The Verso l’Alto Podcast

For this final episode of the season, and perhaps forever, Lynsey dives into lessons she has learned during her time in college before she leaves College Station for the next step in her life. Father Chris and Ben converse with her about implementing these lessons into one’s life and how we should use our time in college to prepare ourselves for what lies ahead.

After Christ’s resurrection, an entirely new meaning was given to the Faith. Christians saw with their own eyes the resurrected Christ and came to believe that they too could be raised from the dead and enter into eternal life. We see mass amounts of converts and a strong community among the early believers which was due to the evangelization of the Apostles who, like us, were commissioned to preach the Gospel. We can learn from the zeal and strong faith of the early church to help us spread the Good News today and bear witness to the glorified and resurrected Christ.

From wounded to glorified, Christ’s resurrection changes everything. A bloody passion was the price he paid for our lives, and because of Jesus’ willingness to pay our debt and resurrect into Heaven, we too can be glorified like him. We can now dwell in Paradise even though we have fallen short here on Earth. The Easter season is a time for feasting and celebration so our Faith in what has been promised to us will be strengthened.

No one entered into their poverty better than Christ himself. For Him to stoop to the low level of our humanity and embrace extraordinary physical and mental suffering helps us see that we too must strive to be as poor as Christ. Holy Week allows us to console the heart of Jesus in His suffering and to remember our littleness as we ready ourselves for the holiest time of the year.

We will not fully encounter Christ until we encounter the poor. The poor have nothing but the Lord and are a beautiful example of how we should live our lives—detached and dependent. We have so much to learn from the poor, and so much to give and share with them beyond material things. The poor need relationship and we, as Christians, are obliged to offer ourselves to them as a gift.

During this Lenten season we continue in our seven week series on poverty and how to embrace it in order to better imitate Christ.  This episode focuses on spiritual poverty and what it means to be poor in spirit as it states in the beatitudes, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."  Spiritual poverty is a lack of our own will and total dependence on the Lord, surrendering totally to Him and to accept that we cannot do anything in life on our own.  The paradox of being poor in spirit in order to be rich in the Lord and to be happy is one that is further explored.

During this lenten season we will be introducing a seven week series on poverty and how to embrace it in order to better imitate Christ. This introductory episode gives a look at the different forms of poverty in our life and how we can best go about living them. In order to better enter into our humanity, we must encounter and accept our poverty, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to those who are poor in spirit.

The institution of the Eucharist was one of the greatest joys the Lord gave us, and as Catholics we believe it to be the source and summit of our Faith. Fellow Aggie Catholic Cate Bailey joins us today to discuss why it is so important to be properly disposed for receiving the Eucharist, to do so on a regular basis, and the overwhelming graces that are poured out into our hearts when we do.

Kicking off the third season of The Verso l’Alto Podcast is an episode on treating Jesus as an end in your life, and not as a means to an end. Sometimes it can be tempting to use Jesus as a means to find answers or build relationships, and we can forget that He is the ultimate end for everything, be it our answers, our relationships, or any other situation in life. We should strive to treat Jesus as an end and to leave behind the “vending machine” mentality of our Faith, and simply love Christ for Christ’s sake.

The image of Christ as a little baby shows His littleness in a physical way. He had an extraordinarily immense amount of humility to be able to enter into the world totally dependent on others to care for Him. The world finally received their King after waiting so long for His arrival and he came in the most vulnerable way he could come. The Child Jesus teaches us to be little ourselves and to enter into our poverty so that we can become totally dependent on Christ the way he was dependent on His parents to provide Him all he needed.