Sensus Fidelium Catholic Podcast

What should you do when someone you love abandons the Catholic faith? The story of St. Monica and St. Augustine offers hope—and a difficult but essential lesson: you cannot force another person to convert, but you can pray, sacrifice, love faithfully, and entrust that soul to God.

St. Monica watched her brilliant son reject Christianity, pursue worldly ambition and sexual pleasure, embrace Manichaeism, and resist her efforts to bring him home. Yet she refused to abandon him. Through years of hidden prayer, tears, fasting, penance, and patient love, Monica learned to surrender Augustine to divine providence.

What looked like failure was actually part of God’s plan. When Augustine sailed away from his mother, Monica could see only the departing ship. She could not yet see St. Ambrose waiting in Milan, Augustine’s conversion in the garden, his baptism at Easter, or the future bishop, Doctor of the Church, and saint he would become.

This reflection explores:

• How to pray for a fallen-away Catholic
• Why conversion cannot be forced through arguments
• What St. Monica teaches parents and families
• The value of fasting, sacrifice, penance, and reparation
• Why God may transform the person who is praying
• When helping becomes rescuing someone from consequences
• How Our Lady of Sorrows models faithful, suffering love
• Why apparently unanswered prayers are never wasted
• How Augustine finally surrendered to God’s grace

If someone you love is far from God, do not lose hope. Keep praying. Keep sacrificing. Keep loving. Keep becoming holy—and surrender the timetable to God.

🙏 Who is the “Augustine” in your life? You may share only a first name or intention in the comments so that we can pray with you.

St. Monica, pray for us.
St. Augustine, pray for us.

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https://www.psychiatryredefined.org/faculty/josef-witt-doerring-md/
https://www.youtube.com/@UCT0HW8jp8xDuczBnO7Kg7rA

Links with many cases of this (bottom of link) https://sensusfidelium.com/2026/09/04/clown-planet-9-4-2026-lindsay-clancy-mistrial-how-many-others-like-this-men-us-protects-israel-in-college/

Matt Walsh in 2024 on the link of SSRIs & Mass Shootings https://youtu.be/MxvBzEXAqUc

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#JosefWittDoerring #Antidepressants #SSRI #AntidepressantWithdrawal #MentalHealth #PsychiatricDrugs #MedicationSafety #LindsayClancy

What controls you—your phone, appetite, anger, lust, comfort, fear or desire for approval? St. Mary of Egypt discovered that if we cannot tell our desires no, we are not truly free.After years dominated by sexual passion, Mary traveled to Jerusalem for sinful motives. At the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, an invisible force prevented her from entering to venerate the Holy Cross. She finally recognized that the obstacle was not the doorway but the life she refused to surrender.Mary begged the Mother of God for help, entered the church, venerated the Cross and crossed the Jordan into the desert. But conversion did not instantly erase her desires. For 17 years, memories and temptations from her former life attacked her.Her struggle reveals a hopeful truth: God’s forgiveness may be immediate, while the reordering of the heart can take years. Recurring temptation does not necessarily mean conversion has failed. Sometimes it means the battle has finally begun.The modern world defines freedom as doing whatever we want. Christian freedom is more demanding: the ability to desire something and still choose what is good.Mary’s life gives us three practical steps:Identify what you cannot tell yourself no to.Create some desert through silence, fasting and voluntary self-denial.Never quit merely because the temptation returns.Being tempted is not the same as consenting. Your holiness is revealed in what you do when desire issues its command.Your past may form part of your testimony, but it does not possess naming rights over your future. Grace transformed Mary from a slave of passion into one of Christianity’s greatest witnesses of repentance.St. Mary of Egypt, pray for us!
🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴✝️ SUPPORT THE MISSION🙏 Donatehttps://sensusfidelium.com/donate-support/📬 Free Catholic Newsletterhttps://sensusfidelium.com/newsletter/📰 Read on Substackhttps://sensusfidelium.substack.com/────────────────────📺 WATCH & READ📺 Sensus Fidelium Apphttps://sensusfidelium.tv/📚 Sensus Fidelium Presshttps://sensusfideliumpress.com/👕 Official Merchandisehttps://sensusfidelium.com/merchandise/────────────────────🤝 PARTNER WITH US📣 Advertise on Sensus Fideliumhttps://sensusfidelium.com/advertise-with-sensus-fidelium/🎤 Invite Steve Cunningham to Speakhttps://sensusfidelium.com/speaking/⛪ Parish Formation & Consultationhttps://sensusfidelium.com/for-parishes/────────────────────🌎 CATHOLIC COMMUNITY✝️ Trusted Catholic Businesseshttps://sensusfidelium.com/catholic-businesses/🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴🔴

What do you do when your spouse is difficult to love?Blessed Anna Maria Taigi became a wife, mother, mystic, and eventually a blessed of the Catholic Church—but she did not become holy by escaping family life. She became holy inside it.Her husband, Domenico, could be rough, demanding, and quick-tempered. Anna Maria had faults of her own. Marriage became one of the places where grace worked on both of them.This episode of Saints for the Struggle looks at the thousand ordinary battles of married life: arguments, resentment, money problems, exhaustion, children, criticism, unmet expectations, and the temptation to think, “If my spouse would just change, I could finally have peace.”But Christian marriage asks a harder question:What is God asking of me right now?Patience? Silence? An apology? Forgiveness? Speaking firmly without anger?This does NOT mean tolerating abuse or serious wrongdoing. Legitimate boundaries, counsel, and protection may be necessary.But ordinary married life requires tremendous mercy. Pray for your spouse more than you criticize them. Stop keeping score. Let minor irritations die. And remember:Your spouse is not your spiritual project. You are not the Holy Ghost.Maybe marriage isn’t preventing you from becoming holy.Maybe it is revealing exactly what still needs to become holy.Blessed Anna Maria Taigi, pray for us.

What does St. Moses the Black teach Catholic men about anger, strength, self-control, and becoming the man God created us to be?

In Episode 2 of Saints for the Struggle, we enter the Egyptian desert and meet one of Christianity’s most remarkable saints: St. Moses the Black.

Before becoming a monk and spiritual father, Moses was a violent robber and leader of a band of thieves. Then he encountered God.

But conversion did not mean every old habit disappeared overnight.

Conversion can happen in a moment. Character usually doesn’t.

Many men know this battle. You go to Confession determined to change, but then your spouse irritates you, your child disobeys, a coworker frustrates you, or someone says the wrong thing—and suddenly the old anger comes rushing back.

St. Moses reminds us that having a battle doesn’t mean you’ve lost. Sometimes it means you’ve finally started fighting.

His life teaches a different vision of masculine strength:

Losing control isn’t strength. Control is strength. A man who can overpower another man is strong. A man who can overpower himself is stronger.

We’ll also look at the famous story of Moses and the leaking basket of sand—a reminder to examine our own sins before condemning someone else.

Anger may tell us something is wrong, but anger makes a terrible master.

Moses did not become weak when he became holy. His strength was transformed. The hands that once took from others eventually carried water for elderly monks.

Same strength. Different master.

Maybe you’re aggressive. Become aggressive against your sin.
Maybe you’re stubborn. Become stubborn about keeping your promises.
Maybe you’re competitive. Compete against the man you were yesterday.

Your past can explain you. It does not get to define you.

When anger rises, remember St. Moses. Look at the sand and ask:

Who is the real enemy here?

👇 What has helped you control anger instead of allowing anger to control you?

St. Moses the Black, pray for us.

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#StMosesTheBlack
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