A Little Closer

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1. Episode 8: Politics and Reconciliation

   3 november 2026 · 17 min

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   What happens when we realize that in someone else’s story, we are the enemy? Father Luigi Gioia begins with a rainy day in Salzburg, where a museum showed him the First World War from the Austrian side for the first time. From there he asks how politics, built to prevent war, has slid into cultural conflict, echo chambers and partisanship, and why Remembrance Sunday points to something deeper. Drawing on Romans 5 and Lamentations 3, he offers a narrative that no algorithm can contaminate: while we were enemies, we were reconciled. He closes with a practical mission, which is to carry kindness, compassion and care for everyone we meet into our families, workplaces and politics. Lees meer

2. Episode 7: Living With Myself

   27 oktober 2026 · 17 min

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   How do you live with yourself? Fr Luigi Gioia takes a question we usually aim at other people and turns it inward. We are good at denial, self justification and self pity, and none of them bring peace. Drawing on the First Letter of John, “whenever our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and he knows everything,” this episode looks at confession and spiritual counselling not as therapy and not as the kind ear of a friend, but as the one assurance of forgiveness that survives all the half truths we tell ourselves. Lees meer

3. Episode 6: Blind Spots

   20 oktober 2026 · 16 min

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   Fr Luigi Gioia, Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, begins with a history of the crusades by Dan Jones that he recently finished on audiobook. How could medieval Christians, saints among them, believe that Scripture justified killing in the name of Christ, when almost no Christian believes that today? The same question applies to slavery, antisemitism, and the treatment of women. Lees meer

   His answer is blind spots. Some are personal and some belong to a whole generation, and they can be so deep that they hide what should be plain as day. He turns to the parable of the sower in Matthew’s Gospel and to Peter’s sword in the garden, and reflects on our selective hearing, with some help from his Yorkie, Giotto. He also reflects on a God who keeps sowing seeds on every kind of soil and keeps healing the ears our violence cuts off, until one seed finally takes root.

4. Episode 5: Slow Anger

   13 oktober 2026 · 16 min

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   Is it wrong to feel outrage at injustice? Is it wrong for God to feel it? In this sermon, the Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia, Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, reads Jesus’ parable of the enraged king (Matthew 22) alongside John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath. He argues that indignation at exploitation and cruelty is a moral duty, but that the God of Scripture is “slow to anger and abounding in love” (Exodus 34:6). God’s anger does not lash out in revenge. It turns into compassion, healing and a renewed commitment to rescue. Fr. Luigi invites us to do the same: stop posturing, stop moaning, and turn our anger into solidarity and concrete acts of care, however small. Lees meer

5. Episode 4: Recover Agency

   6 oktober 2026 · 16 min

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   What do we do when rights we took for granted are denied, manipulated, or emptied of meaning? In this homily on Luke 14, Father Luigi Gioia, Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, turns to Simone Weil's The Need for Roots, written in 1943, five years before the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Weil argued that a just society must be built on obligations before rights. Lees meer

   Does that take agency away from people? Father Luigi answers through Martin Luther King's vision of the Beloved Community and the words of Jesus: those who humble themselves will be exalted. Humility is not something we endure but something we choose, and it is where our deepest agency lies. At the banquet of life we are not the guests hoping for a good seat. We are the hosts.

   A homily about feeling powerless, winning by conversion rather than coercion, and the long game of unconditional love.

6. Episode 3: The Antidote To Guilt

   29 september 2026 · 16 min

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   Guilt can feel like the responsible response to pain, but what if it keeps us from the very love we need? In this sermon, The Rev. Dr. Luigi Gioia begins with a tragic accident in Oxford and asks why we search for someone to blame when misfortune strikes. He describes guilt as a rabbit hole that makes us withdraw instead of accepting healing, and he offers a different picture of repentance: not penance we impose on ourselves, but a response to being touched and transformed by God's love. Through the parables of the lost sheep, the prodigal son, and the patient gardener tending the fig tree, he invites us to leave self-involved guilt behind and reach out to those who feel lost. Lees meer

7. Episode 2: God Makes Room For Us

   22 september 2026 · 16 min

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   In this episode, Father Luigi Gioia reflects on the creation narrative in Genesis and what it reveals about the nature of love. He asks what it means that God creates human beings in his own image, free and independent, rather than as beings under total control. Drawing on the story of creation, the idea of rest, and the challenge of evil and suffering, he explores how real love, and real leadership, means giving everything you have and then making room for others to become their own person, while remaining ready to help if needed. Lees meer

8. Episode 1: Sit A Little Closer

   17 september 2026 · 17 min

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   Fr Luigi Gioia, Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, introduces this new podcast built from homilies preached throughout the liturgical year. Lees meer

   In this first meditation, he turns to the fox and the little prince from Antoine de Saint Exupery's classic, and asks what actually creates a lasting tie between two people. Not love, he argues, but trust, the slow, patient work of learning we can rely on someone. He traces that same pattern in the Gospel of Mark, where Jesus asks his disciples to trust him long before he asks them to love him.

   A reflection on faith, doubt, and the ordinary patience it takes to let God, and each other, come a little closer.

9. Welcome to A Little Closer

   16 september 2026 · 1 min

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   In this introductory episode, Fr. Luigi Gioia, Theologian in Residence at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue, welcomes listeners to A Little Closer, a podcast built from homilies preached throughout the liturgical year. He explains the idea behind the show: faith does not require having everything figured out, and questions or doubts are not obstacles to a relationship with God. Each episode will explore Scripture, prayer, hope, anxiety, forgiveness, and the ordinary moments where faith becomes real, with no easy answers, just the ancient Word spoken into daily life. Lees meer