Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to our weekly podcast big City Catholics. I'm Bishop Robert Brennan, serving the Diocese of Brooklyn. Serving in Brooklyn and Queens. I'm here today with Father Joseph Chibino, who is really our vicar for evangelization, all things evangelization. Let's begin with prayer. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. Lord Jesus, you give to us through your apostles that mandate to go forth, baptize all the nations, teaching them all that I have taught to you. We ask you to be with us as we continue to live out that mandate in the current generation, that we may share our faith in all that we say and all that we do through the same Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. So, father Gibino, a week ago, on Sunday the 17th, the church observed catechetical. Sunday? And then last week we had in the diocese here at the Immaculate Conception Center a gathering of all of our catechetical leaders in different forms here in Douglasdon. Let's start. Tell me about your catechetical Sunday.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: We had a great catechetical Sunday in Brooklyn Heights. We invited our catechists to gather with us. We had a blessing for them. And then at the end of Mass, I invited all the little disciples to gather around their catechists and for a blessing. And I said something to them that really shocked everyone in the church. I said to the little disciples, I don't want you to learn a thing this year. And the gasp from the parents went up and the catechist blanched. I said, I want you to become Jesus. And that's the point of all evangelization of all catechesis, is to become living witnesses of Christ Jesus. It means we've had the encounter with Christ. We choose to follow Christ. And in the end, it's not what we say or do, it's who we are. We become the hand, the heart, the face of Jesus for the world. And that's really the message.
[00:02:26] Speaker A: Just witness, witness. We hear that all the time. This was your first catechetical Sunday in Brooklyn Heights. You mentioned that. So formerly you were pastor at Holy Trinity in Whitestone. Just this year you moved to St. Charles in Brooklyn Heights, while in both places maintaining all these other ministries at the service of evangelization. It's kind of a different experience being in Brooklyn Heights.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: It is. And one of the things that is very different is the young families. So with toddlers and two year olds or four year olds, an extraordinary growth of that young family energy. And there is the old saying, if you don't hear the babies crying, your church is dying. Well, we have constant background noise. That is very exciting because there are young families there. Our mature families in Whitestone were wonderful. And it's a whole new kind of experience and energy with the young exactly.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: So in Whitestone, you had people who raised their families there, and maybe you even have some generational families as well. But in Brooklyn Heights, it's like many people who are coming to the neighborhood. Yes, and lots of transition too, right.
[00:03:36] Speaker B: And lots of life on the streets. That's where one can walk around and say hello and see the toddlers in the carriages. And one of my favorites I don't know what to call them they're the triangular carriages with a mother or father running, pushing the kids as they run it's. Never saw that in whitestone. So this is a whole new world.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Exactly. That's good. I was in St. Robert Bellarmin. September 17 is the feast of St. Robert, and I have a special closeness to St. Robert, obviously my patron saint and the patron saint of the parish there in Bayside. I had never been in a diocese. I was in Rockville Center. I was in Columbus with a church dedicated to St. Robert Bellaman. So I was glad to be able to celebrate the patronal feast there on the 17th, which was in itself a great celebration. But it was catechetical Sunday, and there they have a very lively catechetical program. So many catechists they had a good number of established catechists. People have been doing this for years, but also younger. I'm going to call them witnesses. They're catechists, but they're people who confirmed in recent years, but they're there to serve with the catechists as witnesses to the young people to show the difference that it makes. So they help out, but they give a living witness. And all of those people were blessed together, and there was great gratitude in the church that day. Now, afterward, we went downstairs. St. Roberts is a parish that has an English speaking, somewhat established community, but also a large Korean community that's pretty well established by now. And they have the catechetical programs in both languages. But it was just great to see everybody from both communities there at the Mass and then at the reception. And they had a ministry fair as well, so people were sharing all the different opportunities there are for the young people.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: That's one of the dynamic aspects of catechesis in the diocese of Brooklyn and in Queens, in that we have so many populations that are really thriving and growing and filled with that spirit of the new evangelization. And certainly St. Robert's represents that evangelization spirit in the Korean community. And just as a sidebar, I'm an alumnus of Bellarmin High School College Prep in San Jose, California. So that's always a great blessing to be able to hear people celebrating Robert Bellarman. And here Bellarmine had a very or has a very interesting connection to catechesis. And so to be able to celebrate catechetical Sunday, there is really a great.
[00:06:21] Speaker A: Know sidebar talking about Robert Bellaman. The late Cardinal Avery Dulles, long before he was cardinal, wrote an essay on Robert Bellaman. He was a great devotee of Robert Bellaman, and he speaks about Robert Bellamyn being a voice of reason in very tumultuous times, in the time following the Reformation, in the time of great swings, he served under several popes and there were great swings even in the Church itself, trying to reckon with all of it. And then even the Galileo affair, he tried to hear him out, but say, hey, this is improved. Galileo was really tried, I think it was eleven years after Robert died. So he gets some blame for certain things, but really he was that voice of reason. What was the ground of his reason? It wasn't that he was a compromiser. It was that he called people to the truth, to know Jesus Christ and to be rooted in Jesus Christ. And sometimes that means a little bit of humility. I don't know that I have all the answers, but I know that I can go to the Lord and that if we stay united with Christ, we will find the truth.
[00:07:29] Speaker B: And everyone remembers a great scholar, which he certainly was, but he was also within that charism of being in the streets as again, going back to the word witness, we can know everything, but if our lives don't reflect that love of God and the truth, then where are we going with this?
[00:07:49] Speaker A: That's right. So it was a time when the Catechisms were being developed as people were trying to unpack some of the realities with the Reformation and Counter Reformation and again, getting to the truth. His definition of the Church is one that held up until the Second Vatican Council and then formed the basis for it. So you're right to talk about him as a Catechetical leader and the witness.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: And he was part of a generation. St. Philip Neary was one of those great witnesses to Catechism on the street. And in many ways the Society of Jesus was founded to teach Catechism to children on the streets. So we've kind of moved to a classroom model now and we're moving away a bit from that model to again, that let's be with the people where they are on the streets. And great opportunities for social Catholic teaching, great opportunities for service getting, especially our young adults witnessing through service everywhere, which is the catechism living on the streets.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: And that really brings us to last week's gathering. We had our Catechetical summit. So obviously I wasn't here in years past, I was here last year. I don't think we were quite back to having those sessions. So this was a new experience for me. But tell us about the Catechetical Summit.
[00:09:14] Speaker B: It is always a great grace to get Catechetical leaders together because every adult wants to share, bring a group of Catholics together and ask them to reflect on their faith, most will have a lot to say. And Catechetical leaders are really in the trenches. Their experience with children can be filled with great grace and the Holy Spirit. And at the same time there are those moments of desolation and frustration. But you said something really interesting to a catechist who was lamenting the fact that so many of the kids she had for first penance and first communion didn't come back for post communion witnessing. And you said, rejoice at the seven who are there. And that's really the key, is rejoicing with the ones who are with us. And it's the model of the Lord. There were very few who stood at the cross with Him. But the disciples, the holy women at the foot of the cross, we remember them.
[00:10:16] Speaker A: That's right. And you think of the thousands who were there for the multiplication of the loaves and the fish and after that were curious enough to still want to seek him out and hear what he had to say until he started speaking about, I am the bread that came down from heaven. Until he said, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood will have no life within you. That was too much for some people to hear. And I always say one of the saddest lines in the Bible, and many walked away from him that day.
[00:10:50] Speaker B: And you know, sometimes we don't proclaim Christ the challenger. And yet that's a great challenge from the Lord to the people. Believe I am who I say I am. Believe in My body and my blood. And that is the challenge. And that's what's so dynamic. I've got to give the plug for October 7 and the Eucharistic revival in Coney Island because it's a great catechetical event. But more, we're going to gather thousands in the diocese who believe in the real presence.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: And that's extraordinary.
[00:11:22] Speaker A: And that was the point I was making with this catechist that day that celebrate the victories. Celebrate the victories. Because while many walked away from Jesus that day, after the feeding of the 5000, the Twelve stayed. And I'm sure more than a few others stayed with him. He said, Will you go as well? And they said, Lord, to whom shall return, you have the words of everlasting life. I suspect after the resurrection of the Lord, when the apostles started preaching of Jesus risen from the dead, I bet there were some in that crowd that day who came to Him after the fact. We don't know the seeds that we plant. There's a great line from St. Anthony we're called to plant the seeds of trees under whose shade we may never sit. We don't know what we're doing. So that's first of all. But the second point, when I say celebrate the victories, it's not to put on rose colored glasses. It's to say, here are apostolic know. I've been using the book by Mansigna Shea. From Christendom to Apostolic Mission. And one of the things he calls upon leaders to do, pastors, administrators, catechetical leaders, school leaders, people who are in mission in the parishes. He calls on us to keep an eye open for apostolic witnesses. Where do you see people who are on fire with the Gospel? Because then you try to fan that flame knowing that they'll go out. So, taking your example of the October 7 event, our Eucharistic revival, isn't it something? On the one hand, we can lament the decline in church attendance. We can lament that, yeah, there are a million and a half Catholics in this area. We could be far many more who are on fire for the Eucharist, but that 7000 who are coming to Mamamadi's Park in Coney Island for Eucharistic revival represent a whole lot of other people who can't give the day but have that same fire. And you say there is faith, there's faith in Brooklyn and Queens and God is doing amazing things in Brooklyn and Queens. And so we have something to celebrate. But you're right, there are our witnesses.
[00:13:37] Speaker B: And one of our hopes, we're expecting about 1500 youth and we have T shirts for them. And it's all Eucharistic revival oriented T shirts, monstrance with a host. And what I would love to see happen is for a bunch of our youth to be in the neighborhood and one of their peers walk up to them and say, what is that? Well, we have a youth ministry program or I'm studying for confirmation. Come with me tonight to youth ministry or to class and see the line to the apostles from Jesus. First line is Come and see. Well, if those 15 young witnesses go out and say Come and see, and they get 1500 to come and see, what a miracle that is. And then the adults will be getting T shirts and to say, what if we got the harvest is amazing.
And now with these living witnesses. And that's why I will never call our younger children students. I will always call them little disciples because that's the message we really want to give them. If they don't learn anything but love, kindness, generosity and witnessing to Jesus, we can change the world with them.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: And that's where the knowledge comes. I mean, that sense of witnessing to Jesus, you have to know Jesus Christ. That's the key. You come to experience Him in your life, to know who he is, what he said, what he did, how he teaches. It's not just knowing about Jesus, but knowing Jesus. And that's what I hear you saying, that it really is about more than just the facts, but going even deeper to know Him as you would know a friend, right?
[00:15:25] Speaker B: And I have to say, in my own experience, thinking back to being a child and the priests and religious who I knew were extraordinary and they changed my life. And we have to remember them. I learned tremendous amounts from them. But it was their witness, everything they said and did with us. And we're sometimes afraid now to really proclaim through our lives who we are and what we believe. But I think back, and we were at the Sores Dinner, so a support group for aging religious, and that's what one of the speakers asked us to do, to go back and remember the faces and what they have given us. And that living memory is what catechesis is all about.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Along those lines, without going into the full detail of the day, you presented some demographic shifts that we see here in Brooklyn and Queens, just as we see them all around the world. And the way that people communicate is different from the way that we're accustomed to people communicating.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: Exactly. And we have to be aware that putting a bulletin announcement in or sending a letter home may not be enough anymore for the demographic. So one of the interesting things in one of the larger demographics was the most effective way to communicate with families is through a podcast. Exactly what we're doing now emailing, snapchat, instagram. All of these means capture the new imagination of people, and are we using them effectively as catechetical tools? One of my great heroes is the former superior general of the Society of Jesus, Pedro Rupe, who said way back in 1965, we have to be educating creative elements of change for a changing world. And that's really the mantra through social media right now, is creative elements of change for a changing world. We have to keep up and not be afraid again, st. John Paul's quoting the gospel, be not afraid over and over again. We can't be afraid.
[00:17:38] Speaker A: You know, words of John Paul II were picked up again by Pope Francis just this summer at the World Youth Day. He spoke to the young people, and he really spoke from the heart. You could see him getting emotional, and he said, I echo those words. He says, Close your eyes and hear the Lord saying to you, don't be afraid. He says, I know you want to change the world. I know you want to accomplish great things, and they seem like there are so many hurdles and so many obstacles, but don't be afraid. Jesus knows you better than you know yourself. Hear him speaking to you. Don't be afraid.
[00:18:10] Speaker B: And one of the things we've talked about numerous times is the fact that our families just are trying to struggle day to day with mortgages, rents, food, education.
How can we, as catechetical leaders, give them the words they need to get through each day without fear? So families are such an important part of the faith right now, and they've always been. But right now, to go back and invite families to remember when we would say the rosary together, when we would say grace before meals together, little things, when we ate meals together on a regular basis. Now, some families have schedules that makes it hard for them to eat a meal together. And yet. How can we invite them to the table of the Lord if they don't know what it means to eat at home? How can we ask them to be God's family at the Eucharist if they don't know what it means to eat as a family? So we've really got to be fostering again. And I don't want to call them traditional family values. They are family values for every age.
[00:19:19] Speaker A: And the same goes with discipleship. How do you believe in the real presence of somebody whom you only look upon as a historical figure if you don't really believe that Jesus is a real person and don't really see Him as somebody who loves you and see Him as somebody that you can love? How does a historical figure have a real presence? You have to be able to see the reality of who Jesus is. And that brings us back to the Catechetical ministry. There is a certain amount of knowledge that's imparted it's who he is and what he's all about. But where do you know Him the way you know your friends? Do you really know Jesus not just as you imagine Him to be? See, I think our world has done a couple of things. First of all, in some ways we've reduced Jesus to a nice person who existed some 2000 years ago and is a figure in history. In other cases we've reduced Jesus to sort of a good rulebook what's the term? Therapeutic deism. Right? Somebody who can make you feel good. In some cases we've reduced Jesus to an imaginary friend, to somebody who he is, who I want him to be, who makes me feel good, but doesn't challenge me.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:34] Speaker A: And in other cases we've reduced Him to a rulegiver. So when that's where we are, then how do you believe in the real presence? I think we have to start with knowing Jesus Christ and being known by Him, not as I would like Him to be. I remember I was at a conference early in the year and somebody said, the Lord is saying I love you. I love you as you are. Will you love me as I am? We want to make Jesus in our own image and likeness. That's really the first step to Eucharistic revival. That's really the first step to understanding real presence, that we believe that he is really present because he really is alive.
[00:21:12] Speaker B: And when we look at the history of art and you look at some very famous art pieces, everyone is always contemporary. They're wearing contemporary clothing, they're wearing Jesus is contemporary to them. Are we a little bit afraid of making Jesus our contemporary, really bringing him into our lives in the 21st century? It's a challenge, but it's a great challenge to be open to that.
[00:21:38] Speaker A: And I think that's where we ended up last week. It was a great energy. We spoke with the Catechist about the challenges, by the way, the catechetical leaders included, some of our pastors who were there, some school principals who were there, some of the directors of religious formation, some youth ministers, people who were involved in a whole series, people who are involved in the Order of Christian Initiation of Adults. And so the whole gamut was represented. And I said, you're right there on the front lines. And that's so appreciated and maybe not expressed enough because of all the things you have to deal with, but we appreciate what they're doing. But we also find great joy. Yes. There are frustrations, but we find great joy, great excitement, especially when you have those AHA moments.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Yes. And one of the great things that you just called attention to was the fact that we had pastors, principals, catechetical leaders and the superintendent of schools. We are all ministering together. It's a collaborative partnership. And that was so gratifying that we are united together in Christ Jesus, the unity of the ministry.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Again, there are many challenges ahead of us, but it's exciting. It's exciting to be called by the Lord to serve in his vineyard at this time, in this place. This is the time he put us here. And thank you for your leadership and thanks to all of our wonderful people who share the good news of Jesus Christ. Thank you for being with me today.
[00:23:09] Speaker B: Thank you for the invitation. Thank you for the opportunity to serve.
[00:23:13] Speaker A: And the last thing that we need to say is we're still asking your prayers. We're starting to get into the long range weather predictions, and we are very hopeful. We're very hopeful. We need good weather. Doesn't have to be perfect weather. We just need good weather on October 7.
[00:23:29] Speaker B: The Novenus should start now.
[00:23:32] Speaker A: There you go. There you go.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: The Lord be with you and with your spirit.
[00:23:36] Speaker A: May Almighty God bless you. The Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Big City Catholics. We look forward to speaking with you again next week. God bless.
