Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to this week's edition of Big City Catholics. I'm your host, Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens. This is another special edition. It's not exactly an on the road edition. It began as an on the road edition, but. But I'm coming to you post trip to Indianapolis, where we had the NCYC National Catholic Youth Conference. And four of our group are with me today to talk about the whole experience.
And we'll begin with prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Come, Holy Spirit. And open our hearts.
We desire to know friendship with Jesus Christ, and we are thankful for the opportunities that we have, the opportunities for encounter, the opportunities to deepen our friendships with old friends, to form new friendships and acquaintances, and most of all, to deepen our friendship with Jesus Christ. We ask you to help us always to value that friendship with Jesus and to share it with others. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.
So this week we had the opportunity. Two of our groups, a parish group from Mary of Nazareth Parish in Brooklyn, joined with the ambassadors, with students from various different parishes and high schools to kids gather with youth from all around the country for the National Catholic Youth Conference. It's an annual conference, and these two groups are very faithful, bringing students every year. This year was especially different. It was a real treat because it was the first what we call digital interaction with the Pope. Pope Leo joined us live from Rome in a conversation, in a discussion, back and forth, answering questions and reacting to what he heard in the crowd. So I'd like to be able to reflect on that. And I've asked four of our representatives to be with us. So I'm going to ask each of you to introduce yourself to the audience, telling us your first name and your parish association, where you go to school. So I'll begin with you. Ruth.
[00:02:29] Speaker B: Hi, my name is Ruth. I go to Sacred Heart Parish and I attend St. Mary's High School.
[00:02:35] Speaker A: And Ruth, you're part of the Ambassador program, right?
[00:02:37] Speaker B: Yes, Bishop.
[00:02:39] Speaker A: So what year are you in in school? You're.
[00:02:41] Speaker B: I'm a senior.
[00:02:42] Speaker A: Yes. Where are you applying for school this year?
[00:02:45] Speaker B: I'm applying to mit.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: And what do you want to study?
[00:02:49] Speaker B: I want to study biomedical engineering.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Wonderful. That is so impressive. And in our Ambassadors program, we have three people applying for mit, Isn't that right? Yes, Bishop Brennan, this is a pretty talented group. I'm impressed. Speaking of the ambassadors, Jaheem would You introduce yourself.
[00:03:08] Speaker C: Hello, I'm Jean Bennett and I go to Cristoe Brooklyn High School and I attend St. Thomas Aquinas parish.
[00:03:14] Speaker A: Very good. Very good. And you're a junior at Christo Rey?
[00:03:19] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:20] Speaker A: Good. And how are you enjoying the Christo Rey experience?
[00:03:24] Speaker C: I love it.
[00:03:25] Speaker A: Good. Very good. It's different than most high schools, right?
[00:03:28] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: So you attend classes four days a week and you work one day a week, right?
[00:03:33] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:34] Speaker A: May I ask, where you working this year?
[00:03:36] Speaker C: I work at BBR Partners.
[00:03:38] Speaker A: And what do you do there?
[00:03:39] Speaker C: It's a wealth management firm, so I just, like, help out with any projects.
[00:03:44] Speaker A: Excellent. Must be very, very interesting.
[00:03:46] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:03:47] Speaker A: Good for you. And then from Mary of Nazareth parish, we have Riley. Riley, you want to introduce yourself?
[00:03:53] Speaker D: I'm Riley. I'm from Mary of Nazareth and I go to say Osit Syosset.
[00:03:58] Speaker A: So you have roots here in Brooklyn, but your family moved east towards Syosset in Nassau county, right? Yeah, and I used to be a priest out that way, so I know SIASA very, very well. Well, I appreciate you keeping your roots here in Brooklyn at Mary of Nazareth parish, and thank you for joining us for this particular trip. And Michael, your turn.
[00:04:19] Speaker E: Hello. My name is Michael. I go to community high school and my church is Mary of Nazareth.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Mary of Nazareth.
[00:04:26] Speaker E: Very good.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: And is your mom the youth minister at Mary of Nazareth?
[00:04:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:31] Speaker A: So you're not the first one in your family to attend National Catholic Youth Conference, are you?
[00:04:36] Speaker E: No, my brother.
[00:04:37] Speaker A: Your brother did it before you? And so were you looking forward to this encounter? Did. Did your brother give you any hints on what to expect?
[00:04:44] Speaker E: He said it was a great experience and it was fun. So I got excited to see how it would go.
[00:04:50] Speaker A: In my opinion, good for you. Good for you. And how did it go, in your opinion?
[00:04:53] Speaker E: It was great. It was amazing. It was beautiful. I loved it. It was so much fun to meet new friends. It was a great experience.
[00:05:01] Speaker A: Good. I'm glad to hear that. Very good. How about you, Riley? What were you looking for to happen during this week?
[00:05:06] Speaker D: I didn't know much about, like, the whole experience, but I ended up having a really good time. I really liked a lot of the talks and the music and just like the community around me.
[00:05:17] Speaker A: Beautiful. That's great. That's really very good. And you were telling me before that even though this took place during the week, your school had a trip so you didn't miss all that much in terms of class. Is that true?
[00:05:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker D: No, I didn't. So it ended up working out. I wasn't like, worried about a bunch of schoolwork or anything the whole time.
[00:05:34] Speaker A: Glad you could give yourself over to it and just enjoy it. To me, that was the one. I don't know if you'd call it a good thing or a drawback, but you had to miss about three days of school for this trip, didn't you?
[00:05:44] Speaker D: Yeah.
[00:05:46] Speaker A: That's good. Ruth, was it a good thing or a drawback?
[00:05:50] Speaker B: I think it was a good thing in that I got a break, but kind of a drawback because now I have five tests to take.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: That's something.
[00:05:59] Speaker D: Wow.
[00:06:00] Speaker A: Five tests. Everybody's getting their test in before the Thanksgiving break, I guess, huh?
[00:06:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:06:04] Speaker A: That's it.
[00:06:05] Speaker C: That's it.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Jaheim, you're shaking your head as well. So, you know, you've done different things with ambassadors through the years, and you've know. You know about service trips and all of that. What were you looking forward to in this last weekend?
[00:06:19] Speaker B: I was really looking forward to meeting on Catholic youth from all around the country because I had gone to previous Catholic conferences, but never one that was geared toward young people.
So I was really excited to see how other people my age shared. Shared our faith.
[00:06:35] Speaker A: That's great. I remember. I don't know if it was you or Riley, but one of you said something along those lines to me on Friday that, you know, that that idea of meeting other people who share our faith is so important because, you know, we're.
Sometimes you're made to feel like you're all alone in what you believe. So you and Jahim go to Catholic high schools. Michael and Riley, you go to public schools. All good educational experiences. But sometimes you can feel, even in the Catholic school. Right. That you're alone in what you believe and how you're trying to live.
[00:07:06] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:06] Speaker A: And it's good to have that encouragement from other people who share that exuberance. So now, looking back, what would you have to say about it? Looking back, what did you get out of it?
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Looking back, I saw kids who were, like, passionate about their faith. Like, during praise and worship, people were, like, getting up, dancing and praising God and stuff. And that really made me happy because it showed that it's not just me who likes to sing and worship God, like everyone does.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: That's great. That's really good.
And, Jaheim, how about you?
[00:07:40] Speaker B: What.
[00:07:40] Speaker A: What were you looking forward to, and what did you come away with?
[00:07:44] Speaker C: I was looking forward to meeting the Pope, of course, and listening to different conversations about my faith.
[00:07:50] Speaker A: Good for you. And did you find that that was the experience you had yes.
[00:07:55] Speaker C: What I got from the Pope was that we shouldn't let AI control us, but we should use it to benefit ourselves.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: That's an interesting observation.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:03] Speaker A: Let's jump to the Pope and to what he had to say. First of all, I have to say I never expected to hear a Pope talking to us about AI. Right. That doesn't sound like a topic you're used to with the Pope. This Pope is pretty well informed about a lot of the cultural issues and a lot about the cultural realities, and yet he's been talking about AI. Is that an issue that you find young people are dealing with these days, the way that AI is used?
[00:08:28] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:08:29] Speaker A: Yeah. And he did say that there are times that it can.
[00:08:31] Speaker C: Can help us.
[00:08:32] Speaker A: Right. But it can't define us. We're not artificial beings, real people. Right. It shouldn't overwhelm us. How about you, Ruth? What did the Pope say or any message that really resonated with you?
[00:08:45] Speaker B: Really what struck me was that the Pope said that he also struggles with distractions, and he shared his method for, like, overcoming that, which is like, following the distraction to a point, realizing why you're getting that distraction and then giving it to Jesus, which I thought was really interesting.
[00:09:02] Speaker A: Yeah, I thought that was really good. So from two points, one that that was practical, I guess when we do pray or when we're sitting down to work, you kind of get distracted by something.
And he said, yeah, that's me. I get. I get those. But that was interesting advice. I wouldn't have thought of that to go with it, but just for a little bit. Right?
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Yeah, that really surprised me.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, that was pretty good. I enjoyed what he had to say about that. Michael, what did you think of that interaction with the Pope? Did you ever expect to be doing something like that with any Pope?
[00:09:34] Speaker E: I didn't expect it at all, honestly. I thought there were just, like, it was, like, pre recorded. I didn't know it was live. And I got excited because I didn't have experience to be with the Pope.
[00:09:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: I wasn't that interesting like that. That sense of something live. So, like, he laughed at some of the things he heard. Right.
[00:09:57] Speaker E: It was a cool experience.
[00:09:59] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: And you can see his facial expressions. I got a kick out of when they were asking about socks, if he had special Pope socks. And he says, I only wear. What did he say? I only wear white socks. Right.
Because that's his team. Right?
[00:10:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:10:15] Speaker A: He's a big White Sox fan.
And that's pretty funny because, you know, the Pope wears all White. But with him he meant another meaning. Riley, what did you think of this meeting with the Pope?
[00:10:28] Speaker D: I really enjoyed the whole interaction, but I just thought it was really interesting throughout everything.
A lot of the questions were a lot of advice and it was just apparent to see that he still is human and that we can relate to him in ways even though he's such a distinguished figure.
And he was just able to relate to the youth and definitely say a lot of admirable things. And same with a lot of other talks that I experienced throughout the conference.
I remember Sister Mercedes and just a lot of the other talks we tend to forget when we see such big figures in our faith that they also make mistakes and just can give advice to us and aren't perfect.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: Do you mind if I ask you? I'm very curious about that. We happen to know Sister Mercedes somewhat. I had to leave a little bit early because I was back in Brooklyn on Saturday for ordination of deacons and also to consecrate a new altar. So I was gone on Friday night. But I didn't see Sister Mercedes talk. What in her message struck you? What did you enjoy about her message? What did she have to say?
[00:11:40] Speaker D: She talked about what it takes to become a saint. And she told us a lot about her life and was just telling us all these different ways. Virtues. She definitely like talked about that a lot and was just telling us like about her life and how she became a sister. And she was just giving us advice on how to be like well rounded people in our faith and how to like complete virtues and just like help the others around us and just like move on from our struggles, you know.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: That's very impressive and it's interesting that she shared her life because. Do any of you know where she grew up? She grew up here in Brooklyn. She's one of us.
Isn't that amazing? She's one of us from Brooklyn and Queens. And she's not that old of a sister, right? She's kind of a young sister. She's their vocation director. But that's what I find so amazing about Sister Mercedes Torres.
She's one of us who answered God's call to be a sister. She's not from some faraway place, you know what I mean? We tend to think of sisters sometimes as somebody kind of imported from somewhere else. Here's somebody homegrown. In fact, she can came. Last year we had a gathering, a holy hour for vocations with young people. And we had a full chapel in Douglaston. And she was one of the keynotes. And, you know, it was probably a very similar talk about what she grew up with and. And all of that. And then she shared that common experience. And I think that's kind of nice to see when you see somebody who's up there talking on the stage like that.
And she kind of did the same things growing up that you guys are doing. Ruth, you kind of know who Sister Mercedes is, don't you?
[00:13:18] Speaker B: Yeah, we watched some of her videos in my religion classes.
Manners Monday.
[00:13:23] Speaker A: Manners Monday. So there's a video each week. It's kind of like the podcast. Right. But only there they have a video.
[00:13:29] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, we actually watched one today. About conversation starters.
[00:13:35] Speaker A: Okay. About conversation starters. Cool. Michael, any of the talks strike you, or any of the speeches, Any of the speakers rather interesting, or any of the music presentations more interesting than others? Or was it just the whole thing that you found? Good.
[00:13:50] Speaker E: Honestly, the whole thing. It was all amazing.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Good.
[00:13:54] Speaker C: All right.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Very good. How about you?
Anything that stood out for you?
[00:13:59] Speaker C: Bishop Espa was talking about, like, how what we need in the world is, like, strong, a stronger faith. And it was, like, inspiring seeing somebody that's so close to me talking about faith, because a lot of things are, like, going on in New York City, and so it's a very messy, like city. And what he also said was a war going on between God and the devil, and our soul is the battlefield.
[00:14:25] Speaker A: Isn't that interesting?
Yes. So Riley, he grew up in the Bronx, but in a situation very similar to our growing up in Brooklyn and Queens. So isn't it great, Riley, to have all these homegrown kinds of people speaking on a national stage?
[00:14:39] Speaker D: Yeah, that's, like, kind of what I was saying. Just, it's, like, more relatable and, like, it's more, like, inspiring to hear, just because you can relate to them more and just see, like, how strong they are in their faith and how many things they've overcome.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: And, you know, we have some great youth ministers, and we have great priests and religious here in Brooklyn, and it's kind of the same thing. They're sharing their experiences. And a lot of the experiences are the experiences that all of you have growing up. Who knows, one day, in one way or another, you may be sharing your experiences of growing up with the next generation. Right. So listen, I'm going to shift the conversation. I enjoyed being with the Pope. It was almost as if he was there. You know, ordinarily at a stadium like that, it's like one person's on the stage, but you're really looking at the big screen, right? And it almost seemed like he was there. But it was good to see his connection with our own experiences, our own experiences this week bring us to Thanksgiving. You all have a short week again, right? You only have three days of school, and then we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday.
I want to ask each of you, this is kind of our Thanksgiving edition of Big City Catholics, so I'm going to go around the digital room here and ask each of you what you are thankful for this year. Not just we have this time together, and you can include that, but what are you grateful for? What are you thankful for? With Thanksgiving coming up, Ruth, I'm going to start with you.
[00:16:06] Speaker B: I'm thankful for my family, my friends, my health, but I'm also thankful for my education, the fact that I made it this far, and I'm almost done with high school.
[00:16:16] Speaker A: Good for you. Good for you. You go to St. Mary's in Manhasset, and you went to Sacred Heart, right, in Cambria Heights for school. Very good. Very good. Riley, what about you? What are you grateful for this year?
[00:16:27] Speaker D: This year, and just in general, but I'm especially grateful for all the privileges that I have that my family offers me, that I'm just, like, surrounded by, like, good people, good friends, just like all my different communities and support groups. I'm just, like, really grateful for everything like that.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: That's great. Very good, Very good. We're surrounded by good people. Michael, what are you grateful for?
[00:16:53] Speaker E: I'm grateful for my family because they always help me along the way, and they help me with the faith.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Beautiful. That's beautiful. It was nice meeting some of your family as well. Good for you. And, Yahim, what are you grateful for this year?
[00:17:09] Speaker C: I'm grateful for being brought up in such a loving community.
I'm grateful for all the opportunities I get with the Ambassador program and other organizations that I'm a part of, and I'm grateful for my family.
[00:17:23] Speaker A: Beautiful. Those are great things to be grateful for, all four of you. I'm so impressed. I was impressed being with you all for dinner on Wednesday night. I was grateful for the chance to be with you together for a little bit of the conference. And as I look back now and I say, you know, what am I grateful for? There are many blessings in my life, but I love being a priest and now a bishop. But I am very, very grateful that I have the chance to serve right here in Brooklyn and Queens and to meet such amazing people like the four of you, like some of Your families, like the other people who are on the trip with us and. And so many young people from around our diocese, you know, when we stop and listen to one another, boy, we realize that God is doing great things around us, and you guys are perfect examples of that. So I thank you very much, and I'm going to take this moment to wish all of you and your families a very happy Thanksgiving. I hope you have a great weekend and to say to all of those who are joining us on Big City Catholics podcast, thank you for joining us so faithfully. I wish to all of you, whatever the circumstances of your life, that these days might be days of blessing to reflect on where the Lord is present in your life and where the Lord is working in your life.
May God bless you this Thanksgiving and always.
Please join us again next week for a new edition of Big City Catholics. In the meantime, I'll ask God's blessing upon you. The Lord be with you.
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.
May almighty God bless you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. You know, this week we were talking a lot about that interaction with Pope Leo, and next week we're going to talk about Pope Leo again, because on Sunday, the Holy Father issued an apostolic letter about the 1700th anniversary of the Nicene Creed. For 1700 years, we've been saying regularly, every Sunday, this creed, which sums up what we really believe as Catholics. And it's a great letter that he wrote to us. I look forward to discussing that letter with Bishop Massa, the rector of St. Joseph's Seminary in Dunwoody, one of the auxiliary bishops of Brooklyn. So please join us next week for that great discussion. God bless all of you and have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend.
