- 1 hour 11 minutesEp. 37: What Does She Know That I Don't? A Scientist's Yes to Christ (Sr. Mary Andre, O.P.)
What does it take to go from knowing a lot about God to actually knowing Him? Sr. Mary Andre, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to share her story, and it starts with a question that wouldn't leave her alone. An Ann Arbor native and lifelong lover of science, Sr. Mary Andre was studying biochemistry and imagining a future in a research lab, fascinated by the hidden workings of the cell, when a friend leaned over in the back of a car one night and simply prayed from the heart, speaking to Jesus as if she knew Him. Well catechized but spiritually restless, Sr. Mary Andre found herself wondering, "What does she know that I don't?" From there she and Sr. Miriam trace the moments that changed everything: a two-hour confession line at a Notre Dame summer camp where she gave the Lord her full attention and heard His voice in return, the "proposal moment" she still has journaled somewhere, and her need for a word she couldn't doubt before giving her whole self away. Along the way they talk about hearing God in Scripture and the Eucharist, the artistic gifts she now pours into convent chapels, and a striking image of the samurai sword, folded and hammered again and again, as a picture of how God uses suffering to make us strong and flexible for His Kingdom.
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7 October 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 8 minutesEp. 36: Who Is Like God? St. Michael the Archangel, Defend Us in Battle (Sr. Mary Michael, O.P.)
"Who is like God?" It's not a boast but a question, and it's the very meaning of St. Michael's name. Sr. Mary Michael, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to talk about her patron, the great Archangel, and the hidden world of the angels who are always closer than we think. A former occupational therapy student from Northeast Tennessee, Sr. Mary Michael shares how a college Mass at a campus student center reawakened her faith and eventually led her to trade a hard-won career path for the convent. From there she and Sr. Miriam explore who the angels really are: pure spirits with intellect and will, gifted with infused knowledge, and faced with a single, eternal choice for or against God. They trace Michael's stand against Lucifer, the pride behind the fall, and the humility that makes all the difference. Sr. Mary Michael also opens up about her deep love for the St. Michael Prayer, which she prays throughout the day for the Pope, for priests, in moments of temptation, and before big decisions, along with the joy of befriending our guardian angels, who quietly help us more than we realize. Get to know the angels not as distant figures, but as real companions in the daily battle for holiness.
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30 September 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 14 minutesEp. 35: From the Farm to the Airwaves – The Life and Legacy of Fulton Sheen (Sr. Fulton Marie, O.P.)
How did a bookish farm boy who hated farm life become one of the most influential voices in American Catholic history? Sr. Fulton Marie, O.P., one of the newest Sisters to join the community and a Peoria native like Sheen himself, sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to trace the remarkable life and legacy of the soon-to-be-Blessed Fulton Sheen, whose beatification on September 24th has the whole Church talking. From his early years on the farm to the professor's chair at Catholic University, where he taught for more than twenty years, to the radio and television work that reached millions, Sheen's story is one of a life poured out for souls. Sr. Fulton Marie and Sr. Miriam unpack the secret behind it all: a Third Order Carmelite whose evangelization flowed entirely from his deep contemplation of God. Along the way they dwell on his beloved book Calvary and the Mass and his moving reflection on Christ's cry of "I thirst" from the cross, a thirst answered in the Eucharist. Sr. Fulton Marie also shares a bit of her own story, including the quiet afternoon at daily Mass when she first heard Jesus say, "I just want you." Whether you grew up watching Sheen or are meeting him for the first time, this is a chance to know the man behind the microphone and the God he pointed to.
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23 September 2026, 10:00 am - 47 minutes 22 secondsEp. 34: Ask the Sisters – Q&A #2 (Sr. Louis Marie, O.P. & Sr. Elizabeth John, O.P.)
Time for another mailbag! Sr. Louis Marie, O.P. and Sr. Elizabeth John, O.P. are back with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to answer your questions, pulled at random from the cup and answered on the spot. This round covers a little of everything: how the Sisters take turns cooking for one another in community (and what that says about love in the little things), heartfelt advice for teachers weighed down by stress, and the freeing truth that you can be excellent without being perfect. The conversation even turns to the headlines, as the Sisters share their thoughts on Pope Leo's latest encyclical on artificial intelligence and what the Church has to say about living well in a rapidly changing world. Thank you for sending in such wonderful questions! You can submit more through the Torch app, linked below.
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16 September 2026, 10:00 am - 50 minutes 10 secondsEp. 33: Who God Is – Resting in the Unchanging Love of the Father (Sr. Teresa Christi, O.P.)
When life feels like it's changing under your feet, what does it mean to rest in a God who never changes? Sr. Teresa Christi, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to share how meditating on the attributes of God (that He is eternal, unchanging, and utterly good) has quietly transformed her spiritual life. Drawing on years of ministry, including her time as superior of the Sisters' Priory in Georgetown, Texas, Sr. Teresa Christi speaks with warmth and plenty of laughter about trusting Providence in the middle of stress and suffering. Together she and Sr. Miriam explore how our words always fall short of God (as St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us, His goodness is only ever analogous to ours), and why that mystery is freeing rather than frightening. This episode is a reminder to keep our eyes on God, take the handrail He offers, and trust that He is good, even when we can't yet see how the story ends.
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9 September 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 23 minutesEp. 32: The Perfect Friend – How Jesus Makes Us Capable of Love (Sr. Mary Ignatius, O.P.)
Sometimes the friendship your heart is aching for is the very thing you've become unable to give. Sr. Mary Ignatius, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. for a tender, honest conversation about friendship: what we're made for, why it so often feels out of reach, and how Christ heals us into being capable of it again. Sr. Mary Ignatius shares her own story of a season when she'd built a wall no one could get through, and how daily time before the Blessed Sacrament changed everything: "I was in the presence of somebody who loved me." From there, she and Sr. Miriam trace friendship all the way back to its source, unpacking how sin leaves us stuck and how Jesus, the perfect friend, is the one who befriends us so we can befriend others again. Along the way they get practical too, on the trust it takes to lower our guard, the danger of clinging to friendships to fill us, and the virtues that hold a friendship together: honesty, mercy, courage, and the one high schoolers name most of all, loyalty. This conversation is a beautiful reminder that when Christ is our first friend, every other friendship can finally breathe.
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2 September 2026, 10:00 am - 55 minutes 36 secondsEp. 31: The Cause of Causes – Faith, Science, and the Gift of Being (Sr. Mary Elizabeth, O.P.)
What if the very fact that you exist right now is an act of God's love? Sr. Mary Elizabeth, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to explore one of the most beautiful and overlooked truths of the faith: causality. A Rochester native with a PhD in electrical engineering, Sr. Mary Elizabeth once designed the next generation of cochlear implants at the University of Michigan before Catholic radio and a growing love for the Blessed Sacrament drew her toward religious life (a journey she describes, true to form, as a "sinusoidal function" trending steadily upward). Together she and Sr. Miriam walk through Catechism 301, unpacking how God not only creates us but "at every moment upholds and sustains" us in being, enabling us to act and drawing us to our final end. Along the way they sort the true picture from the false ones (God as distant Watchmaker, as magician, as tinkerer filling the gaps) and arrive at something far more personal: a Creator who holds each of us in existence out of sheer love.
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26 August 2026, 10:00 am - 47 minutes 45 secondsEp. 30: A Tale of Two Sisters – Family to Convent (Sr. James Karol, O.P. & Sr. Joseph Lucia, O.P.)
Two sisters, one family, two vocations. In a first for the podcast, Sr. Miriam, O.P. welcomes not one but two guests: Sr. James Karol, O.P. and Sr. Joseph Lucia, O.P., blood sisters who each found their way to the convent by very different roads. They grew up in a faith-filled home of family rosaries, the Gospel read at the dinner table, and pilgrimages to a nearby shrine, but neither planned to end up here. Sr. James Karol chased something bigger than herself all the way into the Air Force, running a "really long detour" while God ran right alongside her. Sr. Joseph Lucia quietly offered God her yes at her eighth-grade confirmation, never dreaming He'd take her up on it. Along the way there's the sisterly surprise of discovering they were both discerning ("we're a Catholic family, but we're not weird, like two would be a little weird"), and the joy of realizing home was calling them both. Warm, funny, and full of heart, it's a story of one family, two vocations, and a God who calls each of us by name.
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19 August 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 2 minutesEp. 29: From Wheeling and Dealing to Kneeling – The Bronx Bride of Christ (Sr. Maria, O.P.)
What happens when the good life isn't the best one? Sr. Maria, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to tell a story you won't forget: a Bronx-raised daughter of Portuguese and Brazilian immigrants who set out to make a lot of money, sell a lot of cars, and take care of everyone she loved. And she did. She was living the good life: the lake house in Carmel overlooking the water, a new demo car every three months, Saturday-night parties, and a circle of friends who'd meet her at either the pub or the church, whichever the day called for. So why did God want more for her? With her signature humor and warmth, Sr. Maria traces the winding road from wheeling and dealing to kneeling, and the moment in the motherhouse chapel when she realized home was where her heart was: in the Tabernacle. At the center of it all is a truth she can't stop preaching: God isn't looking for cookie-cutter saints. He's calling each of us to become the saint only we can be.
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12 August 2026, 10:00 am - 1 hour 7 minutesEp. 28: Setting the World on Fire – St. Dominic and the Torch of Truth (Sr. Hyacinth, O.P.)
What does it mean to be set on fire for souls? Sr. Hyacinth, O.P. sits down with Sr. Miriam, O.P. to introduce the man at the very heart of the Dominican family: St. Dominic himself. A fellow Canadian who once dreamed of political life before God rewrote her story, Sr. Hyacinth traces Dominic's journey from a canon in Osma to the founder of the Order of Preachers, born in the crucible of the Albigensian crisis. Along the way we meet the famous dream of a torch-bearing hound "set to light the world on fire" (yes, the very image behind the Torch app), Dominic's radical insistence on freedom in the rule, and the gentleness, purity, and joy that made him so magnetic to everyone he met. At its core, this is the Dominican mission in miniature: to preach the truth of Jesus Christ, and to remind a restless world that we were made not for rules, but for happiness, freedom, and the glory of heaven.
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5 August 2026, 10:00 am - 54 minutes 45 secondsEp. 27: Ask the Sisters – Q&A #1 (Sr. Louis Marie, O.P. & Sr. Elizabeth John, O.P.)
You asked, and the Sisters answered! In the first-ever Open Mic Q&A, Sr. Louis Marie, O.P. and Sr. Elizabeth John, O.P. join Sr. Miriam, O.P. to take on the questions listeners have been sending in, from the theological to the wonderfully everyday. What's the actual difference between a Sister and a nun? How can Catholics pray to Mary and the Saints without worshipping them? And the ones you've always wondered about: are Sisters allowed to stay in bed all day when they're sick, and when in the world do they find time to exercise? With warmth, laughter, and plenty of straight answers, the Sisters open a window into the life behind the habit, and remind us that no question is too big or too small to bring to the conversation.
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29 July 2026, 10:00 am - More Episodes? Get the App