Show Notes
How do you maintain a friendship with God when life gets hard? What do you do when, in your mid-fifties and at the height of your career, you are diagnosed with an aggressive and incurable brain cancer? That’s the question that confronted Ann Garrido, our guest on, “The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.” podcast. Ann is an associate professor of homiletics at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis Missouri, where she also founded the school’s master’s program in the Catechesis of the Good Shepherd. She has written several award-winning books including Redeeming Administration, Redeeming Conflict, and Redeeming Power.
Together, Fr. Jim and Ann discuss:
How to reflect on human suffering and “offer it up” as a prayer
Allowing oneself to be wooed by God daily, even when the future seems uncertain
What we can know about heaven
Timecodes:
0:00 “I am with you, and I am within you”
5:58 Where Ann’s life of teaching, preaching and ministry began
9:30 The hard theological questions born in Africa
15:42 How Ann was diagnosed with a glioblastoma
19:57 Noticing God’s presence and offering up her suffering
28:38 God woos Ann each day through the examen prayer
39:46 What we can know about heaven
51:00 Audience Question: How do we maintain a friendship with Jesus that allows us to remain joyful when life is so hard?
Check out Ann's recent book, Redeeming Power
Maggi and Fr. Jim’s article reflection on “offering up” our suffering
Preach episode featuring Ann Garrido
Do you have a spiritual question for Fr. Jim? You can write to us at: [email protected]
Become a subscriber today at Americamagazine.org/subscribe
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
More from The Spiritual Life with Fr. James Martin, S.J.
How can leaders in the church accompany migrants and refugees? Fr. James Martin, S.J., speaks with Bishop Michael Pham about how his background as a refugee has led him to accompany migrants today.
How do we navigate politics in our congregations, our prayers, and our lives of faith? Fr. James Martin, S.J., discusses these questions with Bishop Mariann Budde of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington DC. Bishop Budde became the first-ever woman to hold her position after being consecrated as the ninth bishop of Washington in November 2011. In addition to being a bishop, she is a mother, grandmother, and author of books including, “Gathering Up the Fragments: Preaching as Spiritual Practice” and “How We Learn to Be Brave: Decisive Moments in Life and Faith”.
What is moral theology, and where does it fit in our spiritual lives? Fr. James Martin, S.J., asks these questions to James Keenan, a Jesuit priest and one of the world's leading Catholic moral theologians on “The Spiritual Life” podcast. He is the Canisius professor of theology at Boston College, where he also serves as director of the Jesuit Institute and Vice Provost for Global Engagement. He has written and edited over a dozen books, covering everything from church leadership to moral life to bioethics, and more.
Fr. James Martin, S.J., welcomes Susan Stabile, a spiritual director and retreat leader in the Ignatian tradition onto “The Spiritual Life” podcast. Susan was raised Catholic, but spent twenty years practicing Buddhism (and was ordained a Tibetan Buddhist nun) before returning to Catholicism. She now serves as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of St. Thomas, as well as adjunct instructor in Theology at St. Catherine’s University, where she is also Co-Director of a Contemplative Practices initiative. Susan offers retreats, spiritual direction, and adult faith formation programs nationally, and is the author of Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation.
It’s been over ten years since the award-winning actor Andrew Garfield trained as a Jesuit priest with Fr. James Martin, S.J. Well, more accurately, since he trained to play a Jesuit priest in Martin Scorsese's film Silence. And the fruits of those Ignatian practices of prayer and contemplation have continued to bear out in his life. Garfield joins his long-time spiritual director, Fr. Martin on this episode of “The Spiritual Life” to reflect on: