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 abo...
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March 24, 2025 • 45 mins
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...
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“I learn a lot about the character of my men by how they pick fruit,” says Bishop Joseph Tyson of the Diocese of Yakima, explaining that his “Calluses to Chalices” formation program requires seminarians to live and work alongside migrant farmworkers picking fruit in the summer. He recalls a moment when he discovered that some seminarians had taken a break apart from the workers. Noticing this, the migrant workers invited them to jo...
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March 10, 2025 • 40 mins
“This may not be my best day, but I know One who makes tomorrows better,” says the Rev. Daniel Kingsley, explaining how he hopes parishioners should leave the pews after hearing the homily on Sunday. “Sometimes, it's hope that gives people the motivation to see tomorrow.”
Daniel, the pastor of Saint Clare Church and the administrator of Saint Pius X Church in Rosedale, Queens, NY, is our featured guest on “Preach” for the Second Su...
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March 6, 2025 • 60 mins
“What does it mean to be a prophet?” This is the challenge preachers must wrestle with and present to their congregations over and over, says Luke Timothy Johnson, a renowned Scripture scholar, particularly in Luke-Acts, and Woodruff Professor Emeritus of New Testament and Christian Origins at the Candler School of Theology, Emory University. Christian prophetic witness lies at the heart of Luke’s Gospel. “The prophet is led by the...
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February 24, 2025 • 56 mins
Ash Wednesday is one of the most universally accessible days in the Church’s liturgical year, offering a simple yet profound reminder: God’s grace is available to all—without exception. This is the firm conviction of our first guest for the Lenten season, James Hanvey, S.J., a Jesuit priest and theologian who currently serves as Secretary for the Service of Faith at the Jesuit General Curia in Rome.
In his conversation with Ricardo...
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January 28, 2025 • 48 mins
Last Monday, the 47th presidential term began in the United States. A day after the inauguration, on Tuesday, January 21, 2025, Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde, the spiritual leader of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington, delivered a powerful sermon at a national prayer service held at Washington National Cathedral. Her sermon highlighted the ethical challenges facing the nation and called for a deeper commitment to mercy, justice and c...
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January 21, 2025 • 40 mins
When Roger Schutz, a Protestant minister from Switzerland, founded the Taizé community in 1940 in a small village in Southern Burgundy, France, amid the turmoil of World War II, he envisioned it as “a parable of communion.” Brother Matthew, the first Anglican and Englishman to lead this unique Christian community as its prior, reflects on Brother Roger’s vision: “It was a way of saying that what we lived as a community together sho...
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January 14, 2025 • 37 mins
“Race has become something that, in many homes, in many places, is encountered when you see it on the news,” says the Rev. Kareem Smith. “But to look at it as a gift, to see other people as a gift and what they have to offer as something that is beautiful—that is to see the creation of God.”
On “Preach” this week, the Rev. Kareem Smith, pastor of St. Michael the Archangel Church in Co-op City, the Bronx, reflects with host Ricardo ...
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December 23, 2024 • 45 mins
On Christmas Eve, Ukrainian families create a living Nativity scene by spreading straw across the floor and placing hay beneath the dinner tablecloth. “This gesture connects the birth of Jesus to the natural world, with the presence of the field permeating the home,” Metropolitan Borys Gudziak says.
Portuguese families observe Noite da Consoada (Night of Comfort and Consolation) with a humble meal of salt cod, cabbage and potatoes...
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December 9, 2024 • 32 mins
On Gaudete Sunday—a day in Advent dedicated to rejoicing—the Rev. Justin Lopina will surprise his congregation by focusing his homily on sin. As the newly assigned pastoral administrator at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Wauwatosa, Wis., he believes that our fear of sin—what he calls “our fear of letting God down”—often robs us of joy. Justin joins host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., to discuss how John the Baptist’s call to repentance in ...
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December 2, 2024 • 38 mins
How can a preacher deliver a homily that captures the hopes of younger audiences—from toddlers to teens—while keeping parents and the entire congregation engaged? It’s a tall order, but in this special “Preach” episode, host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., tackles this challenge in another panel discussion, this time with three America Media colleagues and parents: Tim Reidy, deputy editor-in-chief; Kerry Weber, executive editor; and Heath...
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November 25, 2024 • 39 mins
Sam Sawyer, S.J., editor-in-chief of America Media, returns to “Preach” to discuss his Advent homily series, designed to be more cohesive than the usual week-to-week, stand-alone Sunday homilies that preachers typically prepare. Sam shares with host Ricardo da Silva, S.J., how Pope Francis’ latest encyclical, Dilexit Nos, inspired him to create these homilies for the season, specially commissioned for Homiletic & Pastoral Review.
...
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November 18, 2024 • 33 mins
This episode is a re-airing of our 2023 episode for the feast of Christ the King.
The Scripture readings for the Solemnity of our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, invite us to interpret the Scriptures through a lens that is perhaps less common for this celebration. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, S.J, tries to imagine ways in which the readings for the last Sunday of the liturgical calendar, “can be perceived less as a hierarchi...
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November 4, 2024 • 32 mins
When Thomas Massaro, S.J., hears underdog stories, he recognizes the various ways they parallel biblical narratives. “I’m a moral theologian, so I pretty much have to do this,” he says. “It’s part of my task to reach for some moral implications.” Those implications? If you’re a preacher, don’t moralize at the pulpit—especially when you are preaching on the first Sunday after the 46th United States presidential election. Instead, ad...
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