Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to another edition of our diocese and podcast big city Catholics with Bishop Robert Brennan, the diocese and bishop of Brooklyn, myself, Father Christopher Henhew, director of the co Cathedral of St. Joseph. Today we're joined by Father Christopher O'Connor, the pastor of Blessed Virgin Mary, help of Christians, which is actually my home parish. And I'm happy to have you on the show. We're grateful that you're able to be with us today. Today we're talking about the Jubilerians and the anniversaries of our priesthood and also just the anniversaries of religious life. Father O'Connor, you're the pastor of a Marian parish and we always generally begin with a Marian prayer. So we'll pray in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
[00:00:47] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:00:48] Speaker A: Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now at the hour of our death. Amen.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
[00:01:02] Speaker C: Amen.
[00:01:03] Speaker A: You know, bishop, generally this is the time, the months of May and June when priests, most priests, are celebrating the anniversary of their priesthood. I know your anniversary well.
[00:01:12] Speaker C: Two weeks ago we celebrated the ordination of priests. And what a joyful occasion that was. We celebrate kind of because the dates have changed through the years. Back in May, beginning of June. Right now we're in the practice of early on in June. You were ordained later in June?
[00:01:27] Speaker A: That's right. When I was ordained in June 27. You may 27?
[00:01:31] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:01:31] Speaker A: And Father Chris O'Connor, your ordination was.
[00:01:33] Speaker B: June 5, 1990, 919 99.
[00:01:36] Speaker A: So you're celebrating your 25th anniversary of the priesthood.
[00:01:40] Speaker C: And we're here today. We're recording this a week early because we're using the occasion of the diocesan celebration. So we have a number of priests gathering today to celebrate 25. We don't have any fifties. We have 60 year celebrations and we have two. We're celebrating 65 years as priests.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Isn't that amazing? That's right.
[00:01:59] Speaker C: It's a joyful kind of a celebration, a day to give thanks. Whenever we celebrate anniversaries, we give thanks for the opportunities we had. It's also, there's a certain side of self reflection too, to say, hey, you know, have I really responded generously and thank God for the help, but ask his mercy for where I fall short and his help moving forward. So these are good opportunities. But Tada O'Connor, congratulations to you, 25 years.
[00:02:25] Speaker B: Thank you very much.
[00:02:26] Speaker C: Bhaisha, I remember when you were in the seminary. So I have ten years on you. I was a priest in Brockville center, kind of just finishing up my first assignment at St. Patrick's and Smithtown around the time that you would have started, and then serving with Bishop McGahn as his secretary. So had a few encounters. I remember you as a seminarian.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: You were the master of ceremony. And my deacted ordination was Bishop McGann's last year under ordinations.
[00:02:54] Speaker C: In those days, we were studying in Huntington, and it was really then almost exclusively Brooklyn and Rockville. Santa. We did a couple of other dioceses, but we didn't really actively engage until later in its history with other diocese, but it was almost exclusively Boca machine. And so we used to share. We were ordained deacons together, and then later on, each diocese did its own priestly ordinations. And, yes, the bishops took turns. So I was there for your diacument ordination. And now 25 years, we're sitting together, looking back. Tell me about your thoughts at this point, celebrating 25 years.
[00:03:29] Speaker B: It's really amazing because when I entered the seminary, I went to Douglaston, and I had seven and a half years of studies to go. I thought I would take four forever, and the day would never come. And now it's 25 years later, and it's like a blink of an eye how quickly it's gone by, the highs and the lows, the joys, the challenges, the crosses, the beauty, the priesthood.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: Some of the adventures you've had along the way. Where did you start? Where was your first assignment?
[00:03:54] Speaker B: My first assignment was St. Benedict's library, Richmond Hill. I was here for five years. Once here at John O'Brien, I may rest in peace. It was a great first assignment. We had a school of 540 kids when I got there, 60% non Christian. I remember that. But when Cr Bryant was a great mentor for newly ordained, challenged me a lot. We worked together. I appreciate street in our mass. A few years ago, I just loved working into school, being the kids, training altar service, and working my Spanish as well. It was still struggling. I was very much a gringo accent.
[00:04:25] Speaker C: So you did some amount of Spanish in the seminary?
[00:04:28] Speaker B: I did. I spent one summer in the Dominican Republic. I went somewhere in Guatemala, knowing diocese Brooklyn had a great need for spanish speaking priests. I did one summer here in Douglas in a language institute as well, and two years in college.
[00:04:39] Speaker C: But then you feel you picked a lot of it up by working in.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: The parish, in the confessional and preaching and visiting people in their homes. And actually, I would ask people to correct me, you know, even in my homily, sometimes I couldn't get the word in Spanish when it was in verdain. Come and see these, say. And I would say the word in English, shout out the word in Spanish, you know, and they appreciated it. Like, I was trying, you know, they're very patient and generous with that, me trying to grow in that.
[00:05:04] Speaker C: Would you say that that experience has opened doors for you? Like, experience the life of the church in a different way?
[00:05:11] Speaker B: Very much so, especially in our diocese. Being diocese immigrants, I never sit in a confessional, and one person come in and understand where they were saying, like, man, I'm not good at this. And the next person come in, understood. Everywhere they spoke. That's weird. And then, like, next part coming down, and they started asking what country they're from, and they start realizing certain countries were easier for me to understand based on their accents. And I was like, okay, okay. It's not just me working on it. So this gave me more of a desire, especially working with the latino community and to know them and visit New York countries. I visited Latin America a lot as a priest to more in their culture. So I come back and said, no, I visited Guatemala, I visited El Salvador, I visited Colombia, and be like, you visited our country, and you liked it. It opened more doors that way. People said to me, seemed I really cared about them.
[00:05:57] Speaker C: And it also gives you a dimension of the vibrancy of the church, because there you have young people, young families, but you also have young immigrants who came home. So young adults who are just. That's their family, their parish family is their actual family right now. They're connected. You have people of all ages. You have a lot of the different devotions, the different movements. It's very vibrant.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: My first pastor is presentation Blessed Virgin Mary in Jamaica. I was there for nine and a half years and heavily in Guatemala and salvadoran. And since I studied Spanish in Guatemala, I kind of knew a lot of the culture, and that's exactly what you're saying. The church was their home, where so many young people, young adults would be living, like six in a one bedroom apartment, sharing. But the church, the prayer groups, the devotions, the presentation, we had an authentic replica of Esuna Esquipuris from Guatemala that Guatemalans were all around Detroit state area, would come to for celebrations. I just see that had that connection. I'm home. I'm away from home, but I'm home. And give that to people.
[00:06:55] Speaker C: That's the part that's familiar. And again, you talk about people coming from all different countries. Into all different cultures. But the one thing that unites us is that we belong to this family, this family of the church. We belong to Jesus Christ. I often think of this when we talk about diversity in the church. I prefer the word Catholicity because Catholic means universal. But there is something else even bigger, and that's our unity. What unites us is the experience of Jesus Christ. So, pastor in presentation in Jamaica, I was there recently for confirmation. It always struck me, I used to pass it sometimes walking back as I was heading to the train from St. John's. I always struck me as a tiny church in a tiny little part of Jamaica, and yet it's not that big of a church, but, boy, it's a big parish. That was one of my largest confirmations.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: It's a large parish. 700 Bishop bars visit one time he says, you have a cathedral here. We did a lot of work restoring it. Very strong immigrant population there, very large religious program. I was there one time. I left back in 2014. We were getting 2000 people on Sunday. Daily Mass was like 150 people, lunchtime confessions every day. It was a really remarkable experience, and also interesting because it was in Jamaica, so sometimes there were some difficulties with the neighborhood.
[00:08:07] Speaker C: Absolutely, absolutely. And yet it's part of Jamaica that has strong ties in the church because of the dominican sisters. Had great history there with Mary Immaculate, dominican commercial. So there was always that spirituality. That's part of the history of that parish.
[00:08:24] Speaker B: In 2008, I went to Peru on vacation with Father Joseph Jogannon, and we found churches that were open all day of adoration. And I saw how they protected, demonstrated. So I came back, and that's what I want to do. We had the church open every day for adoration and came back, and the amount of people to go to church every day to pray. So even though it was a real interesting neighborhood, I had the doors open early in the morning. We had mass at 1215 and the adoration every day to 08:00. Hundreds of people walked through because once they knew the doors were open.
[00:08:53] Speaker C: And it's a busy street.
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Busy street. Kids coming from high school, we stop in, make visits. I even had a jewish lawyer came up to me who goes to the courthouses, and she stopped me straight. I want to thank you. I said, okay, you have a beautiful church. It's open. I come to pray because your church is so beautiful. In between cases, I have to come here. And then we had a muslim lady coming to me, says, I go inside your church to pray. I'm like, this is great. People coming in, not just Catholics come in to pray. And I really believe when the door is open. When I was a young man, I was away from the faith, and I remember in high school wanting to come back to church, and I went to my local parish church, and I found the doors locked. And being a young, naive 15 year old, I said, well, God doesn't want me. And I walked away for two more years. So I always want no one to find the doors locked. I want people to find the doors open so they can count to the Lord in a peace, signifying the presence and bless the sacrament. And it's something I've tried to do wherever I've been at as a priest.
[00:09:51] Speaker C: Beautiful, beautiful. Actually, that's a good segue because you are now pastor of St. Mary help of Christians, often affectionately referred to as St. Mary Winfield. And I tried to find out when I first came here, I was trying to say St. Mary Winfield. Now, what's the ecclesiastical connection with Winfield? I thought it was some title, the.
[00:10:09] Speaker A: Train station.
[00:10:12] Speaker C: But actually St. Mary Help of Christians, the devotion that I have, thanks to the salesian sisters and even Pope Saint John Paul II said he received his vocation praying at the image of Our Lady Help of Christians in Poland. But you're there, and that's a hallmark of your parish, that there again. Now you have actually perpetual adoration. So the church is always open, and you have that special chapel in the lower part of your church.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: We've had adoration here. Way before me, Monday through Friday, was a young lady named Milady Smart Day, who petitioned Bishop daily to have adoration a regular basis. It was a small, I think it used to be the cry room of the lower church, so only like maybe eight people could squeeze in there. And then we expanded it so 50 people could sit comfortably. To help the Sisters of Columbia, the Comicadoras acres del Padre Celestial began this program called Burning Lamps Lamp, for instance, adidas, where we talk to people for two months. What perpetual adoration was adoration how to pray with west sacrament, where up to 343 people every week are registered to come in to pray at least 1 hour a week. And so we lock the doors at night. But there's a code. Anyone who signed up can get the code. Come in. I do Monday and mornings at 03:00 a.m. by example. There was five people with me. You know, two of us were officially signed, and people just come in and it's great. I like looking at the cameras just to see what's going on. And like lunchtime, I find 15 people in there, you know, and right now I got a major street or four away, but people know we're open and the Lord's there, and they come pray. So in my 25th anniversary mass on Saturday, the night I told the people, like, I want you to know, Jesus, and that's been my whole 25 years, is wanting you to the Eucharist. I want you to know, because what he's done for me, I read so much more healing for word of God, sacrament, many graces. The Lord tells me what I need to do next, what I need to work on, what I've done wrong. He lets me know, and I just find real comfort in the Blessed Sacrament. And so it's pretty much 25 years. That's what I'm trying to do with the young people, the older people, married couples, lead them to the Eucharist.
[00:12:14] Speaker C: That's a wonderful way to reflect back on 25 years.
[00:12:17] Speaker A: Bishop, you know, you mentioned the salesian devotion, of course, you know, we celebrated at the parish of St. Mary Winfield. Blessed Virgin Mary helped with christians recently, the 170th anniversary of the parish. Father O'Connor invited a few priests and incredible community believers to come and participate. And of course, I think, you know, you mentioned it in your own 25th anniversary homily, Father O'Connor. But we mentioned it beforehand as well. The dream of St. John Bosco, the two pillars of the Eucharistic and our Blessed Mother Mary. And your two longest assignments have been Marian parish's presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary and now Saint Mary help of christians. Can you kind of reflect on the role of our Blessed Mother Mary in the Eucharist as well? I mean, you talked about the Eucharist certainly, but Mary in your priesthood.
[00:13:03] Speaker B: I remember bishop, I mean, pastor priesthood was a Virgin Mary. He actually apologized to me for making me pastor so young. I was only five years ordained, and I told him, I said I was grateful that my first parish was named after the Blessed Virgin Mary. And I sort of glinted his eye. He was happy to hear something like that. And she's helped me to administer, constantly have recourse to her and great devotion, particularly to our Lady Guadalupe, who changed the Americas. The Spanish came for ten years, had no success really. And then when she appeared, millions were baptized after her appearance. So I just noticed she had destroyed its accessory power. So I go to her sometimes you need to talk to mom. Sometimes things are hard and mom comforts consoles. So one of the things that really helped me, I mentioned Mahawi is John Paul II's example of marrying entrustment and consecration because he took a different path with the consecration and seeing as being entrusting ourselves to her. So I've done the marian consecration numerous times, 33 days, morning glory, which I love. My father Michael Gately, I've led the parish, both my parishes in that numerous times, English and Spanish, to have us consecrate ourselves to her, to entrust ourselves, because she takes what's not perfect in our prayers and makes it perfect. So Jesus been a constant source of consolation for me in these 25 years and even before, in the last 25.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Years, Father O'Connor, and I think even more recently I've seen a growing devotion to certainly the Blessed Mother, but I see that the work that you've been doing in Mexico at times recently with some visits and pastoral visits, it seems super rewarding, you know, and just, I think it continues with that idea of working with the hispanic faithful, working with those who are in need and bringing them to know God.
[00:14:47] Speaker C: He's a real missionary spirit. That's something I detect in you, a real missionary spirit.
[00:14:51] Speaker B: Thank you. I had a great opportunity this last year to make a few trips to Girlstown in Chaco, Mexico, ran by the sisters of Mary, which was founded by Father Elwich Swartz, an american priest from Washington DC. And on those trips there was 3000 girls there. And I would hear confessions all day long, like sometimes seven, 8 hours a day, 126 confessions a day. And then I'll do healing services at night with the blessed Sacrament and leading the girls to healing. And a lot of these girls, they're the poor support the Sisters of Mary, go out into the villages, into the slums to find these girls who would not normally have a chance to education, invite them to come to school for free. It's all done by donations. And so my few visits there, my brief time there, I'm just able to give them some consolation with the Lord. And when it can't you stay with us? Can't you stay with us? But I'm going. But Jesus remains and they have I think 17 different adoration chapels on campus. So the girls always have an opportunity to go pray. And I love seeing how the girls do on their own, just go before the blessed sacrament and to know that. And mom leads them, when I say mom, I go to Lupe Angkor, leads them to there.
[00:15:54] Speaker C: Now that missionary spirit is something at home, but abroad too. You take that with you. But it's not just you bringing something to someone else, you also bring back the experience to the parish.
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Absolutely. I mean just hearing those constant confessions made me want to hear more of my kids confessions. In this ed program, I teach confirmation every year. I think it's important for the young people to know their priests. I shared the stories in Mexico with them and they turned. Okay, now we're gonna go to confession. And I found that helped. This year especially the kids in my parish open up even more. Take advantage of the healing power of the sacrament. And for my last class, my confirmation, we had a healing service. I did the saint in Mexico, but I started here where at the monstrance on the altar, we have these runners coming out underneath. And I read the gospel from Mark where the woman of hemorrhages runs up to touch the Lord's mantle to be healed. And we have music. The kids, a lot of them just really open up. There's a lot of tears open up. And sometimes they come afterwards to share trauma in our life or problems at home. But then the greatest thing for me is like he spoke to me when he heard a teenage kid say to me, like Jesus spoke to me, it's like, it's all worth it. It's all worth it. It's all worth it.
[00:17:01] Speaker C: We talked before about the joys of these 25 years and the crosses and the sacrifices. I can testify to one of the crosses you carried. You were at St. Mary's during a real disaster, a natural disaster, and yet it was a tough time. But then you built from that with some real fruits. We had the flood.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah. Almost three years ago a hurricane Ida hit New York and Woodside particular was hit, which is weird, but for Woodside was hit hard. My lord church had about 10ft of water inside of it, destroyed everything, including the brand new adoration chapel. And it had been open up for seven months. That was a real devastation. I remember being in the boiler room trying to stop the water from coming in and putting these dirty gallon garbage cans in and it was filling up in 10 seconds. And I realized I had to get out of there. I was not going to get out of there at all. It was devastating. But one of the great things though too is that weekend dozens of people showed up to help clean up. I had some stuff because insurance had to see it, but people came. And I always preach that the spiritual life is about death and resurrection. We can't rise unless we die. And this is another myth moment for us. We have resurrection and now we got even more beautiful adoration chapel. We have a beautiful retreat center that was part of the Lord church we use as a theater. We do retreats down here, concerts. I show the chosen Drenlento down there. And so it's this great space that's been used well by different groups. The charismatic group uses it. So it was rough, it was hard. It was one of the great things too, was not just a local church. The church in, I say it's like people from like Chicago and Idaho sent me checks.
[00:18:35] Speaker C: Really.
[00:18:35] Speaker B: They saw it on the news and EWTN covered us, ABC News covered us, NPR covered us. So people heard about it. And it's like even it was a twelve hour check, $100 check we did online giving. And it was just amazing how people like came and even people from other adoration chapels in the country heard about it. They sent money because we want your adoration chapel to be open again. And that was a great source of consolation. We hear so much negativity in the church. But, you know, my brothers and sisters in Christ throughout the United States as well as Oakland area were supporting us. Was a great consolation during that hard time by Veronica going to Jesus on the way to the cross.
[00:19:12] Speaker C: And it really did mean rolling up your sleeves and quite literally, quite literally.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: Rolling up the pants lakes and getting in there. And I very much believe in the model of leadership that you lead by example. So I was down there moving tables and chairs and cleaning. And the people both parish has been pastor have been super supportive in what have we done? But I think that disaster really in a lot of ways unified the community in a lot more way. And now the resurrection is, as I mentioned, we had 343 people as of this week going every week to pray. And that's just the registered people that's not going to be able to show up during the week.
[00:19:47] Speaker A: And just to give like a visual. This is an entire lower church, right, that had 10ft of water. Imagine that's just massive amount of water.
There's no bay of water or anything.
[00:20:03] Speaker B: 20Th Avenue had a high point of 4ft of water. It was a river. 20 cars just floated down to the end of the block.
[00:20:10] Speaker A: Wow. But how did you get the water out?
[00:20:13] Speaker B: Did the fire department help me recipes once you're in? John Delendic, who's a fire MTA pirate shot gun and the marine unit had to come in and it took them twelve straight hours to pump out all the water.
[00:20:25] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:20:26] Speaker B: It was rough because that happened. And right the day before when Sierra Brian had died.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker B: As preaching, as funeral marriage. So I got like 4 hours sleep all week with that. And I had called preachers for you in the mass. It was a rough week, but beautiful to say because people were praying for me. They knew. But I'm very grateful to DNY for that, because there's no way we could have done it without them.
[00:20:45] Speaker C: But it's all about death and resurrection. It's very, very beautifully put. Sometimes you hear the term something you say to your younger me, but let me rephrase it and let me say it differently. We just ordained four new priests. What advice would you give? First to a fall to a newly ordained priest, and then secondly, I'll ask you about somebody discerning. So start with, what advice would you give to a newly ordained priest?
[00:21:07] Speaker B: Make sure you do yoheliyara every day, and make sure you see your spiritual director on a regular basis. Make sure you make fragrant use of the sacrament, confession. Make sure you get together your priest friends. If you don't do that, I don't think you're gonna make it. But also, listen to your people. I learned a lot from my lay people. I learned a lot from going to their homes or listening to their issues. And a lot of people know the history of the parish. They've been hurt by priests or hurt by other things. And you see, learn, they make mistakes. One of the first things I did as a new year ordained, I wanted to know the neighborhood. So we walked the neighborhood at night, praying the rosary. I go up and down every block of Richmond Hill just to see what the streets look, what the houses looked like, to see people, great people. And when I left five years later, a number of persons came up to us. We never said this to you, but we knew you're a good priest because your first guy here, you walked the streets. You wanted to know us. And, like, I didn't know anybody really saw me, like, but they did see me. And the importance of showing the people that they're loved isn't that you care. And that's a big piece. That would be my advice.
[00:22:08] Speaker C: That is very solid advice. That's wonderful. That really is. Now I'm going to go back even further. What would you say? Not so much as advice, but what would you say to someone who's discerning priesthood, whether it be advice or whether it be just your own reflections. Now, 25 years in, when I first.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Thought about becoming a priest, I called my parents, and my father thought I was crazy. But my dad actually gave me a great piece of advice. That's probably the best advice he ever gave me in his life. He said, talk to as many priests as you can before you make a decision. Find out how they found out about it. So I did. I was in the military at the time. So every time you're visiting chaplain, how do you know you're gonna be a priest? I heard like 20 different vocation stories before I applied to the seminary. That helped me a lot just to hear. And everybody was different. It was interesting to know everyone was different. It wasn't just one way to come to that conclusion. I got many priests who knew from their first holy communion that they wanted to be priests. I knew priests who met a priest in high school that inspired them, and they really want to do it. I know people had their careers, but everyone had a different story. But just learning how the Lord can work in any different way to bring someone to this call, I was just talking, ask questions, and of course, back to prayer. When I was really, really discerning, I was struggling. I went to a monastery in England on retreat, and I was praying before a huge life sized crucifix I'd never seen before. And there I had the words actually in all three languages spelled out in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Jesus became of the Jews. Jesus Nazareth became the Jews. I was praying. His monk came by and he said, you look, you're really troubled about something. I said, I'm trying to figure out, God wants me to be a priest tonight. He said, go to your cell, open the gospels, read passages, and one that strikes you most, that's your vocation. Say, I went and open up, mark chapter ten, I think it is, with a rich young man. And he went away sad. And I knew then I didn't want to go away sad. He was calling me something greater because I had a career in the military. I was getting promoted. I was aligned for my next promotion. Things are going well. I could have done 20 years, no problem. But that's not what God wanted me to do. And I had that restlessness that I knew that it was my will or his, eventually had to accept what his will was. I never regretted it since.
[00:24:19] Speaker C: That's great. That is amazing. So, I mean, again, these days, being able to reflect, to pray, and, you know, hey, listen, I give thanks from the chair where I sit these days. I give thanks for your 25 years as a priest and for the ways that you continue to exercise with such missionary zeal. Thank you for that, father.
[00:24:38] Speaker B: Thank you, Bishop. I appreciate that.
[00:24:39] Speaker A: I sit at the feet of the 235 years ordained, 25 years ordained, and I'm only nine, so I've got a long way to go to catch up to both of you. But thank you both for your priestly example, and thank you, Father O'Connor.
[00:24:50] Speaker B: We're proud of our native son from Winfield.
[00:24:54] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:24:55] Speaker A: That's right. Bishop, perhaps you could end with a prayer.
[00:24:57] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:24:58] Speaker A: And a blessing.
[00:24:59] Speaker C: Lord God, we give you thanks these days. You bestowed many graces upon us in this time of the year, with vocations, with eucharistic revival, with new opportunities. We ask you to continue to bless us all on this journey to keep us close to your son, Jesus Christ, who loves us so very much and calls us to his sacred heart. We ask you, Lord, to bless us and to fill us with fervor as we go forth. And may almighty God bless all of you this day. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
[00:25:37] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Mary, mother of the clergy, pray for us.
[00:25:41] Speaker A: Thank you, bishop. Thank you, Father O'Connor. And thanks to all who continue to listen and tune in each and every week to our diocesan podcast, big city Catholics. We hope that you'll join us again next week. God bless.
