From the classroom to the office to everywhere in between, struggling for goodness & holiness can be a daunting task. In these homilies and meditations by Fr. James Searby, Chaplain and Director of Catholic Campus Ministry at George Mason University, discover the possibility of Holiness for the Work…
The Holiness for the Working Day podcast is a truly inspiring and thought-provoking show hosted by Fr. James Searby. As a listener, I have found his homilies to be incredibly uplifting and motivating, helping me to live my life to the fullest while staying grounded in reality. His energy and passion shine through in every episode, making it easy to understand and relate to the messages he shares. Fr. Searby's theatrical experience adds an extra layer of engagement to his speaking voice, drawing listeners in and making each episode a pleasure to listen to.
One of the best aspects of this podcast is Fr. Searby's ability to connect with people of all ages and backgrounds. His words are not only inspiring for adults but also make it easy for children, like mine, to learn and understand the teachings of God. He has a unique talent for bringing holiness into everyday life, making spirituality accessible and relevant.
Another standout aspect of this podcast is Fr. Searby's unwavering commitment to truth. He does not shy away from speaking difficult truths or challenging listeners to live up to what Jesus expects of them. This fearlessness sets him apart as a true spiritual leader who genuinely cares about the hearts and eternal lives of everyone he encounters.
While there may not be many negative aspects of this podcast, some listeners might find Fr. Searby's straightforward approach confronting or uncomfortable at times. However, it is precisely this directness that makes his messages so impactful, forcing listeners to confront themselves, their beliefs, and the world around them.
In conclusion, The Holiness for the Working Day podcast is a must-listen for anyone seeking spiritual guidance and motivation in their daily lives. Fr. James Searby's powerful homilies will ignite your faith and challenge you to become stronger spiritually. His unique ability to convey deep truths while remaining relatable and engaging makes this podcast a valuable resource for anyone looking to deepen their relationship with God.

2th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A https://catholicsvoteno.com

23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A September 7, 2026

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A Aug. 30, 2026 Gospel Matthew 16:21-27 Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct."

22nd Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A Aug. 30, 2026 Gospel Matthew 16:21-27 Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer greatly from the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed and on the third day be raised. Then Peter took Jesus aside and began to rebuke him, "God forbid, Lord! No such thing shall ever happen to you." He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are an obstacle to me. You are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do." Then Jesus said to his disciples, "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father's glory, and then he will repay all according to his conduct."

21st Sunday in Ordinary TIme, Year A 2026

Elijah in the Cave 19th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A Aug. 9th, 2026

The final part of the 5 part series on spiritual, emotional and mental freedom in our lives.

18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year A August 1, 2026

Part 4 of 4 In this first part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby

Part 3 of 4 In this first part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby

Part 2 of 4: Athens In this first part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby

Part 1 of 4 In this first part of our four-part series, we trace the roots of our Republic, from the ideas that shaped our Founding Fathers to the principles they built our nation on. But we don't stop at history. We ask what those same principles mean for the first nation: the family. Because if the family is the bedrock of a healthy republic, then renewing our country starts at home. My hope is that this series leaves us with real hope for our nation, by showing how the founding principles behind America can also shape and strengthen the families that remain the foundation of any lasting society." Fr. James Searby

Part 3 of a 4 part series on real freeom of the will.

The Parable of the Wheat & the weeds. 16th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A July 19th, 2026

Part of a series on real freedom for summer of 2026

15th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year a 2026 Matthew 13:1-9 On that day, Jesus went out of the house and sat down by the sea. Such large crowds gathered around him that he got into a boat and sat down, and the whole crowd stood along the shore. And he spoke to them at length in parables, saying: "A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was not deep, and when the sun rose it was scorched, and it withered for lack of roots. Some seed fell among thorns, and the thorns grew up and choked it. But some seed fell on rich soil and produced fruit, a hundred or sixty or thirtyfold. Whoever has ears ought to hear."

In this episode, we sit with one of the most dramatic moments in the Gospels: Jesus asleep in a boat while his disciples panic in a violent storm on the Sea of Galilee. But the real storm in this passage isn't the one on the water. It's the one inside us. We explore the psychology of crisis, why we respond to the stories we tell ourselves more than to reality itself, and what it actually means to surrender, not as passive defeat but as the most courageous act a person can make. From the circus to the football field to the shores of Galilee, this meditation traces the path from terror to trust, and why Jesus sometimes has to let things get hopeless before he can show us what he can actually do.

On The Roots of Sadness & Anger and the inner battles related.

1th Sunday in Ordinary Time, year A. 2026 We are the lost ones. We are all troubled and abandoned. We are the sheep without a shepherd. And in that, He changes everything. Grâce infinie de notre Dieu, Qui un jour m'a sauvé. J'allais errant de lieu en lieu, Quand Il m'a retrouvé.

A Meditation for the Solemnity of the Sacred Heart

In this series we exploe what it means to be fully human towards a deeper understanding of the Pope's new encyclical on AI. I hope you enjoy, and I hope this summer affords you real rest and active receptivity of reality.

Nice is ignorance with a smile. Kindness is love with a spine. This is the time for a radical revolution of our time, one person, one act, one canvas at a time, a revolution of kindness.

Children's homily for the feast of the Holy Trinity

Feast of the Ascension 2026 I will be on vacation the next two weeks and will not be posting to the podcast. Please pray for me on the journey to Europe and I look forward to posting again soon. All listeners are in my daily prayers. - Fr. James Searby

What if the restlessness you feel is not a problem to be solved but a compass pointing you home? In this third meditation, we go to the very root of that restlessness: eros. Not the shallow, pornographic version our culture has reduced it to, and not the sanitized, nervously-avoided version some Christianity has offered in response, but eros in its full, ancient, and serious meaning, the primal human desire to satiate in beauty and be happy. We trace it from Hesiod and Homer through Plato's ladder of love, through the boldly erotic imagery of the Old Testament prophets, through the Eucharist itself, and into the great question Thomas Aquinas forces us to face: is your soul ascending toward Beauty-itself, or has acedia quietly starved your desire until the climb no longer seems worth it? Along the way we tell the story of Eros and Psyche, one of the most theologically rich myhts ever told, and we let it do what great stories do: show us who we are, where we are in the journey, and why the Beloved who is already looking for us is worth every impossible task on the way up.

Children's homily for the 6th Sunday of Easter and Mother's Day

6th sunday of Easter 2026 and Mother's Day

5th Sunday of Easter, Year A Gospel John 14:1-12 Jesus said to his disciples: "Do not let your hearts be troubled. You have faith in God; have faith also in me. In my Father's house there are many dwelling places. If there were not, would I have told you that I am going to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back again and take you to myself, so that where I am you also may be. Where I am going you know the way." Thomas said to him, "Master, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you know me, then you will also know my Father. From now on you do know him and have seen him." Philip said to him, "Master, show us the Father, and that will be enough for us." Jesus said to him, "Have I been with you for so long a time and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I speak to you I do not speak on my own. The Father who dwells in me is doing his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else, believe because of the works themselves. Amen, amen, I say to you, whoever believes in me will do the works that I do, and will do greater ones than these, because I am going to the Father."

On a dusk walk through Old Town, a chance encounter with a young man swooning outside his girlfriend's window becomes a meditation on one of the deepest hungers of modern life. Drawing on Joseph Pieper, Thomas Aquinas, and the medieval contemplative tradition, this episode explores why only the lover truly sees, and why that matters for everything from friendship and prayer to the quiet poverty underneath all our productivity. If modern life has trained us to move through the world like a camera, objective and detached, what does it cost us? And what would it mean to become a lover again, to let reality actually get through, and sing?

What does it take to stand firm when everything in you wants to fold — not just on the battlefield, but in the garden at Chelsea, in the courtroom, at the kitchen table with someone you love? In this episode we look at fortitude, what Adam Smith called "the uniquely splendid quality of man," through the eyes of Thomas Aquinas, Aristotle, and some of the most vivid moments in Scripture, literature, and film. We start where the Church starts us this week — with the apostles, sprung from prison by an angel, walking straight back to the temple at dawn to keep preaching. That is fortitude in its purest form. From there we explore why only the vulnerable can be truly brave, why Aquinas says endurance is a harder and nobler act than attack, and why most of what the world calls courage is actually one of five convincing counterfeits. We spend time with Thomas More, standing quiet and unshakeable before the most powerful man in England, and we ask what his daily courage demands of us — not the grand martyrdom, but the ordinary refusal to smile and nod at what is false. Because there is no automatic victory in human affairs. The victory of truth depends, to some considerable extent, on your defense of it.

Divine Mercy Sunday 2026 Our pain, wounds, fears and flaws are "Transubstantiated" by His Mercy