For today’s show about Catholic Vitamin L: Listening, one of the things I did for research was to Google the words Listening to the voice of God. You know, I went through ten pages of results — all sorts of sites you can visit. Many different Christian faiths represented. Many people with ideas and books and approaches to listening for the Lord speaking to us.
Some of the results are from Bible-based Churches who will take us into their paths for understanding how God is speaking to us. Some of these present holy and good thoughts. And yet, there must be some flaws in many of these presentations because we have (some estimate) at least 25,000 Christian churches in the world. Does God condone abortion or not? Does God tell us it’s necessary to not attend church on the Sabbath or not? Does God want a male priesthood or not? Is God’s plan for marriage to be a lifetime commitment between one man and one woman? Or not?
And so — while God’s Word is eternal and true — we must have more. In addition to Scripture, we need an Apostolic Church to help guide us. And… and the Apostolic Church has to be in harmony — in unity with the historic teachings of Tradition (large T – tradition).
Within the Church and its gifts and history would be holy men and women who would speak to us over the centuries. What would they say to us to help us consider God’s voice in our hearts and minds? That’s how we approached the topic of this show on Catholic Vitamins. Vitamin L for Listening.
We are thankful to Monsignor Frank Chiodo (pronounced Chide-oh), pastor of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Des Moines , Iowa for coming on to Catholic Vitamins Podcast this episode. I didn’t know before we got started that Monsignor Chiodo is an old hand at radio and television. He’s had programs on media outlets in Des Moines, and he has an active parish website active. On that website, they have put clips of Father’s teachings and talks. We found him to be quite engaging and a good teacher. Website addresses are shown below. A note to share is that many of the Monsignor’s homilies and television shows can be found on Youtube. In fact, it was on Youtube where I found Father’s talk on Listening to God in our lives.
In the interview, Monsignor talked about the importance of prayer before participation in Mass, or listening to sermons. He recommended prayer before responding to others when they present themselves as angry or upset. And the words that touched us the most was when Monsignor Chiodo talked about quiet time… listening time spent before Our Lord during Adoration, or time spent before Jesus in the tabernacle.
I invite you to click on the parish website link or the YouTube links to watch and learn (AND LISTEN) to Monsignor Frank Chiodo – a wonderful speaker and teacher and shepherd.
If we sound appreciative that we found the monsignor, words from the parish website speak to the history and ministry in this old community-based parish.
“Founded in 1906 to serve the ever growing influx of Italian immigrants to the Southside of Des Moines, St. Anthony’s now comprises some seventeen hundred families of a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds, while continuing to recognize its historic identity as an Italian parish.”
The parish must have at least 30 ministries. Among those I looked at, I was captivated by the St. Anthony parish Latchkey program. It’s a wonderful before and after school program which hosts young children in a Catholic and learning-oriented environment — certainly a big help for working families.
Also demonstrative of a positive outreach — Monsignor Chiodo has a series of homilies and teachings and guest appearances all on a show he calls THE HEART’S TREASURE. You can watch these on your computer or download them to your own personal device.
The main parish website is found at:
The Heart’s Treasure series (which, by the way contains a show on LISTENING TO THE VOICE OF GOD) is found on Youtube at:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheHeartsTreasure#g/u
We closed today’s show with original music and song from our friend Bryan Murdaugh. This is a cut from his recent album TWENTY NINE and the song is: I’m Listening.
You can find Bryan at
http://bryanmurdaugh.com/