Podcast Summary: "Called to Heal the Brokenhearted"

Called (with Fr. Mike Schmitz)
Guests: Fr. John Riccardo
Release Date: September 7, 2025

Overview

This episode centers on the mission of healing the brokenhearted—responding to the profound isolation, crisis of meaning, and wounds prevalent in today’s culture. Fr. Mike Schmitz and Fr. John Riccardo delve into what it means to serve and accompany those mired in suffering, loneliness, or despair, and how listeners can become practical agents of God’s mercy in everyday life.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Understanding the ‘Brokenhearted’

• Who are the brokenhearted?
  Fr. John Riccardo asserts, “It’s all of us in one way or another. The human heart is broken. We just mask it in various ways… deep within every human being is this person that’s screaming, ‘Does anybody see me, not for what I have, but for who I am?’” (04:16)

• “The New Great Depression”
  Drawing on sociological research, Fr. John explains:
  “Half of our young people say they don’t enjoy living. That’s new… In this hyper-connected social media culture, people are actually more disconnected than they’ve ever been. Longing for relationship, longing for love, longing to be seen, longing to be known.” (07:27)

2. The Church’s Role: Beyond the Parish Walls

• A Call for “Houses of Hospitality”
  Fr. John suggests mirroring Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker hospitality houses, but within contemporary homes:
  “One of the things the Catholic Worker movement did… was they started what were called houses of hospitality… I think we need new houses of hospitality in the new Great Depression… I think for a lot of people, for a lot of reasons, it’s a high threshold to cross the front door of a church. But they’ll cross the front door of someone’s home.” (14:01)

• Empowering the Laity
  “We have to smash the paradigm that the parish is supposed to be the primary place of evangelization. The people in the pews… they work with [the unchurched], live with them… they know who in their lives is living the nightmare that is life apart from God.” (11:01)

3. How to Heal the Brokenhearted: Practical Charity

• Availability Over Ability
  “The only thing that would disqualify me from being able to do that is if I don’t have time or I’m not available.”
  — Fr. Mike Schmitz (23:34)

• Simple Acts Matter
  “You said, send a text… that’s minor, that’s small. And here I am going like, wow. No, it wasn’t minor for me. It's not minor for me.” (09:40)

• Ask ‘Who’s Crying?’
  Fr. John urges constant openness:
  “Just ask, Lord, who is it in my life right now who’s crying? …[W]ho is it that you’re calling me to pour into?” (08:11)

• Hospitality and Invitation
  “You can’t actually love your neighbors unless you come into contact with them… Invite people to a block party, just come to a barbecue. Because we want to get to know you.”
  — Fr. Mike, sharing a story of his friend Annie Hickman (15:02)

• Story: The Power of Persistent Invitation
  Fr. John recounts a conversion story stemming from repeated breakfast invitations:
  “She ends up going into the house… and they had breakfast. The whole conversation was more or less him just asking, just tell me about yourself. …She ends up leaving her lifestyle, coming back to faith, marries a pastor… she and her husband, they run this home… for hope.” (17:01–20:25)

4. Approach: Accompaniment, Not ‘Fixing’

• “People aren’t problems to be fixed.”
  “I am… probably, in fact, more broken than you are. I just know who to turn to, and I’m not sure you do.” — Fr. John (38:07)

• Listening Over Telling
  “One [wrong way] is to approach it from the perspective of ‘I’m going to fix you’. Two is to do all the talking… I should be listening more than talking.” (38:19)

• Play the ‘Piano with Both Hands’
  “As I’m in conversation with someone, I want to be listening to the Lord — that’s my left hand. And I want to be listening to you.” (41:04)

• Identity at the Heart of Healing
  “The enemy knows your name, but he calls you by your sin. And the Father knows your sin, but he calls you by name.” (45:29)

5. Personal Healing Precedes Ministry

• Letting God Heal Our Own Broken Hearts
  “The first broken heart that needs to be healed, or at least God needs to have access to, is my own… How can I heal the brokenhearted if I don’t let him heal mine?” — Fr. Mike (47:14)

• Exercise: ‘Father, What Do You Call Me?’
  Fr. John describes a prayer exercise for receiving God’s personal love:
  “Go before the Father… and you’re asking him one question: ‘Father, what do you call me? What name do you call me by?’ …And to hear the Father speak and to hear his tone is just extraordinarily healing.” (48:33 – 49:19)

6. Mobilization and Mission

• The Rescue Project
  Fr. John outlines this initiative to help people encounter the Gospel, surrender to Christ, and be mobilized for mission, particularly through small groups in homes—resource freely available at rescueproject.us. (33:35)

• Living Out God’s Presence Where You Are
  “God puts us in very specific places… And so we go out into the world and engage in whatever we do on a daily basis. I think one of the ways we live as God's presence in the world is to bend [our work, our environment] back into conformity with how God created it to be.” (55:32)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On God’s Love:
  “God wants to say to you, you matter to me. To me. To God, the creator of the universe, you matter to me. That’s why I made you. That’s why I became a man. That’s why I went to the cross. Like, you’re worth dying for to me.”
  — Fr. John Riccardo (00:32, repeated 04:16)

• On Evangelization:
  “I’m convinced that [what] will win the culture to the Gospel is family and friendships. It’s not another microphone, another stage. That's not the answer.”
  — Fr. Mike Schmitz (29:40)

• On True Accompaniment:
  “People aren’t problems to be fixed. There are people to be loved.”
  — Fr. John Riccardo (38:02)

• On Personal Wounds:
  “There are a lot of beautiful people in chains. And I’ve never forgotten that. She was one of them.”
  — Fr. John, quoting his mother (44:46)

• On Availability:
  “...it’s simply… a really disturbing reality. It’s just a question of will I care enough to make time for you? And I think the alarming answer for many of us is no… because that's going to cost me something. Well, how long is this going to take? Well, it might take the rest of my life.”
  — Fr. John Riccardo (25:51)

• On Being a Witness:
  “I'm a beggar telling another beggar where to find the food… as opposed to, I’ve got it figured out. Let me fix you.”
  — Fr. Mike Schmitz (36:42)

Key Timestamps

• 00:00 – Fr. John on the ache of the modern heart
• 03:39 – Fr. Mike frames the episode’s theme; “called to heal the brokenhearted”
• 07:27 – The “new Great Depression” of mental health, especially among youth
• 11:00 – Church mission: shifting from parish-centric evangelization to laity-led outreach
• 14:01 – “Houses of hospitality” as modern evangelistic outposts
• 20:25 – Story: radical hospitality leads to healing and conversion
• 23:34 – Fr. Mike: The only disqualifier is a lack of availability
• 25:51 – Fr. John: Accompaniment is costly but necessary
• 33:35 – Introducing The Rescue Project
• 41:04 – The art of accompaniment: listening to both person and Spirit
• 45:29 – Identity: “The Father knows your sin, but he calls you by name.”
• 47:14 – Healing begins with letting God touch your own wounds
• 48:33 – Prayer exercise: “Father, what do you call me?”
• 55:32 – Living God’s presence out in all walks of life
• 59:10 – Closing prayer for all the brokenhearted

Takeaways for Listeners

• The pain of loneliness, discouragement, and longing is universal, made worse by our “connected” culture.
• The solution isn’t a grand scheme or specialized ministry—it’s ordinary people making themselves available for friendship, hospitality, and practical love.
• Healing starts by letting yourself be seen and loved by God; only then can you authentically bring hope to others.
• It’s not about fixing people, but about walking alongside them, listening, loving, and inviting them—one relationship at a time.
• Ask God in prayer: “Whose cry am I being invited to hear in my life?” and “Father, what do you call me?”
• Your home, your daily context, is a potential “house of hospitality” for the brokenhearted.

“For the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those whose spirit is crushed.”
— Psalm 34, echoed throughout this episode