Catholicism

Blaise Pascal was a brilliant scientist and inventor who turned away from certainty after a mystical encounter with the divine. In his final years, he wrote The Wager---an invitation to choose faith not through proof, but through hope. In this episode, Harmonia reflects on the meaning of belief in a world where religion may seem obsolete, but the longing for meaning remains.

In a world where knowledge was at risk of being lost, Isidore of Seville chose abundance over perfection, gathering everything he could so it might survive. His joyful trust in shared knowledge still echoes today-in encyclopedias, databases, and even Wikipedia.

In this Golden Thread episode, Harmonia steps into the quiet cell of Julian of Norwich-a medieval anchoress who lived through plague, famine, war, and fear, yet emerged with one of the most hopeful spiritual visions in history. Through scenes of candlelit illness, stark solitude, and the steady stream of townspeople seeking comfort at her window, Harmonia explores Julian's revelation that love, not despair, is the deepest layer of reality.

In this episode, Harmonia returns after Hillel the Elder to walk through the charged streets of Renaissance Florence, where Girolamo Savonarola rose as a fierce moral voice in an anxious city. Through scenes of bonfires, crowded piazzas, and the tremble of a society seeking certainty, Harmonia explores how fear can masquerade as virtue-and why it can never sustain compassion or justice. She traces Savonarola's sincerity, his severity, and the spiritual lessons his rise and fall still offer today.

In a convent in 17th-century Mexico, Sor Juana Ins de la Cruz wrote theology, poetry, and defiance by candlelight. Her mind was her devotion, and her silence-when it came-was not submission, but a kind of spiritual martyrdom. This episode explores how her quiet resistance continues to echo in every soul that seeks to think and believe in equal measure.

In the silence of a 16th-century convent, Saint Teresa of vila heard something dangerous: her own soul, fully awake. As empire and inquisition tightened their grip on Spain, this barefoot nun turned inward-and found a kind of freedom no authority could touch. In this episode, Harmonia traces Teresa's quiet rebellion, her visions and reforms, and the enduring gift she left behind: a spiritual architecture built for anyone seeking clarity, courage, and inner truth.