The Emmaus Pastorate’s Podcast

Come, Holy Spirit!  Yes, indeed we need the Holy Spirit, perhaps now more than ever!  Pentecost celebrates the birthday of the Church, the unofficial end of Christ's work on earth and the simultaneous beginning of people's work on earth.  The Archdiocese of Dubuque is also undergoing long-term pastoral planning, considering how to best be the Church in northeast Iowa in this modern era.  As we do so, it's important to remember what...

See.  Judge.  Act.  These three steps have been used by saints and martyrs for centuries to discern the will of God and the direction he desired for their lives.  On the Vigil of Pentecost, 15 students of the Emmaus Pastorate were confirmed by Archbishop Thomas Zinkula.  He reminded them and all of us that the Church, that Jesus, needs us to be active in today's world and that as Christians we are called to live the vocation God ha...

Christian living and sacrifice go hand-in-hand.  To have one, you must have the other to be true.  One can't be a Christian and not live a life of sacrifice for God.  To live a life sacrificing for your faith is to be a Christian.  But we don't like sacrificing.  The concept is sometimes even foreign to us!  But as Jesus ascends into heaven this Sunday, we're left on earth with the question: what am I going to do for my faith?  How...

New.  Change.  We tend to dislike these words because they involve something different than our status quo.  They sometimes also require us to put down our own ideals, let go of our own desires, and allow something different to happen within us.  In today's Gospel, Jesus gives a "new" commandment - that for Jews wasn't actually new at all - which requires people wanting to follow him to do new and different things, to allow God to ...

Miracles happen when people are unified in the Lord.  Take St. John, stranded on the island of Patmos, for example.  Even in that banishment, he still received the overwhelming message from Jesus to "be not afraid."  Take another example from the Upper Room.  Even as the disciples were terrified when Jesus appeared despite the door being locked, Jesus said, "Peace be with you."  Miracles!

But then Jesus gave them all a job, the sam...

What difference does the empty tomb make?  Flowers are nice, but what's it all about?  It's about transformation, about change, and that's one thing people hate the most!  God always accepts us where we are on our own spiritual journeys, but he never wants to leave us there.  He always wants to draw us closer to him.  So let's ask ourselves if we're more than Jesus than this time last year.  This year, let us dare to be more like h...

Why do we do this?  Why do we gather late at night to celebrate a liturgy more different than any other?  Well it's not for doctrine or dogma.  Christ didn't come to set church teachings or a catechism, though he did do that.  No, we come instead to share our faith.  We come to share the faith that Christ brought us and the Good News is carries because Jesus desires that every person enter eternal life.  But to share the faith we p...

The crucifying has continued.  In every sin we commit, every time the innocent suffer, Jesus' crucifixion continues.  But it doesn't have to be that way.  It can stop with us.

Beginning this episode is the Responsorial Psalm for Good Friday, a setting of Psalm 31 by John Michael Talbot titled Father, I Put My Life in Your Hands.  It was cantored by Tony Tjaden.  Following Fr. John's homily is Tree of Life by Marty Haugen.  Both are...

Jesus gives us a model to follow.  It's about loving each other and becoming His Body and Blood.  It's a model to follow that will call us to a life deeper than we can imagine.  It's a model that will lead us to heaven on earth.

Preceding this episode is Curtis Stephan's Bread of Angels, and following Fr. John's homily is Craig Larson's arrangement of How Beautiful by Twila Paris.  Both are sung by the combined ensembles of the Emm...

The Emmaus Pastorate is happy to provide our listeners with an extra bonus episode this week!  As we near the end of March, which is Problem Gambling Addiction Awareness Month, we share an episode from Road to Purity’s podcast, Tell Them for Me.  Titled Delving Deep: Healing Addiction by Tracing its Roots and Mending Wounds, this is excellent food for thought as we continue our journey through March and the season of Lent!  The ful...

Why can't we just come to our senses?!  The prodigal son did!  Why can't we?  God will love and forgive us no matter what sins we commit so long as we're repentant.  So come home, repent, and enjoy the party!

We thank Fr. Carl Ries for celebrating Mass for us and preaching this weekend.  Fr. Carl filled in for Fr. John as he continues his recovery from a recent heart attack.  Please join us on Wednesday, April 9, 2025 for confessio...

Forgive everyone everything.  Plain and simple.  Not always easy, but plain and simple!  It's sometimes hard to let go of grudges, fears, resentments, and hurts.  But if we want the reward of a life well lived (aka heaven), we need to forgive others and ourselves of the sins we all commit.  And when we find it hard, God is always there to help us!  We can never say that we can never forgive someone.  We can always be forgiven and c...

Fr. Dustin Vu visited St. Joseph Parish in Elkader this weekend as Fr. John continues his recovery.  Thank you for your ministry, Fr. Vu!

In this homily, Fr. Vu gives us the landowner's quarrel.  Are we getting better?  Or are we getting worse?  If we're not getting better, then we are useless, perhaps even worse.  Maybe we take up space and resources from others!  Come judgement day, the landowner - aka God - will make his decisio...

Tend the ground.  Actually, tend the holy ground.  Sometimes we forget that the ground, the places on which we stand, are holy.  Sure, churches, cemeteries, maybe other "holy" places are holy.  But if God is everywhere, if God dwells in us all day long, then everywhere we go is a holy place.  And if that's true, we have a lot of ground to tend!  Let's let God into our lives by spreading some of the fertilizer and tending our seeds!