The David Ancell Podcast
For a long time, I'd been wanting to do a podcast. I figure it's a great way to practice doing presentations and to talk about whatever interests me. Well, really, most of this is going to concern the Catholic Faith. These files are all in MP3 format. Please feel free to click on the title to download any of these or subscribe via iTunes by clicking here. Note that, in some browsers, it may be necessary to right-click on the title and click "Save Link As" or "Save Target As" in order to save the file to your computer.
5/9/2007 Real Resurrection
Sorry this one is so late. This one is about how the Gospel accounts should not be taken to believe that the apostles only believed in a "spiritual" resurrection, but they believed the Jesus bodily rose from the dead.
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4/19/2007 The Four Last Things, Part Four: Heaven
Happy Easter Season! We have finally reached the end of the series on the Four Last Things. I've saved the best for last - Heaven! I hope that, in the end, I see all of you there.
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3/30/2007 The Four Last Things, Part Three: Hell
Yes, Hell is real, and you can go there. Of course, I do these podcasts in hopes that I can help people go the other way. Why is there a Hell? What is Hell like? In this brief podcast, I'll explain it.
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3/15/2007 The Four Last Things, Part Two: Judgment
Here is part two of the four part series on the Four Last Things. Whenever I hear about the different things people do, I often wonder if they realize that they will one day have to stand before God and give an account. This podcast explains the particular and general judgment.
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2/28/2007 The Four Last Things, Part One: Death
As promised, I'm beginning my four-part series on the four last things: death, judgment, Hell, and Heaven. Three of these will apply to all of us. Hopefully, Heaven will be the third one for all of us. I've been wanting to do a talk on this for a long time, but I have never had the opportunity. I hope that this will be helpful to you.
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2/21/2007 Confession
As promised, here is my podcast on Confession. Despite what people who haven't gone regularly think, it really is an awesome thing to have. For people who want more information or a simple examination of conscience, I will give you the link to the Archdiocese of Washington DC's initiative which also includes a pastoral letter by Archbishop Wuerl. Just click on the step-by-step guide.
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1/22/2007 Someone Not Something
Although I didn't think of it at the time, this actually goes pretty well with the anniversary of the criminally insane Roe vs. Wade decision. It's something that is meant to give us perspective on what we seek as Christians. The truth that sets us free is not something, but someone. This has major implications for our faith.
Some have used this as a "God wouldn't expect this" excuse for disobeying God's laws. This is an abuse of the truth. Rather, we should obey because we know that the God who commanded is trustworthy. Further, because the truth is a person, not a concept, we can ask for help and receive guidance if we are willing to listen.
I'll be back in early February with a talk on confession.
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1/2/2007 Happy Feast Day
Happy New Year, but more importantly, Happy Feast Day! This is the day of the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. Starting with this podcast, I'm using some new equipment as well as a new theme song to try to improve my production quality. I hope you like it! It is a work in progress as I learn to use the stuff. Anyway, on with the show . . . today, I discuss the Catholic celebration of Christmas with special emphasis on a meditation on what being the Mother of God must have been like for Mary in the beginning.
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12/24/2006 To Those Who Celebrate More Than Generic Winter Holiday
I couldn't resist the urge to both gripe about the politically correct Generic Winter Holiday and Season's Greetings wishes and wish all my listeners a Merry Christmas. Besides, I got an advertisement that some of my coworkers seemed to think was funny, so I'm sharing it with you. No, don't worry; I'm not recording on Christmas Eve. This is pre-recorded. Merry Christmas!
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12/20/2006 The Blessed Virgin Mary
This is the podcast I've been most excited about posting. I was given the honor of talking about the Blessed Virgin Mary to Incarnation Catholic Church in Collierville, TN. I never thought I'd see the day, but I'm grateful for this opportunity. There are so many misconceptions about what Catholics believe, from Protestants who think that we worship Mary to Catholics who think that the Immaculate Conception is Jesus' virginal conception in Mary's womb. Please listen and enjoy.
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12/7/2006 Catholic Social Teaching
Here is the second live talk that I did in November. The topic, as the title says, is Catholic Social Teachings. It isn't perfect, but I thought it went pretty well. This is officially my first full-fledged teaching, and I hope to do more of these. I'm really excited about getting to talk about the Blessed Virgin Mary next week. Hopefully, I'll have that one posted by the week after.
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12/5/2006 Liturgy of the Hours
The next three podcasts will be RCIA talks that I have done. I'll start with this brief talk that I gave in my own parish about Liturgy of the Hours. The other two are quite a bit longer. I did one last week, and next week, I'll do another. I will post them as soon as they are ready.
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11/7/2006 Vote Pro-Life
With election day being tomorrow, I wanted to give a plug for the importance of voting pro-life. I didn't have as much time to do this as I'd hoped to have, but I hope this will work. The next few podcasts will probably be either live presentations or "studio" recordings of presentations that I will be giving live. I have three things to present in the next month and a half.
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10/5/2006 What is Purgatory?
For this podcast, I'm giving you a live presentation that I did at Incarnation Catholic Church in Collierville, TN for their RCIA. It's a short answer to a question: What is purgatory? I didn't include the questions and answers afterward, but I did give a couple of comments after playing the presentation. I hope you enjoy this. Hopefully, I'll do a few more live ones in the future that I can post here.
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9/7/2006 Identifying Dissent
Sorry it has been so long since my last podcast. I hope this is worth the wait. In this podcast, I talk about some ways that you can identify dissent from the teaching of the Magisterium in things that you read or hear about. By no means can I give you a complete list of things. Besides, one telltale sign is what they leave out. If they give broad, sweeping mission statments and kind of forget to mention Jesus Christ, there's a problem here.
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7/23/2006 Learning the Catholic Faith
In today's podcast, I decided to present some brief tips on learning the Catholic Faith. We all have a duty to do so, and it is especially important in this day and age. You may notice that the intro music is a little different, and maybe my podcast will sound different altogether. The reason is that this podcast was created on my new iMac instead of my Windows XP machine.
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7/9/2006 Humble Truth
Some people have equated a claim of knowing the truth with arrogance. Well, if you understand the truth the way modern America understands it, then this is understandable. However, there's another way of understanding knowing the truth and having a duty to speak the truth in love.
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7/3/2006 Only God Can
Sorry this is late. You'll notice that this says it is yesterday's show because I've been trying to get it uploaded since yesterday. It finally made it, so here we go. The basic lesson here is one that I need as much as anyone. Only God can satisfy us. If we try anything else, we'll keep wanting more. It's like saying, "It didn't work, so let's try more of it."
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6/25/2006 Sacred Heart of Jesus, Immaculate Heart of Mary, St. John the Baptist
I decided to do this week's podcast in honor of three holy days (not Holy Days of Obligation, at least not in the United States) that happened right around now. Actually, the Immaculate Heart of Mary was superceded this year by the Birth of St. John the Baptist. This may be a bit different from what you'd expect, but I think it worked okay.
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6/18/2006 Corpus Christi
Today is Corpus Christi, the Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ. I decided to give a short meditation on the Eucharist and then follow it up with a brief explanation of why a new translation of the Liturgy was approved and was needed. I've written a lot on my blog about it, but I wanted my podcast audience to hear it as well. I'm afraid it will cause some confusion at first, but hopefully good catechesis will allow us to really love it in the end.
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6/11/2006 The Holy Trinity
Since today is Trinity Sunday, I thought I'd try to give a bit of a meditation on the Holy Trinity and how we can understand through this dogma that God is love.
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6/4/2006 The Church Follows the Holy Spirit
This is one of those things that I've been wanting to say for a long time. I've heard people who don't believe all that the Church teaches say things like "the Church must be open to the inspiration of the Spirit." Somehow I guess we are supposed to believe that they, rather than the Magisterium, know what the Spirit is saying. Well, my contention here is that the Church is following the Holy Spirit, and I give several examples. Have a Blessed Pentecost Sunday!
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5/21/2006 What's the Big Deal About the Da Vinci Code?
As you probably know, the Da Vinci Code movie was released last Friday. The book itself has been a blockbuster, and the movie may be as well. Maybe some of my listeners are wondering: Why should I be concerned about this? It's just fiction. Well, without going into specifics about the book and movie (at least not this time), I explain why we need to be concerned.
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5/7/2006 The Challenge of Evangelization and Catechesis
One of the greatest challenges in our day and time is trying to preach the Gospel and properly teach it to people who have never really heard the whole truth and who have never seen a living example of it. Fortunately, we have better resources than we used to. In this podcast, I talk about some aspects of speaking the truth in love.
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5/1/2006 For Love of God
Sometimes our world is a bit too concerned with emotions. When we do good deeds, we want to feel good about it. However, those good deeds or that time spent in prayer in which we don't get a good feeling may be more pleasing to God than those we feel good about. After all, in that case, we have served God and gained nothing from it for ourselves.
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4/24/2006 Divine Mercy
Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and I thought I'd give a short meditation on Divine Mercy.
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4/16/2006 He is Risen
Happy Easter! Let us spend this day praising God and thanking him for all he has done. It is the resurrection that demonstrates the truth of Christianity and therefore is the reason for our hope. Though so-called "scholars" have tried to tell us what "really happened," they have never been able to do so.
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4/9/2006 Palm Sunday
This week I decided to go with a simple Palm Sunday meditation.
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4/3/2006 Culture of Life
Today is the anniversary of the death of Pope John Paul II who championed the culture of life. Last Friday, March 31st, was the anniversary of the death of Terry Schiavo. What can their deaths tell us about the Culture of Life?
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3/27/2006 How Do We Know That God Exists?
While we certainly can't prove scientifically that God exists, there are ways in which we can know him. The alternative to believing in God is absurdity. (9529 K)
3/20/2006 Freedom
The topic of freedom is one that I have studied with much interest lately. Our society is mistaken when it comes to freedom. Freedom is the ability to do what is good. (12233 K)
3/13/2006 Purpose
In order to make right use of anything, especially our lives, we must know the purpose and live according to that purpose. This is the case no matter how sincere we are. (7107 K)
3/5/2006 Welcome!
I've been wanting to do this for a long time, now I have my first podcast on the web. This show is my introduction to the podcast and deal with how our lives must reflect the idea that God is real, and distinct from us. (7368 K)