Science, Religion, and the Modern World – God, Determinism and the Quantum Universe

Carmela talks to Danielle and John Connors, the pair behind the weekly podcast Reclaim the Faith, about the very different roads that brought them to it. Danielle lost her mother at 11 and found God alone in her bedroom through prayer and poetry, and later through Sr Clare Crockett, whom she was introduced to by an uncle who burst in one Christmas with news he couldn't keep. John grew up among 52 first cousins on a Traveller site, became the first Traveller to win an Irish Film and Television Award, and found that it wasn't enough, until a night at Knock. They also explain how a friendship of six years finally became something more.

In this episode, we learn where the words of the Hail Mary prayer come from, and the interesting connection between St Dominic and the Rosary; we also learn a new prayer, hear an inspiring quote and get a to-do activity. Click here to listen to more episodes of the Children’s Show!

A ten-year-old from County Antrim asks Fr Darren Brennan how to pick a confirmation saint, and he suggests it might work the other way around, that the saints choose us first. He shares why St Jude, St Patrick and St Louis de Montfort have each stayed close to him since childhood, and what picking a saint's name is actually supposed to commit you to.

Naoimh is joined by Brian Flanagan, a singer-songwriter from Ballyhaunis whose voice first caught her attention at weekday Mass, and who turned out to live just up the road. Brian explains how a Chicago tour was cancelled by 9/11, how a bad morning in the shower produced a song he still sings every day, and why he and his parish priest were given a strange nickname after 18 months of Masses during lockdown. Along the way he talks about writing for the Mayo team, for deaf children in Ethiopia, and for a man who gave away eight billion dollars on one condition.

Fr Adrian Crowley is joined by Fr John Hogan on the eve of the closing of the diocesan stage of the cause for Fr Willie Doyle SJ, the First World War chaplain who refused to stay back behind the lines. Fr John explains what happens next as the cause moves to Rome, and why it is the first ever for the Diocese of Meath. Between them they share the stories that make Fr Willie so human: the butter he kept failing to give up, the night he lay face down in the mud for a doctor, the Christmas pudding that arrived with an unexpected occupant, and a healing from the 1940s that would have been the perfect miracle if only the paperwork had survived.