Purpose and Perseverance Podcast

Deacon Brad Watkins
  • 5.0 (4)
  • Health & Fitness
  • Updated Weekly

"By your perseverance, you will secure your lives." Luke 21:19 Conversations ordered to understanding our purpose, living well, and persevering in mind, body, and soul. AMDG

  1. 5d ago

    #69 Is It Cheating?

    GLP-1 drugs like semaglutide and tirzepatide are helping people lose significant amounts of weight and, in many cases, improve their long-term health. But along with their growing popularity has come a strange stigma: the idea that using medication to lose weight is somehow "cheating." In this episode, I look at GLP-1s from the perspective of someone who is neither a doctor nor an evangelist for these drugs. There are real benefits, real risks, and decisions that belong between individuals and their physicians. But if someone who has struggled with obesity can use a medication to become healthier, more capable, and potentially live a longer and fuller life, why should the rest of us resent how they got there? Along the way, I consider what the parable of the workers in the vineyard might have to teach us about our tendency to compare our path with someone else's - and why another person's success doesn't diminish our own. AMDG

  2. Sep 6

    #68 Fortitude or Forbearance: Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

    When someone wrongs us, Jesus tells us to do something increasingly countercultural: go directly to the person and speak to them alone. In this homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, I reflect on our modern tendency to broadcast grievances to an ever-larger audience and propose two more virtuous responses: fortitude or forbearance. If something needs to be said, have the courage to say it to the person who needs to hear it. If it doesn't, have the charity to forgive it and let it go. Because the goal isn't to win the argument. It's to win over our brother.

    #68 Fortitude or Forbearance: Homily for the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

  3. Aug 31

    #67 Fr. John De Guzman

    This episode is a conversation with my very dear friend, Fr. John De Guzman. After his brief introduction and how we came to know each other, and later become close friends, we discuss the idea of perseverance, especially for him throughout his eight years of seminary formation, before moving to the larger conversation of how we might initiate conversations in the Church of better ministering to live fully and well as an integrated unity of body and soul. AMDG

    #67 Fr. John De Guzman

  4. Aug 23

    #66 Keynote Address for the Diocese of Arlington 2026 Mental Health Day of Prayer

    This episode is a recording of my keynote address at the Diocese of Arlington's Mental Health Day of Prayer in August 2026. I explore what our Catholic understanding of the human person can contribute to the growing conversation around mental health, anxiety, suffering, and human flourishing. Drawing from Scripture, Catholic anthropology, more than three decades of working with young people, and my own experience as a teacher, coach, husband, father, and deacon, I consider what happens when we begin to see many of the struggles people face not simply as problems of the "mind," but within the context of the whole person. We are embodied souls. Sleep, movement, nutrition, relationships, environment, purpose, prayer, suffering, and our spiritual lives are not isolated compartments. They interact within a single human person. When those dimensions of life become fragmented, we often suffer. When they begin moving toward greater integration, we can begin moving toward greater health and wholeness. Ultimately, this is not simply a conversation about mental health. It is a conversation about what it means to be human - and about the Church's responsibility to care for the whole person Christ came to redeem: body and soul. The Church possesses an anthropology that understands the human being as an integrated unity of body and soul; we need to become much better at actually living, ministering, and caring for people as though we believe it.

    #66 Keynote Address for the Diocese of Arlington 2026 Mental Health Day of Prayer

  5. Aug 17

    #65 Unable

    A day walking the hills and stairs of VMI during Matriculation got me thinking about a lesson a PE professor taught me nearly forty years ago: fitness isn't just about what we look like or what we can do in the gym. It's about what we are capable of doing when circumstances demand something from us. In this episode, I explore the progression from unable to able to capable to dependable, and what it means to prepare ourselves physically and practically so that when life places demands on us, we aren't merely able to take care of ourselves - we are capable of helping, and dependable enough that others can count on us.

    #65 Unable

  6. Aug 9

    #64 The Storm Didn't Stop

    Many years ago, during a silent retreat at Mepkin Abbey, I spent an early morning praying with Matthew's account of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. Sitting alone in the monastery refectory before sunrise, with a Bible and a bottomless cup of coffee, I encountered that familiar Gospel in a way that has stayed with me for decades. Listening to the same passage again this Sunday, I heard something new in it - a remarkable lesson about purpose and perseverance. Peter actually walks on water while his eyes are fixed on Jesus. The storm is already raging. The wind is blowing. The waves are there. None of that changes. What changes is Peter's attention. In this episode, I reflect on what Peter's experience can teach us about remaining focused on our purpose when circumstances are beyond our control, how it connects to last week's episode, "Expect Nothing," and why perseverance doesn't mean never sinking. Sometimes perseverance looks like walking on water. Sometimes it looks like crying out, "Lord, save me," taking the hand Christ extends to us, and beginning again.

  7. Aug 3

    #63 Expect Nothing

    What if many of our frustrations and disappointments have less to do with God's will than with our own expectations? In this episode, I explore the difference between expectations and aspirations, and why that distinction has become increasingly important in my own life. Along the way, I reflect on Marcus Aurelius, Carol Dweck's concept of the "growth mindset," Pope St. John XXIII, and St. Alphonsus Liguori's Uniformity with God's Will. I also share stories from former students whose lives unfolded in ways neither of them expected, yet ultimately revealed a better path than they could have imagined. Together, these insights point toward a simple but challenging idea: aspire greatly, work diligently, and pray boldly, but hold your own timetable loosely enough that God remains free to surprise you. Perhaps real peace is found not in seeing our plans fulfilled, but in trusting the One who writes a better story than we could ever write ourselves.

    #63 Expect Nothing

  8. Jul 26

    #62 Out of Joy: What If Excellence Looks Ordinary?

    I'm pretty excited about this one. I wouldn't usually say this, but I think this might be one of the more important episodes I've recorded so far. Modern culture tells us that joy comes after achievement. St. Francis of Assisi, elite ultramarathoner Courtney Dauwalter, and even today's Gospel suggest something entirely different. In this episode, I explore the surprising relationship between joy, excellence, and the ordinary duties that make up most of our lives. Along the way, I reflect on the work of three authors - Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Jim Murphy, and Brad Stulberg - the remarkable Triple Crown of Courtney Dauwalter, one of St. Francis' most famous stories, and the hidden life of Christ at Nazareth. Then I propose that picking up sticks after a storm, folding laundry, preparing lessons, raising children, and faithfully doing the next right thing may be far closer to excellence than we ever imagined. If you've ever wondered whether your ordinary life really matters, this episode could be for you.

    #62 Out of Joy: What If Excellence Looks Ordinary?
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"By your perseverance, you will secure your lives." Luke 21:19 Conversations ordered to understanding our purpose, living well, and persevering in mind, body, and soul. AMDG

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