Let's go back to the beginning, where it all began: Episode 1 on Flannery O'Connor with Fr. Thomas Joseph White, O.P. ! In Episode 1, I speak with Father Thomas Joseph White, O.P. about Aquinas on grace and charity, and how Thomistic concepts of grace and charity operate in the short stories of Flannery O’Connor. The episode covers themes of grace, redemption, the comic unveiling of the human person to itself, and the violence of Divine Love as a necessary antidote to human folly and brokenness. Fr. Thomas Joseph White is the Rector Magnificus of the Pontifical University of St. Thomas (Angelicum) in Rome. He is the author of various books and articles including ⁠Wisdom in the Face of Modernity: A Study in Thomistic Natural Theology ⁠(Sapientia Press, 2011), ⁠The Incarnate Lord, A Thomistic Study in Christology⁠ (The Catholic University of America Press, 2015) Exodus (Brazos Press, 2016), ⁠The Light of Christ: An Introduction to Catholicism⁠ (Catholic University Press, 2017), and ⁠The Trinity: On the Nature and Mystery of the One God⁠ (Catholic University Press, 2022). He is co-editor of the journal Nova et Vetera, a Distinguished Scholar of the McDonald Agape Foundation, and a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas. ⁠Jennifer Frey⁠ is the inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. Through Spring of 2023, she served as Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and as a fellow of the Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America. She also previously served as a Collegiate Assistant Professor of Humanities at the University of Chicago, where she was a member of the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts and an affiliated faculty in the philosophy department. Frey holds a PhD from the University of Pittsburgh and a B.A. from Indiana University-Bloomington. She has published widely on action, virtue, practical reason, and meta-ethics, and has recently co-edited an interdisciplinary volume, ⁠Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Theology, and Psychology⁠ (Routledge, 2018). You can follow her on Twitter ⁠@ jennfrey⁠. Sacred and Profane Love is a podcast in which philosophers, theologians, and literary critics discuss some of their favorite works of literature, and how these works have shaped their own ideas about love, happiness, and meaning in human life. Host Jennifer A. Frey is inaugural dean of the Honors College at the University of Tulsa. The podcast is generously supported by The Institute for Human Ecology at the Catholic University of America and produced by Catholics for Hire.