Living Sacrifice: Growing in Faith Through Scripture and the Mass
Living Sacrifice is a weekly Catholic podcast hosted by Fr. Christopher Mahar. Drawing from the Sunday Gospel, Sacred Scripture, the Catechism, and the Church’s liturgical tradition, each episode explores how Catholics can grow in faith, prayer, discipleship, and friendship with Jesus Christ. Topics include the Mass, the sacraments, Scripture, Catholic spirituality, the saints, suffering, salvation, and the Christian life.
Episodes
174 episodes
Mercy and Memory
Jesus shed His blood on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins, and He expects that we will pass on that forgiveness in our own lives. Our hearts can be transformed by God's mercy when we remember all that we have been forgiven ...
Song of Salvation
The Council of Trent describes how we were created in "harmony," and how that melodious reality permeated our relationships with each other and with God. When that song is interrupted by sin, God becomes man to redeem us by His grace.&nbs...
Living Sacrifice
St. Paul urges us, "offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, your spiritual worship" (Romans 12:1). Christ, likewise, insists that we must deny ourselves, take up our crosses and follow Him. United t...
Mediation in Christ
St. Paul writes to St. Timothy that "there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus" (1 Timothy 2:5). In the Gospel this weekend Jesus reveals His great desire for HIs Body, the Church, to share in t...
Election and Salvation
God chooses Israel among all the nations on the face of the earth, and through Israel, opens up the gift of reconciliation and salvation for all the world. Through prayer, the sacraments and proclaiming the Gospel, we come to encounter th...
Living My Best Life
Living our best life of faith, we come to recognize that God always comes to us in the storms and difficulties of life; that God can and does bring life out of death and light in the darkness; and that He carves a path for us to know, love and ...
God's Poverty, Our Treasure
God emptied Himself and was born in poverty in Bethlehem to enrich the world with His divine life. He feeds us with His own body and blood, and sends us forth to transform and change the world.
Renunciation and the Kingdom
Jesus, in renouncing everything and giving His life on the cross, teaches us how to renounce everything for the Kingdom of Heaven. Uniting ourselves to Him in His body and blood, we obtain the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great ...
Parable of the Weeds and Wheat
By listening to Christ, in prayer and in the practice of virtue, we are called to grow and bear fruit in God's Kingdom.
Parable of the Sower
Jesus is the seed that is sown, the Word made flesh. He is the seed that falls to the ground and dies in order that our lives may be transformed. God grants us grace to cooperate with Him in bearing the fruit of spiritual life, one ...
Humble Beginnings
God raises up the fallen world we live in by the abasement of Christ and His willingness to embrace the humiliation of the cross. In St. Matthew's Gospel this weekend Jesus invites us to come to Him and be yoked to Him, so that we can lea...
God's Tender Love
Jesus reveals to us the Father, who is always faithful and always cares fro us as we live the Christian life. The God who was with Jeremiah, and the Twelve Apostles, will also remain at our side to care and protect us always.
Heirs to the Kingdom
Jesus consecrates us and calls us to share in the royal dignity of the Kingdom of Heaven. At our baptism we are anointed with sacred chrism and share in the life of Christ, priest, prophet and king. Like the Apostles in the Gospel t...
Corpus Christi: The Feast of God's Presence
God accompanies us on our pilgrimage home to eternal life. He provides for us, protects us and helps us to cooperate with Him so that we can persevere on our way home to Him.
Necessity and Contingency
This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, God who reveals Himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the history of our salvation is identical with the way and the mea...
Pentecost: Which Outpouring?
This weekend we celebrate the Solemnity of Pentecost, the great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We see this outpouring in the Acts of the Apostles, in St. John's Gospel, and in a multitude of remarkable ways in the New Testament and in the...
Eternal Life
Jesus reveals to us, in the Gospel of St. John, what eternal life consist of: "Now this is eternal life, that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ."
God with us, God in Us
God, in an amazing way, dwells among His people in the person of Jesus Christ. His Apostles and disciples listened to His voice and were strengthened and encouraged by Him in a deeply personal way. When He ascends to the Father, He ...
Heaven's Dwelling Place
Jesus goes to the Father's house, heaven, to prepare a place for us. It is He who is "the way, the truth and the life" (John 14:6), who even now gives us new life in Baptism and the Eucharist. God dwells among us even now, and prepa...
New Horizons
The risen Christ, in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, opens the Scriptures to us and reveals Himself in the breaking of the bread. May the encounter with Christ in the Mass open for us a "new horizon" and a move us on to a "decisive direct...
Divine Mercy's Source
Divine Mercy comes to us through the wounds of Christ, and the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. Jesus appears to the disciples in the Upper Room and entrusts them with this ministry of mercy when He gives the Apostles the power...
The Eighth Day
Christ rises from the dead on the "first day of the week" or the "eighth day." God writes a whole new beginning into the story of humanity and invites us to enter into the death and resurrection of Christ through Baptism.
Passion for Life
Christ dies in the Passion as a culmination of a life entirely poured out in love for the salvation of the world. He teaches us, in His gift of Himself in the Eucharist at the Last Supper, in His surrender to the will of the Father in Get...
