Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello and welcome to a special edition of Big City Catholics. I'm Bishop Robert Brennan, bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens, and your host of today's podcast. I'm joined today by our own Father Joseph Gibino, who is the director of evangelization catechesis. And I could give you a whole litany of all the things he does. So welcome, Father Giovino.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Thank you. Always a pleasure to be here with you.
[00:00:34] Speaker A: And so why don't we begin, as we ordinarily do, with prayer? And why don't we call to mind the words that Jesus taught us? In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, what in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen. So I'm very glad that you were able to join us today because the calendar is flying amazingly and we're already at the threshold of Lent. I don't know. We've had a short advent, a three week advent right into Christmas. We had a shortened Christmas season because we finished with the epiphany of the Lord, leading right into the baptism of the Lord and a few short weeks, and we have an early lent. It's already Ash Wednesday.
[00:01:35] Speaker B: That we are getting ready for. Ash Wednesday is just unbelievable because this lent we have so many exciting things going on in the diocese that we're going to be moving from one exciting moment to another for the next. Really? 46 days. It's going to be thrilling.
[00:01:53] Speaker A: It will be. And 46 days and beyond, because even beyond that, when we get into the Easter season, we have some exciting things and we'll talk about that a little bit as well. But in the church world, we use this time of January, February, to kind of catch our breath and to get things ready for the things that are ahead of us. And it wasn't much time for that this year.
[00:02:14] Speaker B: No. And it's very funny. I got a phone call yesterday asking if you were going to give a dispensation to eat meat on Valentine's Day. I said no. I think Ash Wednesday trumps Valentine's Day. I don't think you should anticipate a dispensation. But people are trying to figure out Valentine's Day and Lent.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: Ash Wednesday. I get the dilemma. But you're right. During Lent, there are occasions when we can dispense from abstinence on Friday, substituting another penance. Ash Wednesday and Good Friday are the two big ones. Those are days, actually, a fast and penance. So it's unfortunate the way the calendar works this year, but certain people are making suggestions. I've heard suggestions of people who are celebrating the night before. Well, I'm not a big fish person. You can always save up your two meals, eat light, have a full meal at dinner. That could be a nice seafood dish. There are other ways of celebrating, but in a sense, isn't it interesting that it is Valentine's Day? Because what we're observing is the greatest love story of all.
[00:03:14] Speaker B: Absolutely. And what better way for a husband and wife to celebrate their love, and especially with their children, than going to mass together as a family on Ash Wednesday, being signed together like they were at baptism? It's a beautiful combination, really, when we.
[00:03:30] Speaker A: Put aside the secular and we enter into this season of God's amazing love for us, that God would love us so much that he would come to live among us, that risen from the dead, he would continue to live among us, that he would pour out his life for us and accompany us always. These days of Lent are very, very privileged. We have the chance to put other things aside and to really focus in on the depths of God's love for us. You know, we spend a lot of time and energy in our lives, I do, filling ourselves up, whether it be through food or other activities, not necessarily bad things, but we need time to stop and to say, wow, what matters most is the love of God. And this is a time for us to step away. We do it every year, and we do it together every year. That's the other thing. So it falls on an awkward day this year. But that's the point of Lent. We don't do individual lents. We do this together, that as a church all throughout the world, we step aside from the ordinary ways of life and celebrate God's immense love for us.
[00:04:37] Speaker B: You had mentioned Advent a moment ago, and during Advent, we hear a lot about John the Baptist, but really, in Lent, we're given the opportunity to live. John the Baptist, he said, I must decrease so that he might increase. Well, here's our opportunity to, as you said, separate ourselves from all those things that keep us busy, to slow down, to listen for the voice of the Lord. And it's just amazing that we do what he did, the 40 days in the desert. And so it's an amazing, wonderful season.
[00:05:08] Speaker A: You know, it's funny. We talk about how short everything is. We're reading from the Gospel of Mark next week, not this weekend, but next weekend, the first Sunday of Lent. We have Mark's account of Jesus going into the desert, and that, too, is very, very short. It doesn't have the dialogue with Satan. It's just basically moved by the spirit. He went out into the desert where he fasted and prayed, where he was tempted and he was sustained by the angels. That's it. Everything's the abbreviated form this year.
[00:05:34] Speaker B: It is, but, yeah. How to the point?
[00:05:37] Speaker A: How to the point?
[00:05:38] Speaker B: To the point.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: To the point. So let's talk about Lent and really its origins, because we always focus in on the now of Lent, and that's good. But really its origins are in baptism.
[00:05:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And Lent is really, we see it as a time of fasting and prayer and self sacrifice, which it certainly is, but at the same time, it's the pre baptismal season. It's the time when we prepare to renew our baptismal commitment, and that's the piece that slows us down. Do we really want to say, I believe in God the Father almighty. I believe in Jesus Christ the Holy Spirit, the church? And it's 40 days of interior reflection on, am I walking the walk? If I'm saying the words now? I deliberately just segued into the pilgrimage for Lent. We're going to walk again with you, Bishop, as you walk with all of us. This year, we have a few very exciting things about the pilgrimage. One of them is, we learned our lesson last year, and we've ordered 45,000 passport prayer cards, so they look a little different. Let's shake things up. We don't want things to look alike every year. So the passports are there, and they look a little different. But what's very exciting is that we have an app this year, just like any other app, down to the App Store. Order it. It's free. And it will be digitally forming a community. So just like we walk the pilgrimage, many in our diocese can't walk. They're homebound. But now there'll be a forum where they can pray with others on the pilgrimage, ask for prayers. We are really going to be forming an intentional community of disciples journeying with the Lord. It's just thrilling.
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Well, that sounds exciting, and it's really a lot of work on your part and on the part of your committee that put this together.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: I owe a great deal to the sales media and their team. They are wonderful. But there's another piece that I'd like to share with you that I find really exciting. And that is when we first began to talk about this last year, it really came from an idea in Rome, the four church station. So we have the roman piece. Then, looking at the Compostello pilgrimage in Spain, we have a spanish component. We are the diocese of immigrants. We have relatives and families all over the world. What's very exciting, anyone, anywhere in the world can join our pilgrimage on the app. We have an opportunity to make this a global pilgrimage of intentional apostles.
[00:08:17] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:08:17] Speaker B: Which is so exciting. So if my family is in Guatemala, I can tell them what we're doing here, and in Guatemala, they can join us.
[00:08:26] Speaker A: Isn't that amazing? Isn't that amazing?
[00:08:28] Speaker B: It's just a real thrill.
[00:08:30] Speaker A: So we've designated 40 churches to be station churches, actually, a little bit more because there were a couple of doubles. So we designated station churches all throughout Brooklyn and queens, and station churches are designated, and we invite people in the area to visit those churches. Last year, there were people who made all the stops, or nearly all of them, and I was so encouraged by that. And it's generally all day. So some people came for the opening of the day mass and then the exposition. Some people came and just prayed for 15 or 20 minutes in the church during the course of the day, and some came later in the evening, but people would come and pray. And I got such positive feedback from the people who made the journey, who really found that a great Lenten activity. And so we encourage those who want to do that again this year.
[00:09:20] Speaker B: And I think the invitation is to form little communities. And so last year, we had people looking out for each other. If they didn't see somebody at a church one day, they would ask, is so and so all right? And there were two people who I have to mention, one, of course, was yourself. You made almost every day, you had two commitments outside the know you're a busy man. But also sister Marianne Ambrose, who became a true icon of the thrill of the pilgrimage. So, with your permission, very happy to share that. This year, we're dedicating the pilgrimage to Sister Marianne and her living witness to faith. So we are getting real saints involved in the pilgrimage.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: That's great. We're praying for her healing. I know she's struggling with help, but we're praying for her continued healing. We're encouraged by that continued healing, and I'm so glad that we are dedicating the pilgrimage to her. So people made the journey, and you organized it in such a way that it was sort of a circle. Last year, we took something of a route around Brooklyn, kind of a southern route, kind of went around Brooklyn and then up through Queens and then back into Brooklyn. I think this year you're going the opposite way.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Right? Opposite direction. And what was also very thrilling, we had so many parishes that wanted to participate. We really had to disappoint some and say, we've run out of days, but we did double up on a couple of days to share that joy of the pilgrimage spirit, which is thrilling.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: So one way of participating is by going to all or many, as many as you would like. Of the churches having the passports this year, instead of a stamp, it'll be a punch, but that's one way of making the pilgrimage. Another way that was very effective in parishes and deaneries is to join in the local celebrations. Maybe it's a little difficult. I know it's a little bit difficult getting around Brooklyn and Queens, but we'll have usually one or two in a deanery in a general area. Some of the deaneries last year, and I know some of them are planning this year to gather around the church that is designated in their deanery for different activities during the day that is designated in a particular station church. But the parishes that are hosting us, that are named as designated church, that's a day of grace for that particular parish. So another way of joining in the pilgrimage is to take your day and to be present to help your pastor in welcoming the pilgrims who are coming to be there for the prayers. A number of choirs are going to be joining. People are going to lead rosaries and different prayers in some places in different languages. So there are different things planned throughout the day in the pilgrimage sites, all meant to draw us closer and deeper in our life of prayer, closer to the Lord and deeper in that prayer. So you might want to focus in on your local area, your own parish, or the deanery that's nearby to you.
[00:12:21] Speaker B: And the complete list of the pilgrimage is going to be in this week's tablet if people want to plan ahead. And also, we've asked each of the parishes to give us their activities for the day so we can put them up on the diocesan website, get them all over if there's a particular prayer. I know a lot of parishes are going to be doing the chaplet of divine mercy at 03:00 p.m..
[00:12:46] Speaker A: Right.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: If that is part of your personal spirituality, that might be just the time you want to visit a church or go to your own home parish and pray the chaplet in solidarity with everyone.
[00:12:57] Speaker A: And then the third way, love to have you join us on the pilgrimage, because it is a communal event, but even just to spend time in your church if you can't get out, to spend the time in the chair, to make this special, to say that these days of Lent are different than the other days of the year, to allow the Lord to touch our hearts in a new way. And then, of course, so those are the three physical ways you've mentioned the app. And so there are ways that people can join us, whether it be in their home or in their local church, be united with us in prayer. And I love what you suggested, that people might even ask for prayers along the way. So isn't that a beautiful thing, that when we make our pilgrimage, we're not praying for ourselves?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Know, Pope Francis has the wonderful phrase, intentional disciples. This is really a chance, however we want to do the pilgrimage, to intentionally decide to follow Jesus. It's amazing.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: The sense of Lent is a time of pilgrimage in general. We remember the walk of Jesus, the cross, the pilgrimage of Jesus coming among us and making his way. The most local pilgrimage is the act of the stations of the cross. People may choose to do that in their own place during the course of Lent. Many parishes pray the stations of the cross on Fridays during Lent. But when churches are open, people can just go in and make the stations themselves. There are different forms of prayer that we could take up during this time of Lent. I always encourage whether you make this part of your pilgrimage or whether you just do this at home, the reading of the gospels, whether it be that you do the gospel of the day or you take one of the four gospels and just read one piece of it, just one story each day. Let it be an encounter with Jesus. I joke when I tell the young people to do this. I said, it's like his social media posts for the day. What did Jesus do today? On Sunday, for example, we hear the gospel of the man with leprosy who threw himself at the feet of Jesus. So if you just read that one story that Jesus speaks to you, it's sort of like, this is what I did today. The point being, enter into what had happened in that encounter, to let it be an encounter for us with Jesus.
[00:15:10] Speaker B: And for people who may be at work and who may be on subways. There are so many wonderful apps now. I see people on the subway with their earplugs in, and they're listening. We have amen app, we have Halo app, we have scriptural apps. There's so many ways we now can be busy, but being very mindfully present to the Lord at the same time.
[00:15:34] Speaker A: And then, of course, there's the tradition of people making sacrifices, giving things up, and that's not to be forgotten. Again, we fill ourselves up with other things. So giving something up is a good practice that reminds us of our ultimate dependence on God and our love for God. That it's really God who fills us up. The three practices of lent up prayer, fasting, and alms giving, so that we give something to those in need, maybe from the fruit of our sacrifices. These are all tools that the church gives us that make this time sacred, but also draw us closer to God and to one another.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: It's a great way for parents to involve children and let children understand the real meaning of sacrifice by, as families discerning what would be a sacrifice that we as a family can do during this lent. And it could be something little each day we're going to sacrifice, it could be a big sacrifice. We're giving up meat this week for Lent. We're giving up pizza this week, which for me would be a major sacrifice, giving up pizza, something like that. That is, children see their parents doing it, and we're doing it together as a family.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: So thank you for all the work you did on the pilgrimage. Again, the schedule will be in the tablet this week. The schedule will be on our diocesan website. We have a special website dedicated to the pilgrimage, but you can link to it just by going on our diocesan website. And then, of course, there's the app. People are good at searching. So you go into the App Store.
[00:17:12] Speaker B: And you just put in Lenten pilgrimage.
[00:17:15] Speaker A: Lenten pilgrimage.
[00:17:16] Speaker B: We tried to keep it very simple.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: Just read it carefully, make sure you're looking at the Lenten pilgrimage diocese of Brooklyn. Download it and walk with us physically and know. We started off our conversation talking about the roots of Lent, really, in the early church. These were days of preparation. We're talking about renewing our own baptism promises at Easter. But these were the days when people were really making the proximate preparations for baptism. And of course, we continue to do that with the order of christian initiation of adults through the year and through the season of Lent. So this is a time of preparation for baptism.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: So the first Sunday of Lent will celebrate the rite of election for all of those adults who have been going through our Ocia programs, who have not received any sacraments. So they will, at the Easter vigil, be baptized, confirmed, and receive Eucharist for the first time.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: And according to an ancient tradition, or building off of the ancient tradition of the church, those who are coming into the church are called to gather with the bishop. Since I can't be at every Easter vigil on that first Sunday of Lent for what we call this rite of election, we've been calling the people catechumens. They're dedicated now. They've accepted the faith, but now they're ready to make the promises. So we call, now the church elects them. We call them chosen. We elect them to enter into this time of proximate preparation.
[00:18:42] Speaker B: And what's wonderful about this, we live in an age of personalism where we want to be connected. And this is the opportunity for you as their chief shepherd, the bishop, to look them in the eye and say, welcome, one at a time. So it is a beautiful recognition of you as shepherd and them as your sheep. But eye to eye contact is so amazing.
[00:19:06] Speaker A: We call them forth. They are elect. They are chosen for this sacrament of baptism. And then on the second Sunday of.
[00:19:13] Speaker B: Lent, second Sunday of Lent, we celebrate the rite of acceptance that would be for those who are already baptized from different traditions, our different communities of faith, who are coming into the church. Usually they are also going to be receiving sacraments sometime, either at the Easter vigil or at Pentecost, depending on how long their formation needs to be. But they also have an opportunity to meet their new shepherd. And again, I want to say, as you look them in the eye, I don't know, you're busy looking them in the eye. But as I watch this, they are very sheepish, if I can use that word. They get very bashful. It's a beautiful thing if you have never been to either the right of election or the right of acceptance. They are beautiful ceremonies in the church.
[00:20:04] Speaker A: There's a lot of excitement and a lot of joy. The day is drawing near, and people have really searched their souls and said, yes, this is truly what I believe. I believe what the church teaches and professes, and I want to be part of that communion. I want to be a part of it. I want to celebrate the sacraments. I want to experience the closeness of God, who gives himself to us in the sacraments. So we're asking everyone, please, to pray for those who are coming into the church. That's a big part of our Lenten practice, too, is the church asks us to be united, to be welcoming. And one of the ways we can most be welcome is through our prayers to pray for those who will receive the Easter sacraments of initiation.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: One of the chief theological points. Pretty much of everything we've been talking about is our one and certain hope of salvation in Christ. And that really is the church of prayer, all of us together, and this is the season of salvation in Christ.
[00:21:01] Speaker A: So thank you for joining us this week on big city Catholics, and I hope it is the beginning of a time of grace and renewal. Enjoy the weekend. Enjoy the car navale. Remember, carnavale literally means goodbye meat.
Goodbye meat. But enjoy these days, and maybe in these couple of days leading up to Lynn, think about what you might do to make it a little bit different, a little bit special. We threw a lot at you during this conversation, but you discern and see what works for you that joins you to the community of the church in preparing to celebrate the greatest of our mysteries, the Paschal mystery, the passion, death and resurrection of Jesus during Holy Week and Easter. We close by asking God's blessing upon you, especially in this time. 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.
[00:22:00] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:22:00] Speaker A: And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit come upon you and your families and remain with you forever and ever. Amen. Once again, I thank you, Father Gibino, for joining us. And I thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Big City Catholics. Please join us again next week for a new edition. God bless you and have a wonderful week.
