This first full week of August began with a visit to Family Theater on Sunday, August 6, of first term Nebraska Congressman Jeff Fortenberry. Our guest is a friend of Barbara Nicolosi of Act One fame and spoke at the Act One Graduation Dinner on Saturday, August 5.
At Family Theater The congressman spoke about being a Catholic in Washington. We wish him well as a champion of life and of Justice in the nations's capitol.
On Tuesday, August 8, Barbara Nicolosi visits Family Theater to speak this week and next on Friendship in Hollywood. Always thought-provoking and sometimes provocative, Barbara is never boring.
On Wednesday, August 9, Leo Severino visits Family Theater for another session of Going Deeper at 8:15 PM. This follows informal prayer beginning at 7 PM in the Family Theater Chapel.
On Thursday, August 10, at 4 PM at Family Theater, the Goretti Chastity Group sponsors at Holy Hour with Benediction and a 7 PM training session for Chastity speakers.
The Whole Going Deeper Series of talks, almost 25 hours in Toto, is available through this site.
THE QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Is Mel Gibson's career in Hollywood in jeopardy? Let me know your opinion.
If you have a prayer intention, send it to this site and we will pray for every reasonable intention at daily Mass here at Family Theater.
Peace and I pray God's blessing on you,
Fr. Willy
While Blessed John Paul II was pope as he was going through illness and difficult days, a Capuchin Friar stood below his window in Saint Peter's Square, raised his fist and cried out "Coraggio." Just what the Pope needed to hear. The Pope made him preacher to the Papal Household. We all need that "Corragio" from God and others from time to time. I hope this blog gives a lift and helps inspire all who read it, at least from time to time.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Saturday, July 22, 2006
The Papacy and the Priesthood
This week's Going Deeper presentation, on the papacy and the priesthood (the primacy of Peter), is now available as a podcast.
visit the podcast feed page
subscribe to the series via iTunes
listen to this episode now
visit the podcast feed page
subscribe to the series via iTunes
listen to this episode now
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Going Deeper--Podcasts, complete set
Dear Friend,
This comes to advise you that this coming week will see the availability of the complete set of all 22 hours of "Going Deeper" with Leo Severino from Family Theater in Hollywood. If you are seeking:
These are challenging programs recorded on an iPod and now available to you for downloading during the coming week.
The URL for the Going Deeper podcast feed is:
Questions about Going Deeper can be directed to this site. Family Theater is a Catholic production house in Hollywood, CA on Sunset Blvd. Next year Family Theater will celebrate 60 years of producing radio and television and film programs along with a national billboard campaign, an international film festival for undergraduate and graduate students called the Angelus Student Film Festival, and an outreach to young people in Hollywood with Prayer and Pasta once a month, and a variety of programs like Going Deeper to support young and not so young people in Hollywood.
Be on the lookout this week for the complete set of "Going Deeper" seminars.
Peace and a great summer,
Fr. Willy
This comes to advise you that this coming week will see the availability of the complete set of all 22 hours of "Going Deeper" with Leo Severino from Family Theater in Hollywood. If you are seeking:
- to know more about God, His purposes and designs,
- about Jesus and his fulfillment of the great covenants to accomplish humanity's salvation,
- about the original Church founded by Christ upon the apostles and guided through the centuries by the Holy Spirit,
- about the Bible and its centrality to Christian and Catholic life and liturgy,
- about Mary and the saints in the ongoing pilgrimage of God's people,
- about the sacraments of Eucharist and reconciliation,
- about ordained priesthood
- about making moral decisions in one's daily life.
Then this is the site for you.
Since October of 2005 Leo has been presenting one-hour seminars on the faith for Christians who are not yet Catholic but seek to know more about the Catholic Church and for Catholics who wish to enhance their understanding of the faith.These are challenging programs recorded on an iPod and now available to you for downloading during the coming week.
The URL for the Going Deeper podcast feed is:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GoingDeeperPodcasts
Questions about Going Deeper can be directed to this site. Family Theater is a Catholic production house in Hollywood, CA on Sunset Blvd. Next year Family Theater will celebrate 60 years of producing radio and television and film programs along with a national billboard campaign, an international film festival for undergraduate and graduate students called the Angelus Student Film Festival, and an outreach to young people in Hollywood with Prayer and Pasta once a month, and a variety of programs like Going Deeper to support young and not so young people in Hollywood.
Be on the lookout this week for the complete set of "Going Deeper" seminars.
Peace and a great summer,
Fr. Willy
Thursday, March 16, 2006
What's New in Catholic Hollywood
Dear Friends,
Leo Severino is a young lawyer who has served as a parish youth minister and worked at Fox in the entertainment industry. Now he is the founder, along with Eduardo Verastegui, of Metanoiafilms. They have just completed their first feature film as a production company called Bella.
Leo has been presenting a weekly series of talks called Going Deeper for young people in Hollywood. Going Deeper is designed to assist people who are looking for the truth, first through human reason and then through revealed faith in scripture, tradition and the Leadership of the Church. While intended to assist people who are thinking about joining the Catholic Church, Going Deeper is also very helpful to cradle Catholics who wish to get to know their faith better. For several months now Going Deeper has been a weekly staple at Family Theater at 8 PM on Wednesday nights. It is open to the public and is very well attended. Family Theater is located at 7201 Sunset Blvd. Hollywoood, CA. 90046.
In addition to Going Deeper, Matthew Malek, a young man from Detroit who studied in the seminary for the Archdiocese of Detroit in that city and in Rome, is presenting an eight part series on the radical and beautiful teachings of Pope John Paul II called collectively The Theology of the Body. Matthew has a energetic and passionate love for his subject. The late Holy Father devoted the first four years of his Wednesday General Audiences
to the presentation of a comprehensive view of human sexuality. An emerging generation of Catholics takes this cahllenging and beautiful teaching seriously and Matthew is one of a number of people who are able to make this subject come alive in healthy ways.
The Theology of the Body takes place at 8 PM on Tuesday nights at Family theater.
These are two of a number of programs and events for young Catholics in Hollywood that are rooted in prayer and a deepening knowledge of one's faith. Saint Victor's Church on Holloway in West Hollywood sponsors a weekly Holy Hour at 8 PM on Fridays along with confession and Reconciliation.
Family Theater sponsors a monthly open house for young Catholics in Hollywood called Prayer and Pasta.
The Family Theater events are usually preceded or followed by one of a variety of prayers available in the Catholic Church: Eucharist, Rosary, Benediction, Meditation, Stations of the Cross, etc.
Something quite novel is happening in Hollywood among Catholics. It is exciting to be a part of it and makes it very easy to hope that Hollywood might become a place where God is welcome and his disciples are too. Of course there have long been Catholics in Hollywood and many have been very generous in collaborating with Family Theater over the last 60 years. More than five hundred A-list actors have participated in Family Theater productions over the years, Grace Keely, Bing Crosby, James Dean, Loretta Young and Jimmy Stewart are just a few. Paulist productions has also been the beneficiary of many good men and women stepping forward to help.
In recent years it is clear that there is a new ethos in Hollywood among young Catholics who are not squeamish about letting it be known that they are people of faith trying to live that faith with integrity and fidelity. Jim Caviezel is one of the better known Catholics of this generation. They love getting together to pray often in devout and traditional forms of mainline Catholic worship such as the Eucharist, Benediction, the Rosary. It is common to find fifty or sixty young Catholics and their friends gathered for a holy hour on Friday night at Saint Victor's in West Hollywood. Saint Victor's parish welcomes them and is very accommodating.
A concluding few comments:
Leo Severino is a young lawyer who has served as a parish youth minister and worked at Fox in the entertainment industry. Now he is the founder, along with Eduardo Verastegui, of Metanoiafilms. They have just completed their first feature film as a production company called Bella.
Leo has been presenting a weekly series of talks called Going Deeper for young people in Hollywood. Going Deeper is designed to assist people who are looking for the truth, first through human reason and then through revealed faith in scripture, tradition and the Leadership of the Church. While intended to assist people who are thinking about joining the Catholic Church, Going Deeper is also very helpful to cradle Catholics who wish to get to know their faith better. For several months now Going Deeper has been a weekly staple at Family Theater at 8 PM on Wednesday nights. It is open to the public and is very well attended. Family Theater is located at 7201 Sunset Blvd. Hollywoood, CA. 90046.
In addition to Going Deeper, Matthew Malek, a young man from Detroit who studied in the seminary for the Archdiocese of Detroit in that city and in Rome, is presenting an eight part series on the radical and beautiful teachings of Pope John Paul II called collectively The Theology of the Body. Matthew has a energetic and passionate love for his subject. The late Holy Father devoted the first four years of his Wednesday General Audiences
to the presentation of a comprehensive view of human sexuality. An emerging generation of Catholics takes this cahllenging and beautiful teaching seriously and Matthew is one of a number of people who are able to make this subject come alive in healthy ways.
The Theology of the Body takes place at 8 PM on Tuesday nights at Family theater.
These are two of a number of programs and events for young Catholics in Hollywood that are rooted in prayer and a deepening knowledge of one's faith. Saint Victor's Church on Holloway in West Hollywood sponsors a weekly Holy Hour at 8 PM on Fridays along with confession and Reconciliation.
Family Theater sponsors a monthly open house for young Catholics in Hollywood called Prayer and Pasta.
The Family Theater events are usually preceded or followed by one of a variety of prayers available in the Catholic Church: Eucharist, Rosary, Benediction, Meditation, Stations of the Cross, etc.
Something quite novel is happening in Hollywood among Catholics. It is exciting to be a part of it and makes it very easy to hope that Hollywood might become a place where God is welcome and his disciples are too. Of course there have long been Catholics in Hollywood and many have been very generous in collaborating with Family Theater over the last 60 years. More than five hundred A-list actors have participated in Family Theater productions over the years, Grace Keely, Bing Crosby, James Dean, Loretta Young and Jimmy Stewart are just a few. Paulist productions has also been the beneficiary of many good men and women stepping forward to help.
In recent years it is clear that there is a new ethos in Hollywood among young Catholics who are not squeamish about letting it be known that they are people of faith trying to live that faith with integrity and fidelity. Jim Caviezel is one of the better known Catholics of this generation. They love getting together to pray often in devout and traditional forms of mainline Catholic worship such as the Eucharist, Benediction, the Rosary. It is common to find fifty or sixty young Catholics and their friends gathered for a holy hour on Friday night at Saint Victor's in West Hollywood. Saint Victor's parish welcomes them and is very accommodating.
A concluding few comments:
- I have the very strong belief, shared by many others here in Hollywood, that there is no greater force for good on this earth than the power of prayer, especially communal prayer. Obviously, the source and summit of all Christian prayer for Catholics is the Eucharist. This is the pearl of great price and the source of strength we need for any worthwhile enterprise. Many young Catholics in Hollywood share the Eucharist daily. They and others also pray the Rosary and the Litrugy of the hours.
- With that in mind, I believe that Hollywood will undergo a profound transformation if Catholics, other Christians, Jews and other people of good will pray for the hand of Providence to guide them and Hollywood. And, as the Gospels remind us, pray without ceasing.
- It seems to me that Catholics, with two millennia of experience in prayer and asceticism, with a rich mystical tradition, with centuries of loving God and neighbor in distinctive works of charity, with generations of extraordinary commitment to educating the heart and the mind of the young, with decades and decades of patronizing the arts and artists, with so much experience in preserving the best of civilization through beacons of light and faith called monasteries,in very dark ages; it seems to me that this great Catholic Church is especially well-equipped to begin laying the foundation for a profound transformation in Hollywood.
- Going Deeper, Theology of the Body, Prayer and Pasta, Saint Victor's Holy Hours, young people going to daily Eucharist, praying the Liturgy of the Hours, Praying the Rosary together, spending time before the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament in the quiet of the Church, visiting the imprisoned and the sick and the homeless and the troubled in mind and spirit. I am so heartened by what I see of young Catholics in Hollywood that I really do have hope that God is doing something new and powerful and it is exciting to be present to witness this unfolding before our eyes.
- As the Good Pope John Paul II so often said, "Be not afraid." "Be not afraid of new technology in the media of communications, be not afraid of the criticism of the world for our Savior has said, 'I have conquered the world.'"
Peace and may you know that you are in our prayers. May I ask the same from you.
In Christ,
Fr. Willy Raymond, CSC.
Monday, March 06, 2006
More World Youth Day podcasts now available
We've just added 13 more podcasts from my pilgrimage to Cologne for World Youth Day.
- Click here to subscribe to my World Youth Day podcasts using iTunes
- Visit Podcast Alley to vote for my podcast
- Subscribe to the podcast with any podcatching software by using this URL: feeds.feedburner.com/WYD2005
Saturday, March 04, 2006
Young Catholic Hollywood Coming Alive and Going Deeper
Dear Friends,
In the first two months of 2006 young Catholic actors, writers, directors, amnagers and agents and those aspiring to careers in Hollywood have been noticably more active in their faith.
From November to March, Leo Severino, a former youth minister in Orange County and now a lawyer and film producer has been engaging young Hollywood with a series of talks collectively called "Going Deeper."
Leo is consistently attracting 30-50 people a night on Wedensdays at Family Theater in Hollywood at 7201 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90046
I have been impressed by the quality of the presentation, both content and style. It is also moving to see how many of the participants remain or go off and spend hours in some cases discussing their faith into the wee hours.
Another interesting development in recent months is Holywood of the Cross. An intiative started by Matthew Malek of Detroit, Michigan. Holywood has been sponsoring twice monthly holy hours at Saint Victor's in West Hollywood and now is sponsroing Theology of the Body led by Matthew Malek, at Family Theater on Tuesday evenings each week for eight weeks.
Both Theology of the Body and Going Deeper are preceeded by Prayer at 7 PM at Family Theater. This prayer may be the Eucharist, the simple Rosary, Vespers, mediatation and contemplation or some other form of Catholic worship or devotion.
Also, Family Theater Prayer and Pasta continues on the third Wednesday of each month and offers young Catholics an opportunity to come together for prayer, reflection and a social, and networking meal. Prayer and Pasta is nearing its third birthday serving young Catholic in the entertainment industry in the middle of Hollywood.
If you receive this please keep us in your prayers and also kindly send this onto people that you know in the entertainment industry who might benefit from participating in some of the evening programs at Familly Theater:
To repeat, Theology of the Body with Matthew Malek is on Tuesday nights following7 PM Prayer; "Going Deeper" is on Wednesday nights following 7 PM Prayer and Prayer and Pasta is every third Wednesday of the month beginning at 7 Pm with prayer, refelction and a pasta meal.
MAy God bless you and your family during lent with a deep longing for his gifts in your life.
Fr. Willy
In the first two months of 2006 young Catholic actors, writers, directors, amnagers and agents and those aspiring to careers in Hollywood have been noticably more active in their faith.
From November to March, Leo Severino, a former youth minister in Orange County and now a lawyer and film producer has been engaging young Hollywood with a series of talks collectively called "Going Deeper."
Leo is consistently attracting 30-50 people a night on Wedensdays at Family Theater in Hollywood at 7201 Sunset Blvd, Hollywood, CA 90046
I have been impressed by the quality of the presentation, both content and style. It is also moving to see how many of the participants remain or go off and spend hours in some cases discussing their faith into the wee hours.
Another interesting development in recent months is Holywood of the Cross. An intiative started by Matthew Malek of Detroit, Michigan. Holywood has been sponsoring twice monthly holy hours at Saint Victor's in West Hollywood and now is sponsroing Theology of the Body led by Matthew Malek, at Family Theater on Tuesday evenings each week for eight weeks.
Both Theology of the Body and Going Deeper are preceeded by Prayer at 7 PM at Family Theater. This prayer may be the Eucharist, the simple Rosary, Vespers, mediatation and contemplation or some other form of Catholic worship or devotion.
Also, Family Theater Prayer and Pasta continues on the third Wednesday of each month and offers young Catholics an opportunity to come together for prayer, reflection and a social, and networking meal. Prayer and Pasta is nearing its third birthday serving young Catholic in the entertainment industry in the middle of Hollywood.
If you receive this please keep us in your prayers and also kindly send this onto people that you know in the entertainment industry who might benefit from participating in some of the evening programs at Familly Theater:
To repeat, Theology of the Body with Matthew Malek is on Tuesday nights following7 PM Prayer; "Going Deeper" is on Wednesday nights following 7 PM Prayer and Prayer and Pasta is every third Wednesday of the month beginning at 7 Pm with prayer, refelction and a pasta meal.
MAy God bless you and your family during lent with a deep longing for his gifts in your life.
Fr. Willy
Monday, February 27, 2006
Going Deeper--the First Four Hours
Dear Friend,
Apologies for the long delay. It has been more difficult than we anticipated to get the digital recordings transferred to CD's edited, than returned to Family theater and then get them downloaded for podcasting. However, we now know how to do it and have the first four hours ready for your listening as we go deeper into our understanding of {1} Who we are, {2} How we got here and {3} Why we are here. Leo Severino is a young lawyer from USC but we Notre Dame Alumni will not hold that against him. He has worked at Fox Studios and as a Youth Minister in a Catholic Parish. He is now a Manager of tealent in Hollywood, a feature film producer and very engaging teacher. His film BELLA, starring Eduardo Verastegui, is in post production and should be released in the next year, God willing.
Family Theater is delighted to offer these Going Deeper Sessions in the hope that they will enrich your faith and draw you deeper into the Mystery of God's Creative Love and Design for all of us.
These talks are very exciting and if you have observations or questions please enter them at this site and we will be glad to respond.
Since we are two days from Lent, all of us at Going Deeper and Family Theater Productions on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood pray that your Lent floods you with God's grace and a springtime of the spirit.
I hope you will always remember: "The Family That Prays Together, Satys Together." I am sure you have heard that phrase, it originated right here at Family Theater in 1947 with Father Patrick Peyton, CSC.
May God the Father Who Created you, God the Son who Saved you and God the Holy Spirit who
The URL for the Going Deeper podcast is
For a visual demonstration of how to subscribe to my podcast and play it using iTunes, click here.
Apologies for the long delay. It has been more difficult than we anticipated to get the digital recordings transferred to CD's edited, than returned to Family theater and then get them downloaded for podcasting. However, we now know how to do it and have the first four hours ready for your listening as we go deeper into our understanding of {1} Who we are, {2} How we got here and {3} Why we are here. Leo Severino is a young lawyer from USC but we Notre Dame Alumni will not hold that against him. He has worked at Fox Studios and as a Youth Minister in a Catholic Parish. He is now a Manager of tealent in Hollywood, a feature film producer and very engaging teacher. His film BELLA, starring Eduardo Verastegui, is in post production and should be released in the next year, God willing.
Family Theater is delighted to offer these Going Deeper Sessions in the hope that they will enrich your faith and draw you deeper into the Mystery of God's Creative Love and Design for all of us.
These talks are very exciting and if you have observations or questions please enter them at this site and we will be glad to respond.
Since we are two days from Lent, all of us at Going Deeper and Family Theater Productions on Sunset Blvd in Hollywood pray that your Lent floods you with God's grace and a springtime of the spirit.
I hope you will always remember: "The Family That Prays Together, Satys Together." I am sure you have heard that phrase, it originated right here at Family Theater in 1947 with Father Patrick Peyton, CSC.
May God the Father Who Created you, God the Son who Saved you and God the Holy Spirit who
The URL for the Going Deeper podcast is
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GoingDeeperPodcastsOnce a podcast has been downloaded to your computer, it can be either played on your computer or saved onto a portable music player (MP3 player - an iPod or other similar device) so that you can listen to it wherever, whenever.
For a visual demonstration of how to subscribe to my podcast and play it using iTunes, click here.
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