Mass Media in Missouri

I'm in St. Louis giving a retreat to 84 men at the White House Jesuit Retreat House. I came a day early to do some video-taping at St. Joseph Radio in St. Charles, Missouri. I met this group in California last year and have begun to collaborate with them in producing CD's of talks and interviews as well as original DVD's. Lu Cortese is the woman of vision who began all this and the studios in St. Charles include a bookstore and even a coffee house known as St. Joe's Java.

Yesterday I went to their TV studio, IHS Productions, and after taping a one hour interview about the Sacred Heart and the Apostleship of Prayer with a local priest, Fr. Noah Waldman, I tried my hand at taping a show. We're hoping that it can become part of a series that would be offered to Catholic TV stations. I was a bit nervous because the sample show that I'd seen had the presenter seated in a chair talking to the camera. Thankfully the set in the studio had me behind a table where I could place my Bible, some notes, and my hands which tend to wander all over the place when I'm talking. I'm used to speaking to groups at a podium and this was a bit tricky because I spoke to a couple cameras which lit up, telling me when I should move my attention to one or the other of them. The talk I gave is one I often use on retreats--the Sacrament of Reconciliation from Jesus' Perspective--and so it flowed quite well and the technical people behind the scenes were happy with the way it turned out.

As I drove out to St. Charles yesterday morning I played a musical CD with which I prayed, offering praise to God for this opportunity and asking His help. I offered the coming hours up to God and prayed that all of them might be for His greater honor and glory and not mine. This is one of the beauties of "offering it up." In offering to God our day with its activities, we pray that His will be done and that as it is accomplished all praise and glory will go to Him.