The Bridegroom Speaks...Living Water for your desert heart.

Laura continues to reflect on the sermons of St. John of Forde. In this episode, she reads verses 5:10-16 of the Song of Songs and talks about the beauty and sweetness of Christ the Bridegroom.

Laura continues her reflections on the Bride's praise of her Beloved's beauty in verses 5:10-16 of The Song of Songs and excerpts of John of Forde's sermons on these verses. In this episode, she reflects on the sweetness of the Word of God and of prayer.

Learn more about The Song of Songs with the Hope's Garden Brides of Christ Heart-led study:

https://hopesgarden.com/song-of-songs-scripture-study/

"This font of love, (the Holy Trinity), is the primary channel of living water, a font of life to all who drink from it. All holy love draws its joy from this font; and in order that it may perpetually flow towards eternal life, from which it must also spring, it wells up forever with desire towards its font, rushing tirelessly back to its origin." (John of Forde) Laura shares her reflection and prayers that arose from meditation on this passage from John of Forde's sermon #7 on The Song of Songs.

What can the Song of Songs teach us about childhood trauma and how Jesus the Bridegroom desires to heal those wounds? In this episode, Laura unpacks verse 3:4, "Scarcely had I passed them than I found him whom my heart loves. I held him fast, nor would I let him go till I had brought him into my mother’s house, into the room of her who conceived me." She explains how to take the Bridegroom into your aching heart and allow Him to heal the wounds of your childhood so you can live in the present freely, faithfully, and fruitfully.

In this excerpt from the Hope's Garden heart-led study of the Song of Songs, Laura introduces us to Gilbert of Hoyland with a reflection on the verse, "I found the one whom my soul loves." Laura and participants in this session of the Brides of Christ study also discuss how Christ anticipates our needs, discerning the voice of the Bridegroom, and how He turns everything right side up with His love.

Enroll in our self-paced heart-led study of the Song of Songs, Brides of Christ 1, here:

https://hopesgarden.com/brides1-individual-study/

Meditate on the piercing of Christ's Side and His Heart that was broken so we might know the love of the Father. This meditation is taken from Henri Nouwen's book Heart Speaks to Heart: Three Gospel Meditations on Jesus. https://www.amazon.com/Heart-Speaks-Three-Gospel-Meditations/dp/159471116X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1OHULD8UW7Z8S&keywords=heart+speaks+to+heart+henri+nouwen&qid=1678160601&sprefix=heart+speaks+to+heartt%2Caps%2C106&sr=8-1 Join the Hope's Garden online community for Catholic women and join us virtually for more meditations such as this. https://hopesgarden.com/join-our-community/

Jesus our Bridegroom willingly suffered death by crucifixion for us. His great desire to spend all of eternity with us was the force that held Him to the Cross. In this meditation, inspired by the writings of St. Gertrude the Great, we spiritually kiss each of Jesus' wounds and proclaim our love for Him.

To watch this meditation click the link below to the video version on the Hope's Garden YouTube channel.

https://youtu.be/fa1hUY7WpRs

Deep within every human heart is a longing to return to Eden. If we long for Eden then we must also have an ancient, subconscious memory of Paradise. In this episode, I share a reflection on the Prologue of the Song of Songs as a memory of intimacy with God before the Fall. 

The first monthly Hope's Garden Mass was celebrated on the feast of St. Agnes, January 21st, 2023. It was St. Agnes' belief in the truth of her identity as the bride of Christ that gave her strength to endure martyrdom and it is this truth that can give each one of us the strength to endure the trials and tribulations we must endure. In this episode of The Bridegroom Speaks, we share Father Michael Stalla's homily about St. Agnes.

Father Michael Stalla's homily for the Fourth Week of Advent

In this episode, Laura unpacks verses 1:9-11 of The Song of Songs, the Bridegroom's first words in the poem.  Like a "mare harnessed to Pharaoh's chariot" we have all been enslaved at one time or another and Jesus wants to free us. But the Bridegroom does not just free us, does not just heal us; He redeems and transforms us. He turns the chains that have held us bound into the jewels with which He adorns us. 

THE BRIDEGROOM

1:9 To my mare harnessed to Pharaoh’s chariot I compare you, my love.

1:10 Your cheeks show fair between their pendants and your neck within its necklaces.

1:11 We shall make you golden earrings and beads of silver.

To learn more about the Hope's Garden Brides of Christ Heart-led Study of The Song of Songs visit

https://hopesgarden.com/song-of-songs-scripture-study/

The Bride of the Song of Songs, in verse 1:7, cries out to the Bridegroom, "Tell me then, you whom my heart loves: Where will you lead your flock to graze, where will you rest it at noon? That I may no more wander like a vagabond beside the flocks of your companions." She has spent too long failing to tend to her own heart and wandering after false loves. She is certain now that He is the only one Who can heal her wounded and neglected heart and satisfy her deepest desires. In this episode, Laura talks about how we, like the Bride, often neglect our vineyard hearts and come to the realization that we need Jesus Christ and no one else to tend to our hearts. 

In The Song of Songs, the Bride exclaims, "Draw me in your footsteps, let us run."  This verse was Laura's prayer in preparation for her pilgrimage to the Holy Land in February 2020. In this episode, she shares her experience of being drawn into the Bridegroom's historical footsteps and the depth of meaning in this simple verse. Jesus longs to walk in your footsteps as you journey through this life and into eternal life with Him. May this episode inspire you to draw Him into every moment of your day!

"Come then, my love, my lovely one, come!" This is the invitation, the call of the Bridegroom. Can you hear it in the beauty of the world He has created for you? Can you hear Him calling to you to come to Him, the One Whom your heart is seeking, in the Eucharist, in the Scriptures? He is always singing to you and inviting you to come to Him and be His love. And He will patiently wait for you to be ready to come to Him, to respond to His invitation. 

Ashley Parker, a member of Hope's Garden and participant in our Brides of Christ study, joins Laura for this episode.

We are all seeking the One Whom our hearts love. St. Mary Magdalene and Mother Mary have much to teach us about seeking, finding, and holding fast to Jesus, the Divine Bridegroom.

Laura invites you to rest in Jesus' love and let Him sing His divine love song to your heart as she reads the Jerusalem Bible translation of The Song of Songs. This translation of The Song is used by Father Blaise Arminjon in his book The Cantata of Love: A Verse by Verse Reading of The Song of Songs. The Cantata of Love is our guidebook in the Hope's Garden Brides of Christ Heart-led Study of The Song of Songs.

Learn more about the Brides of Christ and the Hope's Garden Consecration to Christ the Bridegroom at hopesgarden.com.

Marian West, a member of Hope’s Garden, shares her story of how the Lord healed her fears and confusion about Him being her Bridegroom and embraced the spousal relationship He was offering her.

The story of St. Mary Magdalene is a celebration of the Bridegroom’s Merciful Love. She was truly a Bride of Christ and has so much to teach us about intimacy with Him. May St. Mary Magdalene, pray for us and be our model of seeking, finding, and holding fast to the One Whom our souls love.

In this episode of The Bridegroom Speaks, Laura talks with Hope’s Garden member Karen Baglieri and Father Michael Stalla, spiritual advisor of Hope’s Garden. Father Michael was spiritual director for both Karen and Laura during seasons of tremendous personal suffering. He also prayed for and witnessed the miraculous healings they both received. They got together to talk about the role of spiritual direction in the journey out of the darkness of depression and abuse and into Christ's Light.

Why are all souls feminine? Because the Bridegroom desires to marry every soul and impregnate hearts with His Love. All Christians, male and female, are called to give birth to the love of Christ in their homes, their work places, their parishes, their world. May all hearts be set on fire with the Love of God!

Jesus the Bridegroom desires to reveal His Heart to you. The essence of spousal love, human and divine, is a mutual sharing of hearts. How beautiful and awesome it is that our Lord desires intimacy with each one of us!

The Song of Songs is a poetic, image-filled description of our life with the Bridegroom. One of the prominent images is that of grapes and wine, the vineyard. In this episode, Laura shows us how the maturing of the vines, the ripening of the grapes and the pressing into wine that occurs in nature and is described in The Song of Songs is analogous to our spiritual life. 

"Hail Mary, full of grace! The Lord is with thee." Mary is truly full of and perpetually being filled with the life-giving grace of God. And as the Mediatrix of All Grace, she shares God's gift with us. In this episode, dedicated to Our Lady of Guadalupe, Mary Mystical Rose of God, Laura connects The Song of Songs, Mary's Immaculate Conception, and the Bridegroom's desire to fill each of us with His dew drops of grace. May we, too, become full of grace! 

The Bridegroom draws us into His beauty, and therein, we too become more and more beautiful. In this episode, Laura reminds us of our original grace and dignity.

Jesus wants to be united with us all throughout each day. In this episode, Laura shares the meaning of the "nard" in The Song of Songs and how we can let every ordinary moment become an offering of our own nard to the Bridegroom.

In this excerpt from a Brides of Christ group, Hope's Garden heart-led study of The Song of Songs, Laura discusses verses 3:6 - 3:11 and how they paint a picture of the ancient teaching of the Cross as the marriage bed of the Bridegroom. This episode will give you a new perspective to take into your journey through Holy Week, focusing on the passionate love of Christ for each one of us.

In this episode, excerpted from the Brides of Christ study of The Song of Songs, Laura tells us why Jesus' love is more delightful than wine and then leads us in a peaceful meditation to meet Him, our King, in His rooms...the heart of our own hearts.

In today's episode, we share a portion of a talk Laura gave at a recent Hope Blooms Healing Retreat. Hope Blooms retreats are for women healing from betrayal trauma, that is the trauma of discovering a spouse's or significant other's pornography addiction, sex addiction, or infidelity. 

In this talk, Laura shares a critical, and often overlooked, aspect of our need for setting and enforcing clear boundaries: to honor and protect our dignity as God's beloved daughter and Jesus' beloved bride. Laura offers insights and practicalities for setting boundaries that honor one another's personhood and human dignity. 

Imagine this...as God creates each human person, He’s singing to us. A timeless song of true love is engraved, inscribed deep into our hearts by God Himself.  In this episode Laura shares how prayer life grows with Christ the Bridegroom through the exploration of three different types of prayer . Learn about our study of the Song of Songs and come join us as we discover more about Christ's love for us.

In this episode, Laura shares thoughts - with help from St. John of the Cross - on the power and liberation we experience as we detach more and more from "earthly goods" AND "spiritual goods," letting God alone decide what is good and necessary for our deepening union with Him. 

The Cleft in the Rock is the wound in Jesus’ side; the opening that leads us deeply into His Heart. He calls us there in The Song of Songs, verse 2:14: "My dove, hiding in the cleft of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful." 

Our Lord invites us to take our rest upon His Heart in difficult moments as well as in moments when we are overwhelmed with His love. In those moments when we are the frightened little dove, we can ask Him to take us there, into His wounded side, where we are safe, where we can hide with Him and be healed.

Perhaps more than any other time in history, we are aware of the lingering impact childhood trauma has on our growth and the relationships we’ll have throughout our lives, including our relationship with the Lord. When we are wounded in our early relationships with our mother, father or other primary caregiver we may enter our adult relationships feeling fearful, distrusting, guarded or other self-protective responses. This carries over into our relationship with the Lord and becomes an obstacle to the union He desires with us. He invites us to let Him into those early wounds and traumas so He can heal them; for the sake of deeper union with us and also so we can be made whole and re-integrated in body, mind, heart, spirit and soul.

Laura and Hope's Garden Spiritual Advisor, Father Michael Stalla, talk about the power of shifting our gaze, our perspective, off of the trial or darkness we are experiencing and onto Jesus. Jesus is light. He is hope. His life and death provide meaning for all of our suffering. May we keep our hearts open to Him, and allow His light to penetrate the darkness.  

In this episode, Laura and Father Michael Stalla, spiritual advisor to Hope’s Garden, chat about their experiences of opening to the deep and intimate love of Christ the Bridegroom and the impact upon their lives.

"It’s not that Christ is asking us to be His spouse and no one else’s. He’s asking us to claim His spousal love as our first love and to let everything else flow from that and to bring that deep love, that personal love, that intimacy that’s in our hearts with Him as our Bridegroom, into all our other relationships. This is how our spiritual spouse-hood can bear fruit. Like the Bride in The Song of Songs, once He takes her into His wine cellar and she’s intoxicated with His love, then all she wants to do is spread that love. She wants everyone else to come to know the Bridegroom the way that she knows Him now." - Laura Ercolino

In this episode, Laura shares the story of being in Guadalupe, Mexico on pilgrimage and coming to understand the message of Our Lady of Guadalupe as it relates to our times and to Laura's own life. Christ's Living Roses (the Roses of Tepeyac) are blooming here in Hope's Garden, as we gather together to pray, heal and grow. This episode closes with members of the Sisterhood of Mary, Mystical Rose of God, praying a chaplet that Laura wrote, known as The Chaplet for the Bridegroom's Roses. We pray this chaplet daily for the healing of all of Christ's living Roses.

Laura describes the posture of open receptivity before the Bridegroom as that “big morning stretch” upon waking, opening our arms and our hands out wide and greeting Him by saying: "I am here, I am Your bride and I open myself to You again today. Let Your will be done in me. I am Yours and You are mine and I am open to receiving whatever it is that You have for me today. Whether it’s very little or very much or somewhere in between. Whether it’s suffering or it’s joy or joy in the suffering, I am here and I am Yours." Listen now to the third in a 3-part series of conversations with Abby Kyle, Director of Evangelization at Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend, IN.

In part 2 of a 3 part conversation, Laura and Abby Kyle talk about our identity as Brides of Christ. Christ our Bridegroom is our one true eternal Love: King of our hearts and Spouse of our souls. Listen now as Laura and Abby reflect on the truth that we are always sought, waited for and loved by our Heavenly Bridegroom.

“Make two homes for thyself. One actual home and the other a spiritual home which thou are to carry with thee always.” St Catherine of Siena

The architect and builder of our spiritual homes is Christ. He awaits our opening to Him and inviting Him to partner with us in creating a safe and love-filled home where together we may always find rest and delight, safety and peace. A powerful tool He has provided us with for this endeavor is our imaginations, the gift of creativity. In a time of prayer, speak to the Spouse of your soul and ask Him to guide you in imagining your spiritual home. Perhaps the home in your heart resembles His childhood home in Nazareth, or a candle lit adoration chapel, or a quaint cottage by a lake. Listen as Laura and De share thoughts on their spiritual homes, in the heart of their hearts, with Jesus.

Laura talks with Abby Kyle, of Little Flower Catholic Church in South Bend, IN, about her encounters with Christ the Bridegroom. In this first of three episodes, Abby and Laura ponder the power of letting go of attachments in order to open to the one Attachment that alone is truly the fulfillment of all our desire. 

In the second half of Father's talk, he makes very clear that shame is not of God and speaks of our inherent goodness and dignity. Listen now!

Jesus looks at you with only love. He sees and knows your heart, your desires, your pain. Unveiling our hearts to His gaze of love and compassion is healing. In today's episode, we share part 1 of a talk Father Allen Hoffa gave at our recent healing retreat for women healing from the trauma of betrayal. We share part 2 of Father's talk in Episode 17. May you be blessed! 

Laura talks with Hope's Garden Spiritual Advisor, Father Michael Stalla about the faithfulness of God, despite the repeated unfaithfulness of His people (including you and me). They begin with a look at the historical and religious context surrounding the writing of The Song of Songs in the Old Testament. The Song was written during the time of King Solomon, which was Israel’s greatest time of prosperity. Yet, as prophesied by Hosea, the time comes when they lose it all, due to their unfaithfulness to God. Then as now, God call to us, return to Me with all your heart! 

Laura concludes this episode with a beautiful Act of Contrition that she wrote, which professes our repentance and desire to reconcile our hearts once again, to our One True Eternal Love.

Laura shares reflections and a meditation around verse 2:14 of The Song of Songs: "My dove, hiding in the clefts of the rock, in the coverts of the cliff, show me your face, let me hear your voice; for your voice is sweet and your face is beautiful." Jesus sees how we hide the hurting or sinful parts of ourselves and He gently calls out to us...Come my love, you are safe with Me.

In His longed-for shade I am seated and His fruit is sweet to my taste. - The Song of Songs 2:3. We can rest in our Bridegroom's shade and protection no matter the season we find ourselves in. Listen to Laura share beautiful poetic explanations of this verse of The Song of Songs, with excerpts from St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross. 

Hope's Garden Spiritual Advisor, Father Michael Stalla, shares beautiful truths of Jesus' presence and love during our times of trial and suffering.  

The Bridegroom of our souls desires to heal us, to sanctify our memories and our stories, to restore all the has been stolen from us. He turns our ashes to beauty! He awaits our coming to Him for He is the Perfect Gentleman and restrains His desire to come to us until we have given our free consent and invited Him into the heart of our hearts. Listen Now!

On Friday December 11, 2020, Hope's Garden held the first Bridegroom Prayer Service and Public Consecration, followed by the celebration of Mass. Father Michael Stalla, Pastor of Ss. Cosmas & Damian Parish in Twinsburg Ohio hosted the evening. In episode 10 of The Bridegroom Speaks Podcast, we share Father's amazing homily with our listeners. Listen Now! 

In this episode, Laura and De chat about journeying through the desert of Advent. How is the Advent desert different from the Lenten desert? And what happens when we spend time with Jesus, barren of distraction and noise, and come up out of the desert leaning only on our Beloved? Listen now!

In this episode, Laura leads a small group of women into a discussion of God's Divine Love Song, The Song of Songs. 

In this episode, Laura reminds us that to be authentic means to mirror the original. Therefore, authentic love must imitate Original Love, which is God. To give love authentically in any of our own relationships requires that we first come to know Love Himself and let Him love us.  Come, sit at the Bridegroom's feet and experience the true love He has for you.  

Laura tells the story of how our Lord brought healing and redemption to a whole lot of traumatic memories involving the month of October.  She recalls her very first encounter with Christ the Bridegroom, though at the time of the encounter, she did not know that Name. Listen now! [note from editor: I couldn't get through editing this episode without needing to grab my tissues].

Laura guides us in imagining that we always relate with one another in ways that honor our dignity and our true identity as beloved ones of God; imagining ourselves as gift to one another; imagining the mutual and complementary relationships that men and women were designed by God to co-create with one another. It's not too late.

Listen as Laura describes the beginnings of how she came to know Christ the Bridegroom and to understand the mission He has given to her.  

After being freed from an abusive marriage and receiving a miraculous healing on Valentine's Day 2019, Laura founded Hope's Garden,  the sanctuary where the spousal love of Christ the Bridegroom heals hearts, marriages and families. The Bridegroom Speaks podcast is an audio journal of Laura’s journey with Christ the Bridegroom through God’s divine love song, The Song of Songs. Listen and soak in honeyed dewdrops of the Bridegroom’s living water.