Ash Wednesday is fascinating: We get these reminders of death and decay smeared on our foreheads and just walk around like that the whole day after. Not the most cheerful message. Yet folks can’t seem to get enough of it. Some parish priests say it’s right up there neck and neck with Christmas and Easter on the list of busiest church days of the year. We’re sure there are a bunch of reasons for that, but we wanted to mark this Ash Wednesday and welcome the beginning of Lent by digging into its p...
Mar 04, 2025•45 min
The communion of saints is an integral part of the Catholic faith—and I don’t just mean in a theological sort of way. What’s the name of your parish? Chances are, it’s a saint’s name. Have you looked closely at that prayer card on your shelf? I bet there’s a saint attached to it. How about the stained glass windows or the name of the local Catholic school or that prayer you mutter when you’ve lost something? The communion saints is engrained in our daily lives, names and half-remembered stories ...
Feb 26, 2025•40 min
Here are a couple questions for you: Do you believe in God? Why or why not? What evidence do you have to support your belief? What different types of evidence might one even consider? If we believe in an all-good, all-powerful God, why does God allow so much human suffering? And why is there something instead of nothing? Even before the Big Bang… what was there? And do human beings have a soul? Or are we just blood and guts and bones? These are some of the big questions philosophers have been wr...
Feb 19, 2025•38 min
“What you gaze upon, you become,” says Fr. Bill McNichols. “We need to gaze on truly conversational, truly loving images.” Those words are a mystical invitation that challenge us to look with greater intentionality at the many images in our lives. These words come at the very beginning of a new book called “All My Eyes See: The Artistic Vocation of Fr. William Hart McNichols,” a book meant to stir in us wonder at a God who works through the creative spirit of people the world over. This book jus...
Feb 12, 2025•51 min
Here’s a hypothetical scenario I’m sure many of us have faced in our lives: Imagine you were a football player good enough to make the NFL. Imagine you are also a mathematician good enough to get a doctorate from MIT. Which path would you choose? OK, so maybe that’s not that common a discernment. But it was the decision our guest today faced: John Urschel first started playing football at Canisius High School, the Jesuit high school in Buffalo, New York. He got good pretty quickly, and he’s a bi...
Feb 05, 2025•52 min
What do you imagine when you hear the word ‘pilgrimage’? Do you see in your mind’s eye the laces of an old pair of boots? A walking stick? A winding trail through an unknown forest? The company of friends and strangers? Perhaps a particular place comes to mind; you may immediately think of the pilgrim routes through Spain. The Camino de Santiago, perhaps: that famous pilgrimage to the resting place of the St. James, beginning in France and ending in the northwest of Spain. Maybe your mind goes t...
Jan 29, 2025•54 min
There aren’t many things most people agree on today across all the different political and cultural divides. But this following claim probably unites most of us: We are too distracted today and our collective ability to pay attention is in bad shape. That seems like pretty conventional wisdom. Today’s guest enjoys few things more than taking a piece of conventional wisdom and poking and prodding it to see if it’s actually that wise after all. Jonathan Malesic is a writer and writing teacher at S...
Jan 22, 2025•43 min
If you look out at the world today, you might notice a growing trend in global politics: Again and again, voters are putting into power leaders that favor nationalistic or isolationist rhetoric and policies. Issues that require global cooperation — and sacrifice — like the climate crisis, nonproliferation of nuclear arms and the care of refugees are a hard sell to a citizenry increasingly concerned with economic and security problems affecting their own families and communities. As a result, nat...
Jan 15, 2025•46 min
In the early morning hours of August 22, 1971, a group of Catholic anti-war protesters broke into a draft board in Camden, New Jersey to destroy draft-related documents. The action was one in a series of similar raids that Catholic activists carried out in the 1960s and ‘70s in opposition to the Vietnam War. The story of what enfolded that morning and the two years following is almost too wild to believe – it’s the stuff HBO miniseries are made of. Professor Michelle Nickerson, a historian at Lo...
Jan 08, 2025•1 hr 1 min
Whether you’re a big New Year’s Resolutions person or not, it’s never a bad idea to take stock our own spiritual lives. Where might we want to grow in our relationship with God? So host Mike Jordan Laskey invited one of our favorite spirituality experts onto the show: Julianne Stanz. Julianne is the Director of Outreach for Evangelization and Discipleship at Loyola Press. She’s also an acclaimed author and international speaker. A native of Ireland, Julianne was shaped by that country’s deep and...
Jan 01, 2025•40 min
The Christmas season is upon us! We look to the manger and we see new life—a baby has been born, Jesus the Christ, and so we have reason to hope. God has once more broken into our human story with an invitation: Can we go to the others, bringing the joy and wonder of the Incarnate Christ? Christmas is rightly a time for joy and celebration. But it’s also a time to take a hard, loving look at our world—the very world through which God again and again makes Godself known. So here’s a question and ...
Dec 25, 2024•41 min
It’s time for one of our favorite AMDG traditions: Our annual Christmas draft. It’s an idea we stole outright from the sportswriter Joe Posnanski’s podcast, so a tip of the Santa hat to him. For newcomers, this is how a Christmas draft works: First, host Mike Jordan Laskey picks a Christmas related category. This year, it’s Christmas objects. Some guests and Mike take turns selecting their favorite individual members of that category. It’s like a draft that the NFL or NBA sponsors. Once someone ...
Dec 18, 2024•58 min
We were assigned The Hobbit in seventh grade. We knew it was coming, too—each class ahead of us had to read Tolkien’s classic text. Everyone in school always knew when it was that time of year again. The culminating Hobbit-themed project for every seventh grader was to create a sculpture featuring one of the characters in the book. Those sculptures would then line the halls of our school for the remaining two months of the school year. I, Eric Clayton, of course, made a not-at-all-to-scale versi...
Dec 10, 2024•40 min
You’ve heard of the Spiritual Exercises. You’ve probably heard of Ignatius’ autobiography. But have you heard of the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus? Unless you’re a Jesuit, you probably haven’t. It’s a series of documents often dismissed as too legalistic, necessary but not relevant to daily life. But that’s not true—and our guest today, Fr. Bart Geger, SJ, professor at the Boston College’s school of theology and ministry, will make that case. The Constitutions are foundational to the Ign...
Dec 04, 2024•49 min
If you’re listening to this episode on the day it drops, then we’re just a matter of hours away from celebrating Thanksgiving in the United States. Regardless of whether you’ll be surrounded by friends and family over these next few days or you’ll be passing the occasion in a quieter, more subdued manner, one thing remains the same: We are all called to cultivate a disposition of gratitude. These Thanksgiving episodes where we reflect on gratitude as a spiritual practice have become something of...
Nov 26, 2024•34 min
Last week, we began our pilgrimage to Belize. We met Fr. Brian Christopher, the superior of the country-wide Jesuit community. And we heard a little bit about the hopes and heartaches of the people of Belize. We saw how Ignatian spirituality has a role to play in helping crystalize the character of Belize, and how important collaboration is in a country made up of such a rich and diverse history. Most importantly, we heard from Fr. Brian how the work of the Jesuits in Belize today isn’t about ma...
Nov 20, 2024•32 min
Over the next two episodes, host Eric Clayton is going to take you on an adventure. We’re going to travel to Central America, to a small country on the Caribbean Sea. A country that is both ancient and relatively new. A place that is both a melting pot of so very many cultures and ways of life, and yet is also the least populated country in all of Central America. We're going on pilgrimage to Belize. Eric was there earlier this year visiting the Jesuit communities. Jesuits have been in Belize si...
Nov 13, 2024•27 min
Today we’re talking about the global nature of God’s invitation. Our guest — Fr. Chuks, the new director of communications for the Jesuit Curia in Rome, responsible for sharing the stories of the entirety of the global Society of Jesus — reminds us that the people of God are everywhere. And we, informed by the Ignatian tradition, have a responsibility to go and hear their stories—and to share them with others. Fr. Chuks — whose full name is Chukwuyenum Afiawari — is a Nigerian Jesuit. Most recen...
Nov 06, 2024•48 min
When the celebrity chef and restauranter Lidia Bastianich was just a few months old, the city her Italian family lived in was assigned to Yugoslavia as part of the reorganization of Europe after World War II. Her family became exiles without a proper homeland. Eventually, her family fled to Italy, where they lived in a refugee camp for two years. With the help of the Catholic Church, her family was resettled in the United States in 1958. It is her own family history and her own close personal co...
Oct 30, 2024•34 min
From the Jesuit Media Lab, this is AMDG. I’m Mike Jordan Laskey. Today’s episode is the fourth and final one in our series on faith and politics leading up to the 2024 presidential election here in the U.S. Our guest is the Jesuit Conference’s very own Tom Mulloy, who serves as our director of government relations. Sometimes people are surprised to find out that we have a director of government relations and that our Office of Justice and Ecology spends the majority of its time here in Washingto...
Oct 23, 2024•39 min
For the third episode of our pre-election series, we’re going to focus on the role of the media in a democracy. Our guest is Scott Detrow, a veteran radio journalist and a host of NPR’s flagship show All Things Considered. You can usually find Scott hosting the weekend editions of the show on Saturday and Sunday, but this month he’s filling in on the weekday afternoon broadcast. He’s also a host of the Consider This podcast. Scott joined NPR in 2015, and he spent eight years covering national po...
Oct 16, 2024•44 min
This is the second in our series on faith and politics leading up to the 2024 presidential election here in the United States. Our guest is Dr. Nichole Flores, one of the most exciting young theologians around. Nichole is an associate professor of religious studies at the University of Virginia, and completed her doctoral study in theological ethics at Boston College. It was tricky to decide what to talk to her about because her work covers so many topics: Her research in practical ethics addres...
Oct 09, 2024•46 min
It’s October, which means the presidential election here in the US is next month. So here on AMDG we are going to take old that rule about never discussing religion or politics in polite company and throw it in the Potomac River. Our four episodes this month will all cover faith and politics in a variety of ways. We know you don’t come here for political news and analysis, so we won’t be talking about the ins and outs of the election or really all that much about the election itself. Instead, we...
Oct 02, 2024•58 min
Santos and Noehlia worked with Jesuits in Nicaragua; when the government began to attack the Church, they had to flee. This audio reflection is part of a series marking the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Over the course of six episodes, we invite you to join migrants in solidarity and prayer. Find supplemental resources for reflection and action here: https://sites.ignatiansolidarity.net/world-refugee-day-website
Sep 29, 2024•12 min
Fr. Sudzer and Matthew support migrants at the Jesuit parish in Miami. They both have family members who’ve migrated. This audio reflection is part of a series marking the World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Over the course of six episodes, we invite you to join migrants in solidarity and prayer. Find supplemental resources for reflection and action here: https://sites.ignatiansolidarity.net/world-refugee-day-website
Sep 27, 2024•17 min
Today’s episode is different from anything we’ve ever done. Instead of an interview, we have three audio pieces about what you could call the spirituality of everyday life. What are the things we do to find meaning and purpose within the daily grind? First, host Mike Jordan Laskey tells you about his “kindie rock” band, Down By The Bagel. Then, New York-based writer Kaitlin Campbell shares “You Can Do This,” a story about a big case of writer’s block and her prayer for God to just show her a sig...
Sep 25, 2024•32 min
Sometimes on this show, host Mike Jordan Laskey has topic in mind he’d like to cover and then he goes and finds someone great to talk about it. Other times, he knows he wants to talk to a specific person because they’re brilliant and Mike doesn’t really care what the topic is. Whatever the guest wants to discuss will be interesting. Today’s episode is this latter type of show. Dr. Mahri Leonard-Fleckman teaches at the College of the Holy Cross, where she’s an associate professor in the Departmen...
Sep 18, 2024•42 min
Think back to the early days of ChatGPT and generative AI. It was a topic discussed on seemingly every podcast and countless news segments. Nearly every one of them started those segments with some elaborate introduction about the risks and opportunities that the new technology posed, how the way we communicate with one another would be irrevocably changed, how we would no longer be able to differentiate the writing of humans from that of computers. And then, to conclude the intro, the host woul...
Sep 11, 2024•49 min
There aren’t that many times in the Gospels when Jesus tells his disciples how they might act if they’re hoping to get to heaven one day. When Jesus does indeed get that direct, it’s probably a smart idea to pay attention. And probably the most famous example of this sort of Jesus talk comes in the 25th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel. It’s the Last Judgment story, the one about the sheep and the goats. Jesus tells his friends that whenever they feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, welcome th...
Sep 04, 2024•37 min
A couple of weeks ago, The New Yorker magazine published a fabulous profile of a Jesuit priest: Fr. Brian Strassburger, SJ, who lives in a Jesuit community that’s serving migrants on the U.S.-Mexico border in Texas and the Mexican state of Tamaulipas. The piece went deep into Fr. Brian’s vocation story and how he wound up at the border as his first assignment after ordination to the priesthood. The article is also theologically rich, politically astute and paints a vivid picture of the harsh rea...
Aug 28, 2024•39 min
