Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Welcome back to another edition of our Dios and podcast big city Catholics with Bishop Robert Brennan, our Dios and bishop of Brooklyn, myself, Father Christopher Henry, the rector of the co cathedral of St. Joseph. We're coming together in this Easter season for a great time to get back together again with the bishop and myself to bring, bring back all that's happening in the diocese and all that's recapped from Easter as well. We'll begin with a prayer in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. We pray the Regina Celi, the prayer that's prayed during Easter time. The queen of heaven. Queen of heaven, rejoice, alleluia, for he whom you did merit to bear, alleluia has risen. As he said, alleluia. Pray for us to God. Alleluia. Rejoice and be glad, O Virgin Mary. Hallelujah. For the Lord has truly risen. Hallelujah.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: So welcome back. That's a good way to begin, because in a sense, this is a welcome back. We're back in our regular routine. We've had the podcast broadcast the last couple of weeks.
[00:01:05] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:01:05] Speaker B: But we were using the Chrism mass, Amelie, and the Easter Sunday message. So it's good to be back in something of a routine.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: It is. We have a lot to cover today. There's just been a lot going on. Certainly our Easter week. Our holy week was Holy Week and Easter.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Happy Easter.
[00:01:21] Speaker A: You as well. Sunday, bishop.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: The Lord is risen.
[00:01:24] Speaker A: He is risen indeed.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: The Lord is risen.
[00:01:26] Speaker A: He is risen indeed. He's truly risen. You know, it's funny, that Easter greeting. When I was a seminary, and I was in the college seminary freshman year, then Monsignor Cisneros took me with him to the missionaries of charity on that Easter Monday. We went to the Aberdeen street, the contemplative sisters there, the cloistered sort of sisters there. And I ring the doorbell, and the sister greets me, one of the missionaries of charity. She says, the Lord is risen. And I didn't know. I didn't know that. I'd never heard that. I mean, call me public school student, I guess I just never knew that response. So I look at her and I said, he sure has.
She was so, like, so dumbfounded by me. So later on, I realized what the responses are.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: You know, that's very strong in the polish community.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: It is the Easter message. It's that Easter greeting. But we were so grateful, Bishop. I mean, I joked at our Easter vigil that you were with us a lot here at the year and at.
[00:02:21] Speaker B: St. James Cathedral, it was beautiful, beautiful holy week, well attended. And I'm hearing that from pastors all over, that palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, the liturgies of Holy Week were very well attended. And that's a real shot in the arm. Isn't that nice to see?
[00:02:37] Speaker A: It's great. It's great. It is. It was really refreshing. We had a great Palm Sunday procession from Grand Army Plaza with you again. Thank you for constantly.
[00:02:45] Speaker B: We're very fortunate there. I mean, the weather forecast, as you remember, was not that great, and yet it was a great day. All the rain. We paid for it on Saturday. I think that Saturday we did. But Palm Sunday, we had a nice, it was beautiful.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: And bishop, you know, you brought all the priests together for the Chrism mass. I mean, we all come together for that beautiful mass to profess again our vows.
[00:03:07] Speaker B: That was just incredibly touching. Again, what a great turnout of the faithful. Who comes. It's an expression of who we are as the oils are blessed for the sacramental life of the, the church. But we recall to the institution of the priesthood on Holy Thursday, and the priest renewed their promises and it's a day for us of great fraternity. This year was particularly beautiful. We made a couple of the changes. This was based on conversations with the priest and the presbyterian council and such. And we had the mass on Tuesday, but we did it a little bit earlier at 430, and then we had dinner afterward, which was something new for us and it was a good moment for us to be together.
[00:03:43] Speaker A: Sure. You know, I think there were some concerns moving the mass up a little bit. Would we get as many people? And we had a great, great number of religious, of deacons, of lay folks. It was.
[00:03:53] Speaker B: And you know, it's interesting, one of the, I think the concerns in the past was, you know, the deacons, would the deacons be able to participate if it's earlier? I think we have more deacons. So really it was an uplifting day. And of course, it connects us with the sacramental life of the church throughout the year. And it really is a sign of our unity as a local church because the oils are blessed that day for all of the parishes here in Brooklyn and Queens, and then they're brought back from here to their local parishes for the use, for the anointing of the sick, for the anointing of catechumens. And then, of course, the sacred Chrism met confirmation baptism.
I smiled at our deacons who were presenting it, because I said to them later, I said, we'll be using that Chrism pretty soon, because there'll be foreordinations this year.
[00:04:41] Speaker A: There's a beautiful part of the Holy Thursday liturgy in parishes where either at the very beginning liturgy that you can present the oils that have come. So it is sort of that sending forth the cathedral here at the Co cathedral as well, has been that area where people gather and then are sent forth. So for Guadalupe, the feast of our leader Guadalupe, we have the torches going to different parishes, the chrisma, certainly the oils. It's a great way to kind of gather together and then be sent in mission and sent forth. So it was a beautiful mess. And the dinner, it was really great to be with the guys. I think it's the first time, and we had 250 priests sitting together for dinner. That was just a great gift.
[00:05:19] Speaker B: It was a great gift with over 300 at the mass.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: That's right, yeah.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: The rest of Holy Week, it speaks for itself. The liturgies are just beautiful here at the Co cathedral and also at St. James Cathedral. So at St. James, I was there on Good Friday and again on Easter Sunday, Good Friday, I was there for the liturgy of the Lord's passion in the afternoon. But earlier in the day, I participated with community liberation in the stations and the walk across the Brooklyn Bridge. And some of the people who ordinarily come were not able to do it this year. So I ended up doing all the reflections, which was really very powerful, very, very moving. I joked later on, at the end of the day, I said, I think this is the first time I was actually a street corner preacher. I sat on a corner and preached, but it was just very, very moving. And again, they had a wonderful attendance, a lot of people participating, and it was a good day. It was a beautiful day. It was a little cool. So it meant coats and hats. Well, it was windy. That's what it was, windy. And crossing the bridge, you really do feel that wind. So I had to hold on to that zucchetta.
[00:06:24] Speaker A: I saw photos and some video from it, and it just seemed like a beautiful, beautiful day.
[00:06:28] Speaker B: They do a great job.
Wonderful, wonderful job. So all of that was good. Easter Sunday, I was at St. James two, just a very beautiful, joyful, very, very prayerful celebration. They're doing great things there. Liturgically, it was a very good experience, uplifting and renewing us, you know, now for this season of proclaiming the Lord's resurrection, but really for living out now the witness to the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. So a beautiful time.
[00:06:58] Speaker A: So both the beauty and also the challenges. I mean, of course, that's what we celebrate in the triduum.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: We celebrate the triumph over the dead, over evil. You know, one thing, I referenced it a little bit on holy Thursday, but the pope gave a beautiful homily at his Chrism mass, which was on holy Thursday, the message to priests. And he spoke about compunction. He spoke about having your heart pierced by the recognition of your own failures, your own sins, not to feel shame, but to feel the love and the mercy of Jesus Christ, to recognize that we need it and to feel that. And he used Peter in such a beautiful way. So I highly recommend that passage. But it is a matter of living in the real world with its sin and death, with its ups and downs, with its, you know, we experience the foreshadowing of the cross and the foreshadowing of the resurrection in our daily lives. And that was brought home in a very powerful, sad, but again, inspiring way. On Easter Sunday, I was heading out to my dad, and when I got word that there was an act of fire at Our lady of the Rosary of Pompeii in East Williamsburg that ended up causing complete destruction to the rectory and the parish center. It probably started in the sacristy. The priest who was celebrating the mass had the presence of mind. He went to check it out. He closed the door and evacuated the church, which I think minimized the damage in the church itself and saved a lot of people. I give Father Romelau a lot of credit for that. And then there's a picture of him in the daily news bringing the blessed Sacrament out of the church as the fireman were running into the church. It's a very poignant picture, but it was a moment of tremendous, tremendous sadness when it caused tremendous damage. But thank God that the injuries were relatively minor compared with what could have happened. This could have been a very, very different story. We're grateful. We're grateful to God for some of the circumstances that worked out for people's clear thinking. But most of all, I have to say to our first responders. I mentioned this last week in my introduction, but the FDNY, the fire department, New York, I always knew they're courageous and they're generous. They're skillful. They're hardworking. They worked, and they stayed with it through the night to make sure nothing started up again. They worked diligently and carefully, but they were also tremendously respectful to the fact that this was a church, very much caring about that fact. There was a real beauty in their attitude toward and their concern for the church. I can't say enough I mean, I. I say it when I can, talking about our first responders and the hard work that they do. But to have experienced it firsthand, it gives it a deeper meaning, and we have to give a lot of thanks.
[00:09:54] Speaker A: And you were able to gather then this past Sunday, the second Sunday of Easter, with the parish community again, right, to celebrate that mass mass.
[00:10:03] Speaker B: I was there. Well, so they're using all saints parish for the time being. The two parishes are joined together, sort of as the way the co cathedral with St. Teresa of Avila. The two parishes work together. The one pastor is caring for them both. So the masses that would have been scheduled at a Lady Pompeii are moved up to all Saints. So I was there for two of the masses. The morning masses had somewhere in the afternoon, but it was a beautiful moment. It was as if the readings that day, the liturgy that day, was meant especially for them. You know, the second Sunday of Easter is often called divine Mercy Sunday, but that's only one element of it, because it's a proclamation again of the resurrection of Jesus. It's as if the octave of Easter is one long day, but it's also a week. So it's the appearance of Jesus later that evening and his appearance a second time later that week, later that week, on the octave day the following week. And so it's the appearance of the risen Christ in the midst of tragedy. We were like the apostles. Community that was suffering, community that was mourning. We experienced a tremendous loss. But we also knew that the Lord Jesus, who rose from the dead, was with us. And he spoke the same words to us that he spoke to his disciples. Shalom. Peace. Peace, my very dear friends. Peace. I'm with you. And earlier, at the last supper, you said, not as the world gives you peace, do I give you peace, but I give you peace. And the peace that he gives is himself. Peace be with you. I'm with you. I'm here.
And then the community of believers, with one heart and one mind, they gathered together, they banded together, whereas the human tendency is to pull apart in time of tragedy, the community of believers banded together. And together they waited on the Lord. And the other message is, who is the victor? Christ is the victor. So it was really a reminder that our buildings, our church buildings, boy, are they important. But there's something even greater, and that is what St. Paul talks about. The church built of living stones with the stone which the builders rejected as the cornerstone. So there's something more important than even buildings, even sacred buildings. It's the community of believers it's the faithful united as one body with Christ who is the head.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: That's beautiful.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yeah. So. And you got that sense, oh, there was just such beauty again. You could see the sorrow and pain, but you could see the hope, and you could see the expressions of love. Boy, it's not that we. We were there saying, okay, everything's going to be easy now. I mean, it's a hard road ahead. There were lots of decisions that have to be made. We have to figure out what's going to happen. Basically, it's a demolition site. The city itself ordered the demolition of the parish center and the rectory. It's all one connected building, so we still have to assess. Now, what does that mean for the church? There's a gym on the site in its separate building, enclosed within the demolition site, so there's not access to it. So there are lots of things that have to be still. And we're not, Pollyanna. We're not. Make him believe that. It ain't that bad. We're saying, no, this is. This is tragic. The neocatecuminal way serves that parish. The priests of the way served the parish, and so there was a family living on the grounds that does missionary work for the way, and they're displaced. They lost everything. But again, they're heroic, too, and they're concerned. Their gratitude for safety, their concern for the larger parish community when these events.
[00:13:31] Speaker A: These tragic events happen, especially, as you said, like in these high holy spirit seasons, certainly like that within the triduum or within Holy Week. I mean, we think of the loss of the officer.
[00:13:41] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, that's right there in the. Right smack in the middle of holy week. Right.
[00:13:45] Speaker A: Officer Jonathan Diller.
[00:13:46] Speaker B: Jonathan Diller went to his funeral on Saturday. It took place. I felt responsible to be there because he served in Queens. This happened in far Rockaway, part of our diocese, and he had faithfully served the people of Queens for several years. So it was important to be there. But it was also very moving. Now, of course, it happened on Monday of Holy Week, and I heard about it on Tuesday. And so on Saturday, it wasn't a mass. You can't have a mass on Holy Saturday. There was a very beautiful funeral liturgy outside of mass, and I'm sure masses were offered subsequently, but it was a beautiful service of prayer. And Father Michael Duffy, one of the priests of Rockville center, he had celebrated.
[00:14:28] Speaker A: Their wedding just about a year and a half ago.
[00:14:30] Speaker B: I think they have a newborn child. And so he presided over that funeral ceremony and spoke beautifully. He spoke beautifully again. About that mixing of suffering, of loss, but of the hope that is ours. On Easter Sunday, he used a great line in the office of readings on Holy Saturday. Holy Saturday is like the great Sabbath rest, and we commemorate the descent into hell. Usually, parish is not so much. You get ready for Sunday. Saturday night, there's no official liturgy until the vigil and the office of readings that day starts off. Something strange is happening today. And he brought that line into what we were experiencing, we who were at that funeral. And so it was very moving. My dad, who's a retired police officer, wanted to be there, so he also came. He was very close to my family home. It was in Massapequa. I grew up in Lindenhurst, so he was able to go as well. And you saw the number of officers who were there. Just very tribute. And you know what? Interestingly, driving through the neighborhood of Massapequa that day, everything was blocked off, and you had to maneuver your way through. The people who lived there were greatly inconvenienced.
[00:15:42] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:15:43] Speaker B: This just took over on the day before a major holiday, a day that would be a shopping day, a day that would be errands and all of that kind of stuff. They were terribly inconvenienced. Do you know the people nearest to the church? They set up tables with coffee and water. They were making their homes available, even allowing their homes to be used for restaurants, just to be of some kind of comfort and of service to the officers who were there from all over the country, largely from New York City and from Nassau and Suffolk, but from all over the country, again, it's just a reminder of, yeah, there's a lot of evil in the world, but there's also an awful lot of good. And the good triumphs, the community comes together. Good triumphs will be evil. And that's what Jesus has done for us, accomplished for us in his resurrection.
[00:16:29] Speaker A: We talk about just the heroism of these men and women that put their lives on the line and the great vocation, really, to serve. You think, too. Now, you mentioned in the Chrism mass blessing of the chrism oil that will be used for new sets of heroism in a different way. You know, those who priesthood religious life.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: In the early part of this week, after I mentioned that I had to leave on Sunday afternoon, I was going to St. Vincent's in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. There's a seminary there, and one of our seminarians is studying there. He'll be ordained a priest in June. He's a deacon right now, and he was one of the deacons at the mass, at the Chrism mass, Deacon Randy Nguyen. And he even noticed. He said, I saw you smile and he presentation of the chrism, he said, you really lit up. And he was right. He was right. So it was good to be there. It was good to experience seminary life, but also to meet with the four mate is to spend some time with him to talk about his upcoming ordination and more importantly, his serving here as a priest in Brooklyn and Queens. He's looking forward to that and I'm looking forward to having him. Deacon Toby will be ordained a priest, Deacon Gaetano, who's going to be ordained a priest, and Deacon Luis. We're looking forward to these new priests beginning to serve here in Brooklyn and Queens. So we have some exciting times coming up. And yes, I give thanks. I had a chance to speak to the larger seminary community. I always say I thank those seminarians because it takes courage, especially today. It always took courage to step forward and answer a call to a vocation. But take special courage because there's not necessarily the great affirmation behind you. Sometimes you have to do it amongst resistance or criticism from people in the world. Secondly, it takes great courage, generosity and humility to submit yourself to a program of formation. You don't walk into a seminary and say, here I am, lucky you. But really, you say, I think the Lord is calling me to be a priest, and the church has to see if that's an authentic call. Who has to discern that with you? And you have to let go of a lot of personal stuff. I don't mean possessions. You have to allow yourself to be evaluated. You have to allow yourself to be formed, to be shaped, to say, your life as a priest is going to be different than your life otherwise. And that means making changes your life. And so I always thank them for that kind of heroism as well. But on the realm of vocations, I also, this weekend was up in Wrentham, Massachusetts, one of the sisters there in the trappistine community, they're the cistercian sisters of the women's form, you know. So you have the trappist monks in Spencer, Massachusetts. They're the women's group, the Trapeze Sisters. And a young woman from Lindenhurst, a bright woman, she very highly educated. She was a visiting professor in a university. She used to work in the sacristy in Our lady of Perpetual help, same parish where I come from. She entered a few years ago. I had heard it and we kept in touch, and so I was invited. I was there for her final profession, her solemn profession. As a trapeztine nun, it's a contemplative community in the benedictine tradition. So, you know, aura at labora, work and prayer, that, too, was just a beautiful experience. And a lot of the monks from Spencer were there, as well as the other trappistine sisters. It just gave a glimpse of that contemplative life and how important that is for the life of the church. And it's also a reminder there are vocations coming out of Brooklyn, Queens, just like Nassau and Suffolk. And so I'm meeting these young people, vocations all over the country, there are vocations to religious life coming from here. So we have to celebrate that.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Yeah. We could look at the numbers and say, will there ever be enough? No. And I don't think that even years ago, when we had greater numbers, that.
[00:20:28] Speaker B: Was the line of St. John Paul II. There'll always be a need for more. Right. But God provides and people are responding. And it's important to highlight the good. It's important to recognize the great things that God is accomplishing right now. Midst. It's not all loss. And in fact, we celebrated, we moved the feast of the Annunciation because it would have taken place during Holy Week. And so we celebrated. Nothing is impossible for God. And that's true. That was true 2000 years ago. It's true today. God's working in our midst.
[00:20:59] Speaker A: Amen. God is doing amazing things, bishop. And here, you know, in the diocese, too, we're really gearing up for an amazing event on April 20.
[00:21:08] Speaker B: Next week, next Saturday, we gather at Flushing Meadow park. The tennis stadium's there, Louis Armstrong Stadium. We had scheduled to do this in October, and I was crushed that it rained so hard. We were supposed to be outdoors in Coney island, but doing this now I'm renewed. And not only that, we're going to be indoors. We'll have a dome, but we were maxing out at 7000 people. Now we're up to 10,000. We were turning people away at Coney Island. I thought that would have been big enough. Who would have thought, right?
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:36] Speaker B: And so we're actually in a bigger space with covering, so there's some protection from the elements. And we still want a nice day because there are processions coming from flushing and from Corona. We're going to be meeting there. I myself will be doing a seven line.
[00:21:51] Speaker A: I read this in this week's tablet that you're going to get on the seven train and we'll gather pilgrims along the way.
[00:21:56] Speaker B: This is the church coming together again, right? Coming together to celebrate this eucharistic revival. Great things that God does for us. Even now. This is part of the national celebration of the eucharistic revival. It's a rescheduled event, but boy, to be able to do it in the Easter season in Flushing Meadow park, there are just so many great signs about it. So we're looking forward to that next Saturday. Still pray for good weather and when we pray for all who will be participating in that day.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: Sure, we have a group from the co cathedral going, and every parish, I think, has ways in which they can.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Right? So, yes, if you're still interested in going, check in with your local parish. And even if they're at Max, there might be a way can help you see what's available. And of course, our OneeTv will cover the event. So we're looking forward to that as well.
[00:22:43] Speaker A: Bishop, when we started the podcast, I said, there's a lot to talk about. And we had a lot.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: We did. We had to do a lot of recap.
[00:22:49] Speaker A: We did. I mean, we didn't even touch the earthquake, the solar eclipse. There's so much.
[00:22:54] Speaker B: I know. I was in, I was doing a funeral during the earthquake, and I was in La Trobe during the eclipse. And say to yourself, last week we had a church fire, a nor'easter, an earthquake, and a solar eclipse. It's almost like apocalyptic.
[00:23:09] Speaker A: There was a long line for confession.
There were, there were. And I think people were thinking, well, I might as well just be safe. Rather be safe than sorry. So. But here we are. We live to tell another day. We lived to tell.
[00:23:23] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:23:24] Speaker A: So. Well, Bishop, perhaps you'd end with a prayer.
[00:23:27] Speaker B: May the Lord who has risen from the dead fill your hearts with joy and hope and confidence and boldness in proclaiming the truth of him who lives among us and promises us eternal life. And may the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and your family. Remain with you forever and ever. Amen.
[00:23:48] Speaker A: Thank you again, all who participate and who listen in each week to our big city Catholic podcast. We hope that you'll join us again next week.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: God bless.
