Series on The Ascension Lenten Companion by Fr. Mark Toups (Part 3)
Are you familiar with the parable of the Good Samaritan? When we’re beat up, when we’re in this place of difficulty and shame, He’s there, at the side of the road, looking at us, desiring to pick us up and saying, “Come with me.”. That’s Jesus for all of us. The invitation of this episode is to allow the Lord to get close into our deepest places of darkness and shame so he can help us and love us there. Jesus comes into our messiness, and He loves us unconditionally. This Lent, let Jesus unconditionally love you and let the healing begin.
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The Father’s Banquet (Lent 2026)
Have you ever struggled to receive love that you feel you don’t deserve?
As the Lenten journey through the Prodigal Son continues, the friars turn to one of the most striking moments in the parable, the Father’s banquet. What should be a moment of pure joy is, for the son, also deeply uncomfortable. After everything he’s done, he’s not just welcomed back, he was celebrated.
In this episode, the friars reflect on the tension between shame and mercy. What does it feel like to be fully seen, fully known, and still fully loved? Why can receiving God’s love sometimes feel harder than earning it? And how do we begin to live as sons and daughters again after we’ve fallen?
Join us as we enter into the mystery of the Father’s banquet, and discover a love that doesn’t just forgive, but restores, celebrates, and calls us back to life.
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The Resourcefulness of God
The Lord doesn’t need a perfect moment to do what he does. He can use—and has used — all the secular events and moments in history to bring about his plan. The detours and decisions and even things that feel like inconveniences — he’ll work with it all. And it’s not that he’s just done this once or twice…
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Searching and Fearless
God wants to go back into our lives and our stories — and start speaking light, redemption and truth over that. There’s the need for us to have a radical opening of our hearts and honesty to what really is happening in our lives. We have to be…
