Man, this conversation would have made an awesome podcast episode!
By FATHER CHRISTOPHER TRUMMER
Special to Catholic Times
Over the years, my brother Father Michael Trummer, our friend Joe Herring, and I would often say this at the end of our conversations. These were deeply edifying conversations about prayer and the spiritual life, the Church, evangelization, and spiritual gifts (charisms). At first glance, it might sound presumptuous or prideful to assume that a conversation between friends would be interesting and worthwhile to others, as if we saw ourselves as founts of wisdom and insight to whom strangers should be eager to listen, but that wasn’t the sentiment at all. We genuinely experienced joy and encouragement in our conversations, and we learned a lot from each other. We sincerely wanted other people to share this experience.
The friendship that made these conversations possible had been forged years earlier during our time together at Bishop Simon Bruté College Seminary. Bruté had offered us an ideal environment for forging a deep and enduring friendship, something that is increasingly difficult for young people — especially men, it seems — to find.
Joe (Joseph) Herring had been a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis. While he did not continue in priestly formation, the three of us kept in touch over the years, not only through messages and calls but also by visiting each other and attending the same pilgrimages and conferences.
What had long been an inside joke — turning our conversations into a podcast — became a serious idea in late 2023. I suggested we try it, though my brother initially objected: “There are already too many podcasts — even good Catholic ones.” And he was right. With so much excellent content out there, how could we possibly contribute something unique and valuable? Still, the idea stuck with us. Over time, we kept coming back to the same conviction: the kinds of conversations we were having — rooted especially in our shared experience of “Baptism in the Holy Spirit” and the power of the charisms — were almost non-existent in the mainstream Catholic discourse. We believed the rest of the Church needed to hear them.
In fact, the United States Bishops effectively said as much. In a 1997 document praising the Charismatic Renewal, the bishops wrote:
“It is our conviction that baptism in the Holy Spirit, understood as the reawakening in Christian experience of the presence and action of the Holy Spirit given in Christian initiation, and manifested in a broad range of charisms, including those closely associated with the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, is part of the normal Christian life”(USCCB, Grace for the New Springtime, emphasis added).
This, we decided, would be our “niche,” the primary focus and lens of our podcast. This quote was also the source of our podcast title: The Normal Christian Life. Our mission is to convince people, through teaching and personal testimony, that radical intimacy with God, authentic holiness, and the exercise of spiritual gifts — all of which we see in Scripture and in the lives of the saints — are not meant to be exceptions to the norm. Rather, they are the norm, if only we can learn how to receive and live out these graces, which God offers His Church in every age to fulfill the mission entrusted to her. If we are going to undertake the “New Evangelization” in a time that many are calling a new “Apostolic Age” — a world of unbelief and hostility to God that is similar to what the early Church faced — we need the transforming grace and evangelizing power of a “New Pentecost.”
I’ll be honest, running a podcast is not for the faint of heart, and it was slow going for a long time. We started in January 2024. For the first year, the podcast was audio only, and we had several hundred faithful listeners. We enjoyed recording our episodes, and we received highly positive feedback, especially from friends and parishioners. But it didn’t really take off. Then, in January 2025, we kicked off the video version of the podcast on YouTube. Joe decided to discontinue as a regular host, and we welcomed our friend Mary Bielski, a Catholic missionary and speaker, as a co-host. By the grace of God and with the help of promotional efforts, our audience has absolutely exploded in recent months. Our YouTube channel has more than 100,000 subscribers, a milestone that was unthinkable just a few months ago.
The landscape of social media and podcasting offers amazing opportunities to reach people with the Good News of Jesus Christ and the teachings of the Catholic Church. Of course, there are also numerous challenges and potential pitfalls associated with this new digital landscape, but we cannot let these difficulties deter us from meeting people where they are. In the words of St. Paul, “Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!” (1 Cor 9:16). We are deeply grateful for the opportunity to reach so many hearts with the Gospel, and we’re excited to see what God wants to do through this show — all for His glory and, by His grace, for the renewal of the Church.
Father Christopher Trummer, S.T.L, is parochial vicar at St. Boniface Parish in Edwardsville, associate delegate for Health Care Professionals, associate chaplain of the Springfield Chapter of the Catholic Physicians Guild/Catholic Medical Association and has a license in Sacred Theology in Moral Theology at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome, Italy.