Mamas in Spirit

Screenwriter Rod Barr shares how God had a plan for Mother Francesca Cabrini that was not her own.

At the turn of the 20th century, the dream of a better life inspired Italian immigrants to journey to America. Tragically, most found themselves among the poorest of the poor and even homeless--including the children.

While Mother Cabrini had committed her heart to ministry in China, Pope Leo XIII directed her to help these immigrants where they had landed in New York City.

While many build empires for themselves, Saint Frances Cabrini built one for God.

In this Lenten podcast, hear how Saint Cabrini's revolutionary heart for Christ changed Rod's own heart to create this film about The First American Saint. Learn about this nun of supernatural faith, determination and perseverance--and allow her life to change yours.

Go see the movie Cabrini in a theater near you beginning Friday, March 8th!

The dawn of each day is a precious time for Megan Nix--her youngest daughter was born at the start of a new day and her beloved mother later went home to God in the early morning hours.  

Megan came to learn that not only was dawn the start of these soul-touching days, but also new seasons in her life. Seasons in which Megan would come to know the depth of grief and boundlessness of love. 

Megan's daughter was was born into silence due to deafness caused by cytomegalovirus (CMV). Megan's heart was met with great sorrow as she processed the impact, learned the avoidable cause she was never told about and advocated for her daughter. 

Megan discovered Aquinas’ Remedies for Sorrow as she attended to her grief. Listen as Megan weaves personal stories of sorrow and healing with Aquinas’ Remedies for Sorrow.

Learn more about Megan and her book “Remedies for Sorrow: An Extraordinary Child, a Secret Kept from Pregnant Women, and a Mother's Pursuit of the Truth” at megannix.com.

As a young girl, Tara Nowell began to believe the lie that she couldn’t depend on anyone but herself. Eventually, this became anyone but herself and “the bottle.”

Even when she was at her rock bottom with alcoholism, Tara did not deny God’s existence--she just wanted Him to leave her alone.

Yet through the love of Christ and her beloved parents, God pursued Tara. After years of denial and resistance, Tara entered a Catholic Healing Center Cenacolo and God began to chisel away at Tara's hardened heart.

While Tara wanted to leave Cenacolo, she took the advice of a woman who encouraged her to stay until a miracle happened. Tara did just this. 

Listen to this inspiring podcast and know that your miracle can happen, too!

Our Church family is divided. Yet Christ calls us to communion in Him. 

In this Lenten podcast, Chaplain Fr. Jon Meyer and host Lindy Wynne explore how the division in our Catholic Church increases our sense of unhealthy suspicion and harms our capacity to love as we are called. 

In life there is a healthy, intuitive suspicion we are blessed with that helps to keep us and our children safe. At the same time, there is a suspicion that is not of God and divides us even as we are called to be unified in Christ. 

This Lent let's invite Christ to help us sift through our suspicion and heal what is not of Him. May we grow in trust and become one body in Christ!

Go to mamasinspirit.com to subscribe. 

Wishing you and your loved ones a blessed Christmas!

Mamas in Spirit Season 6 will begin on Thursday, February 15th with the Lenten Series.

Host Lindy Wynne will be doing a virtual Lenten Plan for Catholic Moms with John Bosio on Fridays at 11am CST during Lent 2024. Go to mamasinspirit.com and enter your email to get more information. 

Can't wait to be with you for Season 6! May God bless you and yours, always.

Merry Christmas!

By the time Kathy Tankersley was 23 years old, she was a single mom of five children. 

Kathy vividly remembers being in church and praying on her knees for a someone she could truly trust and confide in. Then she met Rex Tankersley.

The day after their weekend honeymoon, Rex sat her five children down and asked them if they wanted him to be their dad. The children responded with a resounding "Yes!"

The children are now grown and have children of their own. Rex has also passed and Kathy reflects on why she says:

Don't feel sorry for me, because I have been so loved.

Listen to this Advent podcast and allow Kathy's gift of storytelling open your heart to the wondrous gift of God's love. 

"In her life, Lord, be glorified."

These are the words Courtney Siebring sang as she cuddled and prayed over the baby girl Courtney and her husband were fostering.

Courtney had experienced infertility and longed to be a mother more than anything--yet the department of social services told Courtney and her husband they would not be keeping the baby girl that they already loved so dearly.

Courtney learned the meaning of "Thy will be done" in a way she never had before. 

What unfolded was completely unexpected and clearly God's plan: Courtney and her husband learned this baby would become their daughter through adoption. 

Listen to this Advent podcast and be inspired to loosen control in your life, offer your very heart to the Lord and experience the peace and joy that can only come from Christ. 

Courtney is the author of Little Spark of Life: A Celebration of Born and Preborn Human Life. Learn more at www.littlesparkoflifebook.com. 

"You know who's going to have to do this."

The words Brenda's Hauk's husband spoke penetrated her heart--she knew she was called by God to something so much bigger than herself.

Even though Brenda was frightened, she said "yes" to a plan that was clearly not her own.

Brenda started BrightStone, a comprehensive work, social support, and residential community for adults with special needs, expanding their potential and helping them develop mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, and spiritually. 

Let Brenda's "yes" and the tremendous blessing that has come from it inspire your own fiat in this Advent podcast. 

Learn more at brightstone.org.

When Fr. Ed Steiner was just 5 years old, there was a knock on his front door during supper. Fr. Ed excitedly ran to see who it was. What he found he never could have imagined. 

It was Santa Claus!  

To the day Fr. Ed still finds himself stirred with a similar sense of awe he experienced that very moment he saw Santa as a young boy. Yet Fr. Ed recognizes what he is really waiting for is the coming of Christ. 

In this Advent podcast Fr. Ed reflects on our need to remember why Christ came—and how the true meaning of Christmas fills our hearts and homes during this special time of year. 

Let us strive to make awe-filled memories and practice the Gospel with our loved ones this Advent Season.

Be charmed by Ted and Catherine Wynne as they share their gratitude to God and advice to listeners after 50 years of marriage.

Host Lindy Wynne has a heartfelt conversation with her parents-in-law as they reveal the trust and companionship they are blessed to have with one another. 

From Catherine’s ’69 Camaro to Ted’s love of football, hear how they revel in both the little and big moments. Their lives are blessed with profound meaning as they companion one another in both the good and difficult times of life.

Let your heart be wrapped in the gift of family this Thanksgiving season. 

The table is turned on Host Lindy Wynne, as Chaplain Fr. Jon Meyer asks Lindy about womanhood and what it means to be a woman.

Lindy explores the gift of womanhood and meaning of Saint Edith Stein's words, "The woman's soul is fashioned as a shelter in which other souls may unfold." 

When Lindy was twenty-one and volunteering at an orphanage in Tijuana, she met and developed a maternal love for a young boy named Coco. Coco began calling Lindy "mama." It broke Lindy's heart to have to leave Coco, yet simultaneously revealed God's call for Lindy to be a spiritual mother and shelter souls through adoption.

Womanhood is a complete self-gift in which a woman surrenders her heart for the sake of Love Itself. 

Lindy has witnessed such mercy, love and compassion in other women. The gift of a woman is her feminine heart and ability to shelter other souls in a way that hopefully moves others to do the same.

After Kristi Bentley experienced pregnancy loss with her first baby, she wondered how something so beautiful could be given and then taken away from her.

Kristi now sees how the hand of God was at work in her life all those years ago.

Kristi’s loss led to a deep understanding of the precious gift of life. While mourning her first child she promised to be open to all the children God might bless her and her husband Patrick with. Seven children and countless prayers later, Kristi shares personal stories about Our Lady of Fatima, many Saints and the “kiss of God.”

Be inspired by Kristi’s openness to life even when others don’t understand—Kristi’s pure heart encourages us to notice all the ways we may experience the kiss of God, too. 

The moment Ryan Penney hit the water his life and heart were forever changed.

Ryan was on a performing arts scholarship at Samford University and about to begin his first professional acting job. While on a trip Ryan jumped into a lake off of a high cliff. Ryan landed wrong, broke his back and was immediately paralyzed—doctors said that Ryan would never walk again.

While Ryan wasn’t praying or engaging in the Sacraments at the time of his accident, he cried out to God in the hospital. Somewhere deep within him there was a powerful seed of God's hope—Ryan knew he would walk again.

While Ryan’s body is not the same as it was before the accident, neither are his heart or his life. Hear how Ryan has given his life to God, and learned how saving people is much more important than entertaining them. 

Mary Margaret Lambert vividly remembers chatting with her dad while he painted a ceramic frog the night before she lost him.

The next day Mary Margaret was devastated to learn her father and his wife died in the Nashville flood of 2010.

Little did Mary Margaret realize that the frog her father held in his hands would come to mean so much--F.R.O.G. means "Fully Rely on God." 

Mary Margaret struggled with grief and got tired of hurting. She sought the Lord through writing and help through counseling to heal her broken heart.

The ceramic frog sits on Mary Margaret’s porch to this day, reminding her of her beloved father and our eternal reliance on God.

John Bosio and his wife share a love story worthy of a movie.

In the 1960s, eleven-year-old John entered pre-seminary in Italy. Meanwhile, an American girl from a military family was praying for him in a school chapel in Thailand--she and her friend would run into the chapel during recess to pray for their future spouses every day.

After fifty years of marriage John knows he and his beautiful wife are on the last leg of their pilgrimage together on Earth.

Since his wife no longer has memories, John creates precious moments with her each day.

It is critical to John that his wife knows she comes first. After authoring numerous books on marriage and family life and leading countless retreats, John has stepped away to care for his beloved.

John shares timeless wisdom in this podcast that will touch your soul by his witness to true love.

When Emily and her husband went to a routine sonogram appointment seventeen weeks into her pregnancy, the technician struggled to find a heartbeat. 

They were told they’d have to wait two hours for an ultrasound technician to take a closer look in the hope their baby was okay.

Emily knew she needed to go somewhere she felt safe—they were close to The Cathedral of the Incarnation in Nashville. Emily and her husband headed to the noon Mass to wait.

While Emily felt wrapped in the sacredness of the Mass, she also was overwhelmed with worry and sorrow. Deep down she knew there would be no heartbeat as she prayed the Angelus “Be it done to me according to Thy word.”

Once it was confirmed the baby had no heartbeat, Emily knew she would deliver baby John David. She and her husband wanted to hold him.

Hear how God sought Emily through sorrow as she experienced His consolation and call to help others heal from sorrow.

“This is a story God wrote.”

God planted a seed in Kim's young heart to accompany and care for the sick and dying as an adult. 

Kim was raised in a family in which the members surrounded one another in all the joys and sorrows of life, including death. She didn't realize until adulthood that this was not every person's experience.

As a hospice nurse it broke Kim's heart that there were so many people poor and dying who had nowhere to go.

With the help of Saint Edward Church in Nashville, TN and others who shared in her desire to help the poor and dying, Kim created "The Heart of Mary House" to love God's children during their final days as Our Blessed Mother would want.

“Just take a step. Don’t worry about the next step. Just take one step towards healing.”

This is Melissa Maleski’s advice, mirroring her experience when her anxiety and depression reached a breaking point almost two decades ago. Melissa found herself hyperventilating with a panic attack on her shower floor. 

God spoke into the quiet of Melissa’s heart—Melissa realized she didn’t have to live like that anymore.

Melissa chose to be vulnerable, share with loved ones and seek professional support.

Melissa is amazed by how she has received blessing upon blessing from God since she sought help so many years ago--Melissa wants the same for you and any of your loved ones struggling with their mental health. 

When Rosemary Thérèse Robinson (affectionately known as “Rosie") was diagnosed with childhood cancer, her five older siblings returned home to support her. Little did they know that Rosie would not only carry her own cross of suffering, but would help carry theirs and their parents' crosses, as well.

Rosie never complained. She laughed and loved with her family and retreated to the quiet of her bedroom when in pain. She also wrote letters to God.

These letters were so filled with the faith and joy reminiscent of Saint Thérèse that they moved the heart of a local Dominican nun to nickname Rosie “The Little Flower of Nashville.”

Listen to Rosie’s sister Hayley share about the gift of Rosie, as well as the witness of her parents as they accompanied their beloved daughter as she prepared to go home to Jesus at just 19.

This is a witness of the bonds of a family deeply rooted in prayer, faith and the supernatural love of God. But it is most of all the story of a young girl who reflected Our Blessed Mother as she said, “Let it be done to me according to thy word.” 

Joy Pinto lives for the "audience of one" every day--she lives for Christ.  

At 48 Joy was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. As she faced her painful illness and mortality, her faith was tested in a way she would never change.

One day Joy was in bed for 17 hours and she asked God when the "fire" would be over. God responded, "When you can dance with me in the fire." Joy got up from bed and slowly danced with Jesus.

This intimacy with Christ and the conviction of her belief has continued to carry Joy and helped her to share her love of God with others.

Joy shares this love through her work with Her Choice Birmingham Women's Center and the At Home with Jim and Joy show on EWTN, as well as personally with her home parish, friends and family.