Joseph Pearce - Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts – Details, episodes & analysis

We continue our exploration of Robert Cardinal Sarah’s “The Day Is Now Far Spent”—a tour de force response to the present darkness in the Church. From the New York City skyline to the meaning of the word “Modernism”. We continue our discussion of Robert Cardinal Sarah’s “The Day Is Now Far Spent”. You can find ... Read more

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We begin our exploration of Robert Cardinal Sarah's "The Day Is Now Far Spent"—a tour de force response to the present darkness in the Church. 

From the New York City skyline to the meaning of the word "Modernism". We continue our discussion of Robert Cardinal Sarah's "The Day Is Now Far Spent".

The post Episode 2 – The Day Is Now Far Spent – Fr. Joseph Fessio S.J., Vivian Dudro, and Joseph Pearce FBC Podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

The Confessions of Saint Augustine is considered one of the greatest Christian classics of all time. It is an extended poetic, passionate, intimate prayer that Augustine wrote as an autobiography sometime after his conversion, to confess his sins and proclaim God's goodness. Just as his first hearers were captivated by his powerful conversion story, so also have many millions been over the following sixteen centuries. His experience of God speaks to us across time with little need of transpositions.

The post GWML#15 St. Augustine and “The Confessions” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

Episode 13 - Bram Stoker and "Dracula" on Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce

When solicitor's clerk Jonathan Harker travels to Transylvania on business to meet a mysterious Romanian count named Dracula, he little expects the horrors this strange meeting will unleash. Thus Bram Stoker's 1897 novel of blood and passion begins, rapidly accelerating from Harker's nightmarish experiences in Castle Dracula to a full-fledged vampiric assault on late-Victorian London itself. The story, narrated through a collection of documents-primarily journal entries and letters-chronicles the desperate efforts of a band of gentlemen to protect the virtue of their ladies and lay to rest the ancient threat once and for all.

Often vacillating wildly between the terrible and the comic, Dracula at the same time brings to life a host of compelling themes: tensions between antiquity and modernity; the powers and limitations of technology; the critical importance of feminine virtue; the difference between superstition and religion; the nature of evil; and, perhaps most compellingly, the complex relationship between ancient faith and scientific enlightenment. More vivid than any of its varied film adaptations, and over a century after its first publication, Dracula still retains its sharp bite.

The post GWML#13 Bram Stoker and “Dracula” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

We discuss “The Pilgrim’s Regress:: An Allegorical Apology for Christianity, Reason, and Romanticism” by C. S. Lewis. The first book written by C. S. Lewis after his conversion, The Pilgrim’s Regress is, in a sense, the record of Lewis’s own search for meaning and spiritual satisfaction—a search that eventually led him to Christianity. Here is ... Read more

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A key figure in the development of American literature, Nathaniel Hawthorne was also profoundly influenced by his ancestors and the Christianity that underscored their Puritan heritage. A literary classic, The Scarlet Letter presents a profound meditation on the nature of sin, repentance, and redemption, and on how such Christian concepts may be integrated into American democracy.

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Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is, according to many critics and fond readers, the great American novel. Full of vibrant American characters, intriguing regional dialects and folkways, and down-home good humor, it also hits Americans in one of their greatest and on-going sore spots: the fraught issue of racism.

As Huck and Jim float down the Mississippi and encounter all manner of people and situations, and as Huck struggles mightily with his conscience concerning Jim, the novel strongly invites a moral and religious perspective.

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"In brief, however, the power of Tolkien lies in the way that he succeeds, through myth, in making the Tolkienunseen hand of providence felt by the reader. In his mythical creations, or sub-creations as he would call them, he shows how the unseen hand of God is felt far more forcefully in myth than it is ever felt in fiction. Paradoxically, fiction works with facts, albeit invented facts, whereas myth works with truth, albeit truth dressed in fancy disguises. Furthermore, since facts are physical and truth is metaphysical, myth, being metaphysical, is spiritual."--Joseph Pearce.

The post GWML#22 – J.R.R. Tolkien “The Lord of the Rings” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.

Pope John Paul II described Dickens' books as "filled with love for the poor and a sense of social regeneration . . . warm with imagination and humanity". Such true charity permeates Dickens' novels and ultimately drives the characters either to choose regeneration or risk disintegration. In Great Expectations, Pip — symbolic of the pilgrim convert — gains both improved fortunes and a growth in wisdom, but as he acquires the latter, he must relinquish the former — ending with a wealth of profound goodness, not of worldly goods.

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In true Faustian tradition The Picture of Dorian Gray tells the tale of a young man who sells his soul to the devil in return for youthful immortality, only to discover that the "devil's bargain" is no bargain at all. "What does it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?

The post GWML#4 Oscar Wilde and “The Picture of Dorian Gray” – Great Works in Western Literature with Joseph Pearce – Discerning Hearts podcast appeared first on Discerning Hearts Catholic Podcasts.