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You can learn a lot about the spiritual life from the most unglamorous places: a sleepless week, a third cup of coffee, and a cat that needs insulin every 12 hours. We start there, laughing a little and admitting we’re tired, because real prayer has to fit inside real life. And when your days are loud and crowded, the question underneath everything gets sharper: how do I actually hear God?

From the Carmelite tradition, Father Stephen Sanchez helps us explore the desert and the mountain as more than scenery. They’re spiritual symbols for solitude, detachment, and the kind of interior silence where a relationship can grow. We read from St John of the Cross and reflect on The Living Flame of Love, where the Holy Spirit becomes the “living flame” that first purifies and then transforms. We also talk about why silence is not emptiness. Silence is listening, waiting, and learning the attentiveness of a heart that’s ready to respond.

Along the way we connect Scripture, lived experience, and practical struggle: Elijah hearing God in a tiny whispering sound after wind, earthquake, and fire; the way trauma or overwhelming beauty can become a liminal moment that wakes us up to the transcendent; and why commitment to prayer always includes choices, discipline, and letting go. We end with the hope at the center of Catholic spirituality: God speaks tenderly, calls us back from our idols, and draws us into deeper communion so we can love our neighbor with Christ’s gaze.

If this conversation helps you, subscribe or follow, share it with a friend, and leave a review so more listeners can find the show. Where do you find real silence in your day?

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Prayer can feel like one more thing to “get done,” but that mindset quietly drains it of power. We sit down with Father Stephen Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite priest, and walk through the Carmelite tradition to recover what prayer actually is: a living relationship with Jesus Christ that changes your desires, your choices, and the shape of your life.

We connect the dots from the Rule of St Albert and the early hermits of Mount Carmel to the church’s struggle through war, famine, and the Black Death, including why the Carmelite rule was mitigated in 1432. From there we follow the fire that refused to die out, especially in the “Institution of the First Monks,” with its two aims for the spiritual life: purity of heart and real experiential awareness of God’s presence. That thread leads straight to St Teresa of Avila’s reform, her insistence on smaller communities, and her longing for friends of God who are truly “good ones.”

Then we bring it home with the core of Carmelite spirituality today: contemplative prayer as relationship, not a checklist. We talk about the practical marks of healthy Christian spirituality, including concrete love for the poor, community life, vulnerability, and the hard work of letting go of control. We also unpack why Teresa and John of the Cross lean on bridal and friendship language and how desert spirituality forces a choice between comfort and conversion.

If you’re hungry for a deeper interior life, this conversation is for you. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find these reflections on Carmelite prayer and the contemplative life.

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Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!

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God might be trying to get your attention, but not the way you expect. A lot of us assume He shows up in noise, drama, and big spiritual moments. Father Steven Sanchez, a Discalced Carmelite priest, makes the case that the Bible keeps pointing somewhere else: the desert and the mountain, where the heart gets stripped down enough to actually listen.

We start with the surprisingly important basics of Carmelite life, from monasteries and friaries to why Carmelites still talk about “cells.” Then we go deep on the two core symbols that shape Carmelite spirituality: the desert as the hard road to freedom and the frontline of temptation, and the mountain as the place of encounter and covenant. Along the way we connect Jesus’ forty days in the desert to a spiritual strategy of taking the battle into the enemy’s territory, not negotiating on our own.

From Mount Sinai’s thunder to Elijah’s gentle breeze, the conversation keeps circling back to one uncomfortable theme: silence. We talk about how modern stimulus wrecks attention, why contemplative prayer feels hard even when we’re sincere, and a simple way to begin training the mind through quiet and breath. We also trace the desert tradition through early Christian hermits and into the Carmelite origin story, including the Rule of St Albert, the crusader background of “allegiance,” and devotion to Mary as Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

If you’ve been craving a more grounded Catholic spirituality, a clearer prayer life, and a real relationship with God, this one will give you language and direction. Subscribe, share the show with a friend, and leave a review so more people can find it.

Support the show

Click here to support the Carmelite Friars!

Have something you'd love to hear Fr. Stephen and John talk about? Email us at myfriendthefriar@gmail.com or click here!