Episodes
Monday Apr 01, 2019
Monday Apr 01, 2019
For Lent, another offering of ancient stories, mostly about love, from the Desert Fathers and Mothers. In their radical commitment to asceticism and simplicity the Fathers and Mothers were early Catholic Coptic peasants of Egypt who present a direct challenge to comfortable Christianity. They are honest and humble about their sins. One Father wonders why he has been kept away from sin by fear of barking dogs rather than of fear of God.
Saturday Mar 23, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - The Cloud Of Unknowing - 3/23/19
Saturday Mar 23, 2019
Saturday Mar 23, 2019
Another Lenten reading. This stunning treasure from an anonymous monk in the14th century has been wildly popular since it first appeared. When you read it, the terse and artless writing sounds new, as if it was written tomorrow. If you are a contemplative Catholic and have not known of it before you must encounter it now for this an essential work for contemplatives. “The Cloud of Unknowing” tells of a way to contemplate God, not only when we receive the Eucharist, or kneel in silence in the Adoration Chapel, but in each moment in our life’s stream of tiny moments.
Saturday Mar 16, 2019
Saturday Mar 16, 2019
Listen to a few little stories and thoughts the Desert Fathers and Mothers. These early Catholic ascetics entered into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with Him and Him alone. They discovered that only with a single-minded attention to Christ were they able to give up the victimizing compulsions of the world and face their own true natures. Sometimes they found humility.
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Monday Mar 11, 2019
A treasure. Quiet reflections for Lent from The Philokalia. Next to the Bible itself The Philokalia is the most revered literary source for spiritual guidance for the Eastern Catholics. Since much of it had its source in the early centuries when all Catholics were united under the Pope, It should be better known by all Catholics.
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - Chivalry - 3/11/19
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Monday Mar 11, 2019
Walk back with us into the Age of King Arthur. Chivalry was one of the glorious effects of Christ’s principles conveyed through his Catholic church. In our jaded age we find it hard to understand how warriors could have been so noble. The Catholic knight embodied valor and gentleness in a way that protected and empowered women and fully enacted Saint Augustine’s concept of Just War. The Catholic Knight was devout thus unlike the portrayals of him in modern media. His virtues were incredible courage, loyalty, and generosity. Nothing else in history is comparable. His duties included daily Mass and fasting. He swore fidelity to the Church, obedience, and chastity. He was a warrior who displayed courtesy, humility, and beneficence.
Saturday Mar 02, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - The Roots and Flowers of Chivalry - 3/2/19
Saturday Mar 02, 2019
Saturday Mar 02, 2019
Listen to the thoughts of the Desert Father and Mothers, and you will find a prescription for a truly Catholic life. These Desert Fathers and Mothers, who lived in the first centuries AD, are the spiritual precursors, and, in a way, they are parents of the contemplative aspects of the Chivalry Code of the Catholic Knights. These Monk-Knights also sought humility. They were ascetics who fasted and avoided vain possessions. Some took vows of silence. The magnificent Catholic knights were warriors as well as monks who took to heart the words of James Epistle that faith without works is dead. They were true soldiers of Christ, not of any earthly kingdom or state.
Saturday Feb 16, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - The Marijuana Hoax Is Winning - 2/16/19
Saturday Feb 16, 2019
Saturday Feb 16, 2019
We are going to pot ! Many say that it is nobody else’s business what we put into our bodies. Yet if our bodies are Temples of the Holy Spirit isn’t it God’s business. Then how can we be rushing to legalize marijuana while ignoring a large body of evidence describing the dangerous and pathological effects of the use of pot on the individual, our culture, and our society. Listen to this summary of the findings of peer-reviewed studies of the actual effects of marijuana. Let us join together and swim against the tide. Medical marijuana? It a hoax. We have had Marinol for decades.
Saturday Feb 09, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - Two Intriguing Questions Answered - 2/9/19
Saturday Feb 09, 2019
Saturday Feb 09, 2019
Question one: The Last Pope ? Is Pope Francis the last Pope as prophesied by a great Catholic saint? Question two: The famous Saint Michael the Archangel prayer has a mystical origin. Why don’t Catholics pray using the quite different words of original version ?
Wednesday Feb 06, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - The Culture Wars And Who Wins - 2/6/19
Wednesday Feb 06, 2019
Wednesday Feb 06, 2019
Covington Catholic student Nick Sandman is standing on the front line of a 2000 year old Culture War. The battle line has often been fought when aggressive secular entities have attacked Catholics and Catholicism. Or when secular governments seize control of religious organizations and schools. We must take care. Listen to this story of the Kulturkampf (Culture War) that started small then erupted in Germany under Otto von Bismarck and eventually led to the rise of Hitler.
Monday Jan 28, 2019
Monday Jan 28, 2019
There is little awareness today about the sadistic treatment of Catholics women and men during the centuries of Islamic occupation of the Iberian Peninsula before 1492. Instead of the truth our academics teach our children the British anti-Catholic propaganda known as “The Black Legend” in which the glorious record of Catholics and their Church is omitted and any opposing force, even cruel Muslim domination, is falsely praised. The truth is that Catholics were enslaved. Boys to be lifelong soldiers. Catholic women were the preferred sexual slaves of wealthy Muslims, some had thousands of them in their harems.
Tuesday Jan 22, 2019
Tuesday Jan 22, 2019
More Fake History to make straight. The history of Spain and France under Muslim rule from 711 to 1492 AD has been widely misrepresented. The version we are taught in the USA is simply false, little better than British war propaganda, reflecting a heavily anti-Catholic and pro-Islamic prejudice. The suppressed truth is that the Muslim occupation was an era of cruelty and intolerance in which Catholics were viewed as inferior subjects, called dhimmis, who were required to support non-taxpaying Muslims by paying a Jizya, a special tax collected in a manner designed to humiliate Catholics. There is worse to tell. Catholics were left alive only if they were useful to the Muslims. Multitudes of Catholic women were made useful as sexual slaves.
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - Defending the Authenticity of The True Cross - 1/16/19
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
Wednesday Jan 16, 2019
Uncomfortable truths such as the almost certain validity of that greatest of all relics the True Cross Of Christ are often ignored because they just cannot fit into the mind sets of those that reject Catholicism. Non-Catholics sometimes get mental indigestion when they hear the amazing stories describing how carefully preserved and documented are Catholic relics of every type. Calvin ridiculed the Catholics who claimed to have of relics of The True Cross. Much as he ridiculed other more important parts the Catholic Church inheritance from Christ. Listen to hear how Calvin’s careless opinion was exposed as ridiculous itself.
Sunday Jan 06, 2019
Sunday Jan 06, 2019
Whatever you call it, it is basically the same philosophy. Atheist and secular historians try to disguise it by changing its name so people can be talked into implementing it again. Maybe in the USA. It has been called Marxism, Communism, Progressivism, and/or Trotskyism. It always produces a cruel inhuman catastrophe yet its intellectually elite proponents think that maybe it was not implemented correctly the last time. Let give it another try they say and let me run it this time.
It is the flawed totalitarian philosophy that animated the brutal suppression of Catholicism in Mexico and Spain. Is it an experiment in secular government or atheist government or it is actually an intolerant religion in its own right? You decide.
Wednesday Jan 02, 2019
Setting the Record Straight - Tamed By Tango - 1/2/19
Wednesday Jan 02, 2019
Wednesday Jan 02, 2019
How deep are the roots of the urge to Tango? Far deeper than you might suspect. Tango draws upon both our sensual and spiritual natures. When we Tango our sensual passions and spiritual passions join and hover in a refined balance. Our bodies and souls embrace and dance. But what does Tango have to do with Catholicism? Well...everything. Ask Pope Francis who sometimes used Tango in his Masses in Argentina. The thoroughly Catholic Culture of Montevideo and Buenos Aires gave birth to this music and dance. And the end of this podcast you will hear a little story about two Altar Boys and the Tango.
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Setting the Record Striahgt - Small Thoughts about Christmas
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Monday Dec 24, 2018
Everyone says that Christmas trees had formerly been a pagan practice? Actually German Catholics created the custom about only three hundred years ago. Christmas itself was made a holiday by Catholics in 325AD. Did Christmas used to be illegal because it was Catholic? Yes, for centuries the British culture persecuted those who observed Christmas customs as Papists. This continued even in the USA. The War on Christmas is more than four centuries old and was far worse in the past. The ongoing secularization of the holiday (Holy Day!!) has made Christmas more acceptable today. Survey the Christmas cards for sale. Reindeer and Nutcrackers abound, but the Christ Child cannot be found.
Saturday Dec 15, 2018
Setting the Record Straight - My Christmas Gift to you - 12/15/18
Saturday Dec 15, 2018
Saturday Dec 15, 2018
Change of pace. This is a Christmas-time sharing of thoughts music, and stories from Chuck Coughlin to the treasurable listeners of breadboxmedia.com. Want a Christmas spirit recharge? Try Chuck’s Catholic Christmas story, “Cow Music.”.
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Setting the Record Straight - Wayfarer - a Christmas Story - 12/8/18
Monday Dec 10, 2018
Monday Dec 10, 2018
“Wayfarer”. The word literally means someone who travels on foot. Listen to a Christmas story about a mischievous young man who is expelled from Berea college in Kentucky during the Christmas break. He sets out on foot. It is snowing. His life is shattered. He is ashamed, miserable, and not sure where to go. His wandering takes him to a place where he finds the broken is now unbroken.
Saturday Dec 01, 2018
Setting the Record Straight - Colonial America's Abuse of Catholics - 12/1/18
Saturday Dec 01, 2018
Saturday Dec 01, 2018
This is our uncomfortable and ignored history. In the British Colonial Empire there was widespread abuse of Catholics. This commonly included slavery, ethnic and religious cleansing, and even the kidnapping of young Irish Catholic girls to “provide solace for slaveholders”. Incredibly most of the immigrants to the thirteen colonies in the 17th century were white Irish slaves. This widespread abuse in the colonies of Catholics because they were Catholics by the British Theocracy continued for centuries. In the French Canadian colonies an entire population of free Catholics were deported on crowded ships and suffered a 60% mortality rate. Many of the surviving were sold into slavery. Christmas was declared “too Papist” and declared illegal for centuries. Why don’t we recall all this. Perhaps it became impolite to speak of it until now.
Saturday Nov 24, 2018
Setting the Record Straight - Giving Gratitude - 11/24/18
Saturday Nov 24, 2018
Saturday Nov 24, 2018
You may not look like a child anymore, yet there is still a child hiding inside you. Listen with that child to these brief and poignant Thanksgiving stories. You will find that the people in all of these stories find reasons to be grateful to God. The first few are children’s tales, the last two are for all ages.
Saturday Nov 17, 2018
Setting the Record Straight - Mozart A Devout Catholic? It Fits. - 11/17/18
Saturday Nov 17, 2018
Saturday Nov 17, 2018
Have you ever listened to Mozart? Not the music but what he said in his many letters. Just listen to him! “I have always had God before my eyes!” And this. "If you thought how lucky were those who received the Eucharist, and at the communion the music spoke in quiet joy from the hearts of those kneeling there . Benedictus qui venit…”. When he set the words of the Mass to music, he wrote,”…it comes to you and moves your soul!”