Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign hello and welcome to this week's special edition of Big City Catholics. I'm your host, Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens.
Recently I had the chance to visit the diocese where I used to serve, Columbus, Ohio, and took part in the St. Gabriel Radio morning show called St. Gabriel's Cafe. This aired on Monday, September 15, the Feast of Our lady of Sorrows, and we have a chance to share it with you as this week's special edition.
[00:00:42] Speaker B: Good morning. Come on in. Pull up a chair.
[00:00:45] Speaker C: I'm Dave Orsborne and friends, I'm Amanda Miller. We welcome you into the St. Gabriel Cafe, your live and local morning show.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Today is Monday, September 15, and the church celebrates Our lady of Sorrows.
It's a very special day for us here in the cafe as we welcome Bishop Robert Brennan. Bishop Brennan served as the Bishop of Columbus from 2019 to 2021 and now serves as the Bishop of the Brook Diocese of Brooklyn, New York. And we're excited to catch up with Bishop Brennan. It should say welcome also to all of our friends in Brooklyn who are listening on the Big City Council Catholics Podcast. So hello, Brooklyn. Hello, Amanda.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Hello.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Good morning, Cam.
[00:01:31] Speaker D: Good morning.
[00:01:32] Speaker C: Shall we pray?
[00:01:33] Speaker A: Let's.
[00:01:33] Speaker C: In the name of the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good and gracious Lord, we give you all glory, honor and praise. We thank you for this opportunity to come before you today with open hearts, open minds, and just the ability to fully encounter you. Lord, we just ask those places that maybe are difficult for us to encounter you, that you open those spaces in our lives to be attentive to our neighbor. Lord, we also are so grateful for the leaders of your church. May you bless them abundantly, especially in all their intentions and needs, both material and spiritual.
Lord, we thank you for the work that you are doing in your church and the work that you are doing in each one of our lives. We are grateful.
We pray all this in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:02:24] Speaker B: Amen. Let's bring our guest on Bishop Robert Brennan. Good morning.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Good morning. It's great to be back in Columbus.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: Great to have you. We'll reminisce a bit and just catch up with you and find out some of the things that you've been doing. I know. I listened to your podcast, Big City Catholics and you are out and about.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: I'm having a lot of fun. I tell people the job is still a fun job. It is. You know, when I.
When I found out I was going to Brooklyn, I was brokenhearted to be leaving Columbus.
[00:03:02] Speaker B: So were we.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Oh, thank you. You're very good.
But once you get to where you're going, life takes over. And I'm having a grand old time. In some ways, it's a little bit of a homecoming. It's close by to where I grew up, and it's in that same cultural area. Brooklyn priest and Rockville center priest were all trained in the same seminary. I went to St. John's University, which is within the Diocese of Brooklyn.
So it's good to be back that way. And more importantly, I know the priests there. I kind of grew up around them, and it's great to be working with them again.
Ms. Columbus, Ms. The people who I worked with here. But God is good and God just surrounds us with great people.
[00:03:48] Speaker B: Really, wherever we are, we're all united, right? The mystical body of Christ.
Let's take a look at today's gospel. This is for our lady of Sorrows.
Two options for the readings this morning.
Luke, chapter 2, 33, 35. But let's reflect on the Gospel of John 19:25-27.
[00:04:12] Speaker D: Standing by the cross of Jesus, where his mother and his mother's sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene.
When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple there whom he loved, he said to his mother, woman, behold your son.
Then he said to the disciple, behold your mother.
And from that hour, the disciple took her into his home.
Amen.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Amen. Bishop.
An image that comes back to me often when I contemplate this passage is something that I read years ago. Love is stronger than death. Death is strong. It tears us apart, it destroys.
But love is stronger, Love restores where death can tear apart.
And you just see in this terribly cruel setting and one that had such pain, you see that power of love. It's love that brings Mary to stand by the cross of Jesus. Her love is stronger than the danger, stronger than the pain.
His love for her and for the beloved disciple to.
To.
With all the things that he could be thinking, his heart goes to them.
They take care of each other. So that image of love being stronger than death itself. And then, of course, that his death then is the very death of death. His death is that love really does conquer. It's not just a symbolic, feel good kind of a thing, but how he conquers death.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: Similar thought, Bishop, how much he loves us and doesn't want us to be alone even. And so we have each other, we have the Church, we have our Blessed Mother.
And I'm just thinking of those times when we're in intense suffering to realize that we're not alone. We always have the Lord with us. We have our Blessed Mother and we have the church.
And there's a lot of consolation in that.
Doesn't take the suffering away.
But we know that we're not suffering alone.
And I also want to reflect more today on our responsibilities as Christians to care for one another and to seek out and just be aware, be attentive to those around us that are suffering so that we can bring them closer to the Lord and at least let them know the Lord's closeness to them, that they too are never alone.
[00:07:20] Speaker D: Kim, I. I am reflecting on how John leaves his name out of his gospel. And it's something that I've always appreciated because he refers to himself as the disciple or the beloved disciple.
And I think the reason that he does it, this is the thoughts of Cam, right? I don't know that this is any sort of official church teaching, but the reason that he does it is because that's me too. I am the disciple, the beloved disciple, who the Lord calls close to himself always. Right?
And I think in a particular way. Today's passage, it struck me that Jesus, he refers to him, the disciple whom he loved, and then invites the disciple to love him back in a very particular way by inviting his own mother, Christ's own mother, into that disciple's home. I hope all of us are reminded of that, that our commitment to our Lord, sometimes the fastest way to get to him, the best way to get to him is through his mom. All the more if I love Jesus, do I love his mother.
So I'm grateful. I'm grateful for the gift of her. I'm grateful for the gift that the Lord has given to us in her. And I feel convicted to renew my commitment to the Lord through his mother and invite her all the more into my home.
[00:08:32] Speaker B: Our lady of Sorrows, pray for us. Amen. Hello again to all of our friends in Brooklyn, listening on Big City Catholics.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: It's great to be visiting with you today. So Brooklyn, Brooklyn takes in two counties, we call them boroughs.
Two boroughs in the city of New York, Brooklyn and Queens. So I find myself often saying Brooklyn and Queens whenever somebody says Brooklyn, because the Queens people are an important part of the diocese and it's easy to feel left out.
[00:09:02] Speaker B: Well, are they. Is it officially the Diocese of Brooklyn? Because I fact checked myself on that.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: That's correct.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: So, okay. No, it is nice, I bet, to be closer family now.
[00:09:14] Speaker A: It is. But when I got back, my mother had become ill even when I was here, and it was Just providential that I was really within an hour's drive and would be able to drop in every once in a while. And now I see my dad pretty regularly, and it's a good thing.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: I remember when. When you were here in. Well, strange days when you were here in Columbus.
[00:09:40] Speaker A: Thanks a lot.
Not to say, you know what you mean. I know what you mean.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: Did you? Yeah. Again, providential that you were here during those days. We had Covid, of course, and then the riots.
[00:09:55] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:55] Speaker B: Difficult time.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: There it was. And again, the word of the day seems to be providential. The Lord is good to us. But it was good. I had pretty much a full year before COVID came, You know, I was installed here on March 29th of 2019.
And on March 16th, 2020, everything closed.
And by that time, I had made it to just about every parish. I may have missed one or two that were on the docket in the next couple of weeks, but that first year gave me a chance to get to know the people here in central Ohio. And, boy, what a gift that was to me. I just enjoyed so much getting to know people here and seeing people in the parishes.
We have such rich parish life here in central Ohio.
And then this happened. And it was good to have already had a relationship with people before we reached those days.
[00:11:04] Speaker B: I remember you walking around on the streets downtown, going out for your daily walks.
[00:11:09] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: And it was during the lockdown. No one is out and about.
And then things were boarded up in.
[00:11:18] Speaker A: The midst of the riots.
We were locked down here in Ohio. I have to say, Ohio handled things very, very well, comparatively to the rest of the country.
And we were back up on Memorial Day, I think the Pentecost Sunday. We were supposed to be back, and we were back up. But then within days, we had all the riots here. That's right. And right there on Broad Street.
That was jarring crazy.
[00:11:46] Speaker B: Do you still get out and walk the streets of Brooklyn?
[00:11:49] Speaker A: I do, actually. I do two things. I walk just to get a little bit of exercise. But I've taken up the bicycle now.
True confessions I have to give. Is that bold?
[00:12:01] Speaker C: Are we saying on the scene?
[00:12:03] Speaker D: I think we all have questions.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: We're not talking stationary.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: No, no, no, not. But I am going to be honest with you. I have to. True confessions. It's one of those battery assists, so I have a little bit of help along the way. You know, I'm an old man now, and we have those hills in the wind.
Well, the city of New York. One thing is, they're big on the bike lanes. And so I get through the bike lanes.
Sometimes I do it for pleasure. But let me tell you something. Getting around in a car is not easy. And in the city, they don't want you to be driving. They make it difficult for you to drive through the city.
And at one point, I was just getting so frustrated because of these roads that used to be three lanes being now down to one lane because of the bike lanes and all that. And I said, if you can't beat em, join em. There you go. And so that began my.
[00:12:57] Speaker B: That's brilliant.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:59] Speaker B: So parking is easier.
[00:13:00] Speaker A: Parking is easier. It's a little bit of a setup. That's different. When I was here in Columbus, you know, I lived at the Chancery. The second floor of that building, which was attached to the cathedral rectory, was where I lived, but the offices were on the first floor, so my commute was a staircase.
Now I'm three miles from the office.
But let me tell you, it's a lot easier to get there by bicycle than it is to get there in a car. It could take.
[00:13:31] Speaker B: You know what would look great on your bike?
[00:13:34] Speaker A: A St. Gabriel's sticker.
[00:13:38] Speaker B: Yeah.
Make sure we send one back with you.
[00:13:44] Speaker A: Actually, we have a prep seminary. It's the only diocesan prep seminary in the country.
High school. And.
And it's a small school, but it's. It's vibrant. It's a really good school. But they gave me a helmet with the prep seminary stickers on the helmet, so I do advertise cathedral prep.
[00:14:08] Speaker B: How do you coexist with the. With the taxis?
[00:14:13] Speaker C: Carefully.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Actually, you know what? I hate to say it. It's probably more of a challenge with the other people on bicycles than scooters.
Yeah.
[00:14:25] Speaker D: You know, I was gonna say, take that Pope mobile.
A bishop on a bicycle. Watch out.
[00:14:33] Speaker B: Any viral moments of you riding around?
[00:14:36] Speaker A: That's a good question. I haven't seen them.
[00:14:40] Speaker D: For better or worse. Right.
[00:14:42] Speaker B: Who's your director of communications?
[00:14:46] Speaker A: Well, I do that. I do a little bit incognito, just in case you have to be a little assertive.
[00:14:53] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: But yes, that needed it. But it is great. Also, recreationally, you know, going over. I live near the Brooklyn Bridge, so, you know, you go over the Brooklyn Bridge, you tool around Manhattan, you come back, There are some great places to go and visit right there in that downtown Brooklyn area.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Well done. Bishop Robert Brennan's here in the cafe with us this morning, catching up.
So you've been in Brooklyn since 2021?
[00:15:22] Speaker A: November 2021, yeah.
[00:15:24] Speaker B: Biggest surprise.
How is serving the people of Brooklyn different than serving here in Columbus?
[00:15:32] Speaker A: Let me give you some scale. Yeah. It's not surprising because I kind of knew this already.
But first of all, I'm coming from Columbus, which when I was here, it was about 300,000 Catholics. I believe it's growing.
That would probably be within a population of about 3 million, maybe.
I think we were about 11,000 square miles in the territory.
Right now I'm with a million and a half Catholics living among 5 million people in 180 square miles.
Wow. Goes back to the bicycle.
[00:16:11] Speaker B: It's where you build up.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Exactly. So we are dense. We're close together. Actually, I guess that is a little surprising. I mean, to. Because even when I was in New York before, I was in the suburbs, so I'm still used to things like parking lots and things like that. But we are close. We are very close to one another. That. That. That is one thing.
The other thing, though, that's different, unique about Brooklyn is the whole world lives in Brooklyn now. There were places where you have great diversity of people, but this is a great diversity of people living very close together. So we have parishes that celebrate Mass, maybe in four or five different languages in a single day. It's not just that this is an Italian speaking parish or a Spanish speaking parish, but the Spanish Mass is there, the Italian Mass, Chinese Mass, English, all in one place.
That's something that's different.
It's very invigorating to share all these cultures. That's eye opening for me.
[00:17:20] Speaker B: And while the USCCB tapped you to be the chairman of the Committee of Cultural Diversity in the church. Right.
[00:17:27] Speaker A: I said, yeah, look at me. Right?
[00:17:30] Speaker B: You scream cultural diversity.
[00:17:33] Speaker A: I tell people I have two qualifications for cultural diversity. Brooklyn and Queens.
That's it.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:17:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:17:43] Speaker B: And Bishop Fernandez serves on the subcommittee with you?
[00:17:46] Speaker A: Yes. So that particular committee of the USCCB is unlike some of the others. The others are very singularly focused. They have a particular mission. Ours is really a committee of subcommittees.
And my main job as the chair of Cultural Diversity is to ask people to take on the responsibility for the subcommittees. So who do you think I turned to pretty quickly? I turned right to Bishop Fernandez, and he's the chair of the subcommittee on Asian and Pacific Islanders.
And he's really brought a lot of life to that particular subcommittee. I mean, he's been attentive to certain realities and being able to speak out on them and really bringing the richness of some of those different groups in the church.
[00:18:44] Speaker B: Bishop, how does the Church understand diversity because you want to respect the cultural differences, but you also want to have unity within the church.
[00:18:51] Speaker A: And you know what? I'm glad you said that, because this is something I often reflect on in Brooklyn and Queens.
It's a very Catholic reality, but we use different vocabularies. So, you know, instead of saying cultural, we use cultural diversity. Of course, but basically, that's what the word Catholic means. Catholic means universal.
So we are a church of everybody, and each culture brings certain traditions and experiences and expressions. But at the same time, we talk about unity, but in the Catholic worlds, we speak of communion.
And a communion is kind of like a family.
And I often use this term. I say we're a family of families.
So that's right. Being culturally diverse, being universal, we bring everybody in, but we are one.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: I think sometimes we confuse the unity with uniformity.
[00:19:57] Speaker A: Right, right.
And also, what is it that makes us one?
We'll probably have a chance to talk a little bit more about Pope Leo, but I love his motto. It comes from St. Augustine, and it says, in the One, we are one.
What unites us is Jesus Christ himself, the One, The One, and he is the One and the universal truth. And it's the same Jesus. It's not Jesus in this culture and Jesus in that culture and all that. Yeah. May have different images as we.
As you see, pictures and art, all of that, but Jesus is a real person and he's alive.
He's not a myth that fits into the different cultures. We are one in the One.
That's the central point of our unity.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Of our communion, as it's always been, but especially right now, when you have so much division on just about everything, for us to be able to say that we've always been united in the One for all.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: Yeah. And that shows itself in the expressions, for example, of liturgy.
In the Sacred Liturgy, in the Eucharist, you can go into Mass in another language, and you may not understand the words, but you know what's going on, and you are connected, you are praying.
It comes. Somehow or another, you're there because really what that Sacred Liturgy is doing is lifting us out of this world to.
[00:21:48] Speaker D: The one I've wandered into. The Palatine fathers run St. Christopher's down in Grandview, and they do a Polish Mass on Sundays, and I don't speak a lick of Polish, but every once in a while, when Sunday gets shaken up and looks a little different than I've expected, I've forgotten that they're midday Sunday Masses in Polish. And so I'd Be like, oh, I'll just go to this one. MassTimes.org and I go down to see Christopher's in Grandview, and I walk in, and then I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm about to experience this in a way I wasn't expecting. It's all in Polish. But it's like you were saying, Bishop, that doesn't take away from the prayer.
You know, if I'm truly praying the Mass, I'm still praying along, and I know exactly what's happening in that moment. And even if I don't understand the gospel entirely, those words still have an effect on me.
And that prayer is still, you know, united with all those other people around me, even if we're not speaking in the same tongue.
[00:22:41] Speaker A: And when we talk about communion, we're not only just talking about a diversity of, you know, from here to there, but we're talking about being united with the saints who've been praying that sacred liturgy before us.
We're one.
You know, that family of families goes even beyond the grave. And we call it the communion of.
[00:23:04] Speaker B: Saints, which we just have celebrated. Two new saints.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:23:10] Speaker B: St. Carlo Acutis and St. Pier Giorgio.
[00:23:15] Speaker C: Bishop Brennan, you had the opportunity to go visit Assisi, is that right?
[00:23:20] Speaker A: Yes, I did, actually, twice within the last year. So last October, we had a retreat for the priests of the diocese. It was a small group of priests.
The idea was to do these things in small groups. We'll be doing it again in Assisi. But then over the summer, during the jubilee of youth, part of our pilgrimage brought us up to Assisi. And for the young people who were going, one of the real attractions was to visit and venerate the tomb of Blessed Carlo. He connects me with the experiences of our young people today and of the things I learned from the young people. You know, I often say back at home, I was once doing an interview and I was asked about what does Blessed Carlo. Well, now we should be saying St. Carlo, right? But what does St. Carlos have to teach the young people of today? And it hit me that's the wrong question, because really, it's not so much what they need to learn from him, it's what we older folk need to learn from our younger folk.
And that was part of my experience here in Columbus. What I could learn from the faith, the enthusiasm, the generosity of. Of our young, faithful Catholics. And somebody like Carlo Acutis reminds us, and Saint Pier Giorgio Frassatti, they remind us that our young people, even today, have an awful lot to teach us about faith. And we need to learn from them. We need to learn. And that's been through the ages. You talk about young saints and you talk about devotions. One of my great devotions is to St Agnes, who was a teenage saint and one who basically she gave. She stood up against peer pressure and she stood up against the mighty Roman Empire. They had to bring the full weight of the Roman empire against a 13 year old girl because peer pressure, she wouldn't give in.
The governor's son wanted to marry her. She could have had wealth and power and all kinds of things and no peer pressure that way. But then when he wasn't used to being told no, when it started to get rough, the peer pressure was tormenting and shaming.
She still didn't give in. But they had to bring the full weight of the Roman empire against a 13 year old girl.
1700 years ago, she taught us something and still teaches. So, yeah, there are lots of young saints and again, lots of young people today. You know, Cam, you were in Damascus. What brings me here this week is Damascus. I was invited to the speaker series at Damascus. And you know, that was always for me an incredible experience.
Both the teens who were on the camping weeks, but the missionaries, people like yourself, who were really dedicating yourself to that work and really doing it out of a love for the Lord. And that's what it's really all about, right? Jesus called the twelve to be with him and then he sent them forth to preach the gospel.
[00:26:36] Speaker B: Now, your recent trip to Rome in Assisi, you went with young adults.
[00:26:41] Speaker A: We had a young adult contingent from Brooklyn and Queens.
One group joined in from the Bronx.
[00:26:48] Speaker B: What does young adult ministry look like in your diocese?
[00:26:51] Speaker A: A lot of young adult ministry comes out of Manhattan. That's sort of the center of it, but we're really trying to build it here. In Brooklyn and Queens, there's a ministry again, a missionary ministry called Shalom. In fact, the cross that I'm wearing is the cross that they gave me. It's the cross of Shalom. They come out of Brazil. It's a lay movement, a missionary movement in Brazil.
And I went to their international conference a year or two ago in Fortaleza, Brazil.
But they're just so alive. A lot of it comes in campus ministry. We brought focus in to Queens College, which is very different from Ohio State.
It's, it's commuter college. So it's a very different model. And they adapted to that model in powerful ways. So you start, you see a lot of the young adults stepping up in many different ways and within parishes.
[00:27:50] Speaker B: Bishop Robert Brennan, the bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens. We'll mention Queens this time.
What's on your heart for the church?
Now, I know you gave or are giving, depending. Okay, today's Saturday. We're broadcasting on. This is here on Monday.
So you will be giving a talk this evening at Damascus. At Damascus.
[00:28:16] Speaker A: At Damascus. Yeah.
[00:28:18] Speaker C: We'd love to hear maybe some of those points that you're hearing.
[00:28:21] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:28:21] Speaker B: What do you want the church to know?
[00:28:25] Speaker A: Well, you know, they.
They asked me for. They said to be the speaker at the speaker series and you can talk about anything you want.
I'm not good at that. Oh, man.
Where do you start? Yeah, and they were asking me to the late spring in the summer. Well, you know what?
They needed a title. I said, I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't have a title. I don't have a content.
A lot of it came to me during that pilgrimage, actually. In fact, the first day, I'll tell you this story, the very first day, I arrived a little bit ahead of the group to do some work there. And that first day, you know how you get into Rome, European city, ridiculously early in the morning and you can't check into your hotel until 3 or 4 o'. Clock. Right. So there I am. I knew the neighborhood. So I'm in this church and I just sit down and it just started jotting in my book. And it just all came to me. And it really is. It's a reflection on one of those scenes that's so important to me. That scene of Jesus and Peter, Jesus the risen Lord at the lake of Tiberius down in Galilee after the resurrection, where first of all, Peter goes back to fishing. He goes back to where he was comfortable with, you know, after the events of Good Friday and everything that led up to. And then the resurrection. It's great news. But, boy, that's got to be confusing, right? Right. You know, we know the whole story, but for somebody living it, it had to be confusing. And so what does he do? I'm going fishing. He goes back to what he's comfortable doing and maybe to where he first met the Lord.
[00:30:12] Speaker C: Right, that place of encounter.
[00:30:14] Speaker A: That place of encounter. And he goes fishing.
And then, of course, Jesus meets him in the ordinary thing of his life. Jesus goes to meet him where Peter's being Peter and the same with the other apostles. So that was the first point. And then the second is that whole exchange, do you love me?
And Peter really having to grapple with do I love Jesus, really love Jesus, or do I love who I want Jesus to be? Because, you know, in the Gospels, Peter kept trying to get Jesus to take a different road. He didn't like the idea of a Messiah who would be crucified, who would be talking about suffering and dying. He didn't like someone of Jesus stature bending down to wash his feet.
Peter and I give Peter a lot of credit. So even though I sometimes. Sometimes I feel bad, I'm afraid to meet Peter in heaven.
He might say, you made fun of me a lot.
But, you know, I think he did the best he could given that he didn't read the rest of the book. He didn't have the ending there.
And so, you know, he did pretty well. But he had to grapple with that question, and what does that mean for us in terms of doing mission?
Jesus says, do you love me?
Do you really love me?
And do you love me more than these? Do you love me more than anything else?
There was that back and forth, and Peter had to say, yes, Lord, I love you.
Not just the idea of you, but I love you.
And really what it took to get to that point was being loved by Jesus. That's what I think he really needed to understand that he was unconditionally loved, even in the midst of his own struggles and his own failures along the way. And what does that mean for us engaged in mission? What does it mean for a Damascus missionary? What does it mean for St. Gabriel radio?
It's.
It begins with that recognition of being loved by the Lord and then letting that, you know, overflow.
[00:32:55] Speaker C: As I'm thinking of Peter's exchange with our Lord, I wonder if when Peter was being asked, do you love me? And he's responding, the words are different there. Is that correct? And I do wonder if he's acknowledging, I feel like I failed you, Lord, and so I'm giving you the little bit of love that I have. But he's grappling with his guilt as well.
And I would just love to hear your thoughts. Also, in our own lives, when we're grappling with that, of wanting to love the Lord to the extent that he's calling us to, but in our own weakness or our own guilt or whatever it might be, he's still calling us to respond.
[00:33:39] Speaker A: He is.
You're right. The word that Jesus is using is the do you love me?
With that all encompassing sacrificial love, the way that God loves us. And, you know, Peter responds with, like, that friendship kind of. But Peter does Love him with that kind of love. Because he does lay down his life for Jesus. Yeah, he does. It's just. It was hard to get there. And I think you hit on something very, very important, that he's acknowledging that his love. He's doing the best that he can. I'm giving you. I'm willing to give you what I can, but this is what I've got.
And Jesus patiently walks with him and understands that. I think, again, where does Jesus meet Peter? He goes to where Peter's being Peter. So he meets him where he is, but he doesn't just leave him there.
He just gently walks with him and brings him along. I think that's it. So even you're right. We too, we struggle, we grapple and we say, I know I love you, but I know this held me back.
And he'll walk us through.
[00:34:53] Speaker C: You've mentioned a couple times that our Lord meets us in the ordinary.
And I think maybe sometimes when we think about the saints, we have this big picture in our head. Or when we think about holiness, we tend to think, oh, it's something other than maybe what I'm doing in my day to day. But, but what I hear you saying, Bishop Brendan, is. Is. No, it. It's definitely in the day to day.
[00:35:19] Speaker A: Yep.
[00:35:20] Speaker C: That's. That's where holiness is forged, right?
[00:35:23] Speaker A: It certainly is. You know, you see it in your families, right? We see it. It's.
And. And where we have to maybe be a little more patient, or where we do live for others, where we have to sacrifice for one another, where we have to make room for one another. That is, that is the reality of holiness.
[00:35:45] Speaker C: We're also in the pilgrim pilgrimage of hope, this jubilee of hope.
Any thoughts on just where the church is at right now in. In line with whatever's on your heart these days?
[00:35:59] Speaker A: Actually, it is an exciting time. It's a very exciting time to be a Catholic for a number of reasons.
You know, we were talking about young people before, and I'm. I'm not a numbers guy in this kind of regard. I, you know, I'm a math guy, I admit that. But I don't mean like, there's a lot of talk about young people in the church and coming back to the church, and I'm thrilled about it. But, you know, like I said before when I was here, I used to say it, and I say the same thing in Brooklyn.
There is faith among the young people, even when the numbers were down. Maybe what I find is that the faith is deep. I wish it were Wider. But I find that where there's faith, it's very, very deep. And that was even in the not so good days, you might say.
So we need to just build on that where there is faith and where it's deep and. And let that be the. Like, the kindling in the world. The other exciting thing is the Holy Father.
[00:37:02] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:02] Speaker A: I was a teenager in 1978 when.
When Pope John Paul II was elected.
It took me a year. Was when he came to the United States in 1979, that I kind of had an encounter where it was something meaningful for me. I saw him in Madison Square Garden.
This was before World Youth Day, but it was an event for the youth. I expected something very solemn and somber, and it was quite the opposite.
And it hit me then that this is one of those transformational moments.
And I can't help. And I tell this to the young people today, too. I can't help but think that that's what we're going through right now, that this is a transformational moment. That the election of Pope Leo, many of the things he says, the ways that he says it, and he, you know, with all due respect, he's young.
I mean, that was at the Jubilee for Youth.
To see him walking down the aisle and holding the Jubilee cross and then going up this long flight of stairs with the young people, I said, wow, it's nice to see a young Pope.
I think one of the things about the Pope is it's not what he says, it's who he is, and he's bringing. This is an exciting moment. And, you know, you're right. They say he's working on an encyclical already. But it's sometimes some of the simple things that he said already that just are so inspiring.
[00:38:35] Speaker B: Have you had an opportunity to speak with him?
[00:38:38] Speaker A: Believe it or not, I did.
I didn't expect to join the Jubilee of Youth because there were a lot of bishops in Rome at the time.
But I went to the Wednesday audience, and there weren't too many bishops at that. And so he greeted the bishops. And so I had a chance just to say hello. It was very informal. That's the funny thing. I said, hi, Bob Brennan from Brooklyn.
[00:38:59] Speaker B: Do you guys understand each other? Because you have Brooklyn and Chicago.
[00:39:02] Speaker A: He got it right away. He said, brooklyn, that's great.
And then I just said, hey, the people of Brooklyn and Queens love you an awful lot. We know the sacrifices, because he's made so many sacrifices to do this, so many sacrifices. You think of it as an honor, but this is more sacrifice than anything. And I said, we really appreciate it and we pray for you every day. That was the conversation, that simple. But he was genuine, friendly.
It was really a great moment in our final.
[00:39:34] Speaker B: We have just about two minutes left. How can we all pray for you?
[00:39:39] Speaker A: Listen, I appreciate the prayers anytime. Just let's pray for each other and pray for the church here in Columbus, pray for the church in Brooklyn and Queens, that maybe some of the fruits, the spiritual fruits of this exciting time might really sink into the hearts of the faithful and help us to be able to bring that good news, share it with others.
Amen.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: I'm also going to pray for bicycle safety.
[00:40:07] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:40:10] Speaker B: Can you leave us with your blessing, Bishop Brennan?
[00:40:13] Speaker A: Sure, sure.
The Lord be with you and with your spirit. May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. May he look upon you with kindness and grant you his peace. And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain with you forever and ever.
[00:40:33] Speaker C: Amen.
[00:40:34] Speaker B: Amen. Thank you so much, Bishop Brennan.
You made time for us. It means a lot to us and to our community.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: My podcast started here. It was the faith dialogues during COVID every day. Yep.
[00:40:47] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:40:47] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for joining us for a special edition of our Dawson podcast, Big City Catholics. We hope that you'll join us again next week as our guest, Angie Vasquez, the director of Children's Faith Formation and Catechetics of the Diocese of Brooklyn, speaks to us about this year's catechetical program in our diocese, especially this upcoming Sunday's Catechetical Sunday, September 21st. Thank you, and God bless you.
