Episode Transcript
[00:00:10] Speaker A: Hello, and welcome to another edition of BIg City Catholics. I'm your host, Bishop Robert Brennan, Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens. And today I have a special treat. I'm up at St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers, joined by Bishop Massa, who is an auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Brooklyn, but also, also the rector of the seminary, and Father John Kush, who is on the faculty of the seminary. He's a formator. He's director of admissions and editor of Homiletic and pastoral Review. So we'll have a chance to chat a little bit about seminary formation and also about Father Kush's new book. But, Bishop Massa, would you begin by leading us in prayer?
[00:00:51] Speaker B: Sure. In the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In this Easter season, heavenly Father, we praise and glorify you for the gift of your son who is risen from the dead and who opens up for us the possibilities of new life. He is the good shepherd who lays down his life for the sheep. And he teaches us to make a gift of ourselves to others, to defend the innocent, to promote peace and reconciliation, and to lead others to know your love for them. Heavenly Father, bless our time together and all those we know who are suffering in any way. In this we pray through Christ, our risen Lord. Amen.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Amen. So, Bishop Massa, thank you for joining us today, and thank you for the great work that you do in the seminary. We had our seminarians very, very recently for the eucharistic revival. Wasn't that a powerful moment?
[00:01:53] Speaker B: Yes, it was. It was indeed.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: How many? Probably 7000.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: 7000.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: The stadium holds about 10,000, and we kind of stayed away from the backdrop of the screen and the altar. But, boy, what an impressive crowd. And even more than the number, it was an impressive crowd with deep, deep faith. You wouldn't have seen this because you were vesting. But when we did the procession with the blessed Sacrament, walking through the arena at the beginning of the day, you could see the hunger and the thirst of the people and the love for Jesus in the most blessed sacrament. It was really very, very powerful.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Yeah. I think of the time of the pandemic when people were hungering for the Eucharist. And on that day, that Saturday, we were really fed.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Yes, yes. You know, but we experienced that sense of, that hunger and the sense of being fed. So it is a great gift that the Lord gives to us in the Eucharist. And what a great moment we have to be in the church at this moment. To be part of eucharistic revival. It's a great gift. And our seminarians were there. Tell me we're at the end of the academic year. You're wrapping up your classes and about to start finals.
[00:03:04] Speaker B: Exactly. Yeah. This is study weekend. Their last day of classes is tomorrow, and then exams begin on Monday. But it's also a beautiful time of preparation for ordinations and first masses.
We have eleven men who are leaving us in fourth year. One, who belongs to the Ukrainian Catholic Church will have some more time of formation, but he's leaving us and then ten others who will be ordained for the different dioceses. And we have one friar of the renewal who will be a franciscan friar who will be ordained to the priesthood as well. So it's a beautiful time. And then others are getting ready for their pastoral assignments.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: That's right. It's not the end of a year as much as it's a moment of transition, as the guys now are focusing in on another dimension of their formation, as there'll be some of them working in parishes during the summer, some of them having more formative experiences, like spiritual experiences, like the IPF, the Institute for Priestly formation.
[00:04:01] Speaker B: Exactly. At the University of Creighton. It's housed there and it gathers seminarians from all over the country. And it's a real immersion in catholic spirituality, priestly life, wonderful experience of fraternity, but also times for retreat and silence. Very important today.
[00:04:20] Speaker A: And at the same time we'll be sending guys for the Rome experience. So that's something new for us. But to get that broader experience of the church. And so we're looking forward to that. And then others are preparing not for some summer work in pastoral formation, but really for pastoral year. I will be missioned out. Some of our pastoral year students will be coming back next fall. Other fellows will be heading out. So it's a rich time of the year.
[00:04:46] Speaker B: Seminaries are always being renewed in this way with new people coming and others who are being launched into ministry. It's an amazing world.
[00:04:56] Speaker A: It is, it is.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Father Kush and I are very blessed to be part of it.
[00:05:00] Speaker A: That's right. And it's just amazing, the good work that you and the other faculty do here. You know, if I could take a moment before delving in more deeply with Father Kush about some of the experiences of this year and about his book, just to talk about a serious topic that's been of great concern to me. Really. It's always been of great concern, you know, that I, in a sense, grew up under Bishop Murphy's example in Rockville center and his great concern about antisemitism. So that's always been in my mindset. But since October 7, it's really concerned me not only what we are seeing worldwide, but particularly what we're seeing in our own city. I never thought I would see the level of antisemitism that we're seeing in these days.
[00:05:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a toxic trend that is very disturbing. And it reminds us, of course, of the past where anti semitism in Europe led to the Holocaust in the 1920s and thirties, and it had an earlier life in the 19th century. We also think of anti jewish sentiment that has sometimes reared its ugly head among Christians, among Catholics. We have to be very honest that this is part of our past. You know, we speak of in history of the pogroms that sometimes took place in jewish communities that were ghettoized, that were separated from the rest of society. Sometimes they were justified by the misuse of the gospel, the misuse of christian texts. It's poison. Thank God. We in the church, the catholic community, we had the Second Vatican Council and Nostra Aetate, the important decree on non christian religions where there's a very, very powerful and important paragraph four that condemns unequivocally antisemitism. But we have to practice vigilance because it hasn't gone away. And the horrendous massacre of October 7, over 1400 people died under horrendous circumstances that can't be forgotten. It has to be confronted. We have to recognize that. And we also have to make important distinctions, too. One can be critical of the israeli government and the way it's executing the war in Gaza. There's room for disagreement. There's room for prudential judgments.
[00:07:14] Speaker A: Right. I mean, and there are various views on the politics of it all, and that's fair play. I think we can, as intelligent people in civil society, can have these political discussions. But on the other hand, to translate that into pure anti semitism just is totally unjustifiable. Totally unjustifiable. And even there, too, there are the political debates. I was waiting to hear somebody in administration say this, and I was pleased to hear Antony Blinken say this last week at the end of the, the G seven conference day. You know, you talk about a ceasefire, and we want to see all of that happen. But he said, you know, there's one thing standing between Gaza and the ceasefire, and that is Hamas.
[00:08:00] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:01] Speaker A: And I think that has to be recognized. Again, there are many different views, and it's a very complicated reality, but it's just awful to see that translating into. Really calls for genocide and to see the level of hatred to individuals right here in our own city, on our college campus, campuses, you know? Yeah. And that. That has nothing to do with politics. That's just human dignity. People treating people with human respect, that.
[00:08:27] Speaker B: Undergraduates are free to go to class. Columbia University had to offer all classes virtually at this point. And what does that say? I mean, universities are supposed to be.
[00:08:37] Speaker A: Place for safe environment, safe environment, place for free exchange. Again, there's room for disagreement. There's room for people to stand up and to express concern about the plight of the Palestinians, about the whole history of the area. Again, that complicated history. But, in fact, that's good. That's how we advance, in a sense, in society. The free exchange of ideas. And to protest what may be considered unjust. But to use that to block out individuals or individual rights is really troubling. And, you know, not to equate the two, at least not yet, but I always had trouble understanding how the rise of Nazism came about with both the rhetoric and with the emotion, the rallying.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: Of people and exploiting people's sufferings.
[00:09:25] Speaker A: Exploiting people's sufferings. But like that, whipping up that group mentality, how that all happened, it's frightening. I always had a hard time picturing it. How did society sit still in Germany during all of this? But now you can see how that kind of emotion can really get out of control.
[00:09:44] Speaker B: And how ideology can become so manipulative. You know, ideologies of hate can become. Can manipulate and stifle people's expressions of, you know, of concern for one another. And concern for those who are being attacked can dull people's consciences. You know, that's. That is the great fear. We can't let that happen again.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: No, we can't. Back to the seminary. You know, one of the things I'm very proud of, and this is even before my time, but I'm proud to be part of it, is that Brooklyn has long been very much a part of the seminary formation program. When we were in the seminary in Huntington, and then when we merged, when we formed that Charles Parameo partnership here in Dunwoody. But we have a number of priests on the faculty here at Dunwoody. And I think that's great.
[00:10:32] Speaker B: So we have five priests, and I'm serving as rector. That makes six of us who belong to the Brooklyn diocese. So we have a big investment here.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: We do. We do. And like I said, a long tradition of forming priests. Yeah, I'm glad that continues with us today is one of the faculty members of Brooklyn priest who served in Rome. He was on the faculty of the north american college, and we were glad that he came back home and served here in Dunwoody. So at this point, I welcome you, Father Kush, thank you for joining us today.
[00:11:05] Speaker C: Thanks so much, Bishop Brennan.
[00:11:07] Speaker A: It's a great pleasure after the experience of Rome, and as I said before, it gives you that universal experience and also the experience of the church in the United States, because you were serving at the North American College. How is it coming back here now you're finishing up two years at St. Joseph's Seminary. It's a real pleasure to be here.
[00:11:27] Speaker C: And to serve on this faculty. And my experiences as a formator, my experience as Jakin McDiene and a professor over at North American College has really helped me tremendously deal in this particular ministry of formation here at St. Joseph Seminary. It is a wonderful, alive place. We have quality seminarians from so many dioceses. My thinking is, we have a good story. We should tell that story to the world.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:11:54] Speaker C: And we're doing great, and we just need more seminarians.
[00:11:57] Speaker A: We do pray for vocations and encourage vocations, but I'm really impressed by the work that you're doing up here, all of you. You know, Cardinal Dolan says this a lot, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, that there's something about coming up here in these days that you get this sense among the seminarians. Know, hey, any kind of academic, informative experience is difficult enough, but there's always a positive atmosphere, a positive energy, and that's not always the case. That is not the case everywhere, and has not been the case at all times, but consistently over my time. Coming back now to the area, serving in Brooklyn, that's my experience here, too. There's something really good amongst the faculty and amongst the seminary community that's important.
[00:12:49] Speaker C: Bishop, that you mentioned that phrase, seminary community, because in the program of priestly formation, that's how we really have to see ourselves. The formation not just being an academic formation or even an internship formation, but a holistic formation, starting with the human formation, moving to the spiritual, moving to the intellectual, and where the rubber hits the road, the pastoral. So if we really had to, we could probably teach a guy all that he needs to learn sacramentally, ritually, in about three weeks. But it's that process of the years and years of growing into the man Christ needs that person to be so he can serve as the. As a happy, healthy, holy priest.
[00:13:30] Speaker A: That's well said. That's very, very well said. And in a sense it's blending of those pillars. You speak of the four pillars, the human, spiritual, academic and pastoral formation. And as important as each of them are, it's the blending of all of those together that brings me to your recent book, which will become available in.
[00:13:50] Speaker C: August, July 15 from word on fire.
[00:13:53] Speaker A: Out of the word on fire series. Now you're a prolific writer, I have to say, and I'm always impressed with. There's always something coming out from you in different articles and all of that, and that's a great thing. But I would say this particular work is a real milestone for you. The Word on Fire series is a very well respected series and publishing the book in that series is a real contribution to the church. As a bishop of the United States, I thank you. As a colleague of yours and bishop in Brooklyn, I'm especially proud.
[00:14:29] Speaker C: So thank you so much, bishop. I'm honored. And I was honored to be asked to write it. It started a couple of years ago when I was still serving in Rome. Bishop Barron had given a presentation at one of the universities that we the angelicum, and he received an honorary doctorate. And it helped me realize that so many people just see Bishop Barron as an intellectual Internet celebrity, if you will, and they don't realize his work as a theologian and as a formator. So I began to write a series of articles with his permission for National Catholic Register. And eventually word on fire contacted me and asked could I do two things. Number one, write an article for evangelization and culture. The word on fire journalism. I got an eight point summary of what is the theology of Bishop Barron, but also to write a book on Bishop Barron's priestly spirituality and his approach to priestly formation and combine that with my own thoughts on priestly formation as a formator, as a professor. So it was a pleasure to do.
[00:15:27] Speaker A: And you know, it's well timed because it is, as indicated, a collection of reflections on the priesthood through the lens of Bishop Baron. You just celebrated last year, 25 years as a priest and you're in this work of forming priests. So the finished product is well timed. The title of the book is nothing but you, Lord. Again, reflections on the priesthood and priestly formation through the lens of Bishop Robert Barron. Let me start by the title. That's an interesting title. Nothing but you lord. Where do you come with that? Well, it's twofold.
[00:15:59] Speaker C: The first is it's the episcopal motto of Bishop Robert Barron. But it's also the words of St. Thomas Aquinas. St. Thomas was praying before the crucifix one day, and the corpus on the crucifix, the body of Christ on the crucifix, came to life, and it said to Thomas Aquinas, whatever you want in this world, Thomas Aquinas, no one has written as well as you have about me. Whatever you want, I'll give you. The Lord himself is speaking to St. Thomas. And Thomas has the wisdom to look at the Lord and say, nil nicit domine. Nothing but you, Lord. Because he recognized by the fact once that you have the Lord, you have everything. And so I think that's such a beautiful, important image. And as a theologian, as someone that teaches and primarily using the scholastic and resource methods of theology, Thomas Aquinas has always been a big inspiration to me.
[00:16:52] Speaker A: As he is to Bishop Barron, as people listen to him, you see the effect of Thomas Aquinas. Actually, my first experience of Bishop Baron goes back to the 1990s, when he did begin writing. And you mentioned some of your own experience too, with an interview in that time. My first experience was a very short volume on Thomas Aquinas.
[00:17:11] Speaker C: Right. Thomas Aquinas, Spiritual Masters, Crossroads Press, 1997, I believe.
[00:17:16] Speaker A: Okay. And my friend, the late Bishop Walsh, was my pastor also. And then we formed something of a support group with some other priests. But he's the one who introduced me to the works of Bishop Barron with that book, because he himself had been formed as a Dominican. Right. And so he passed that on to me. And then subsequently, not long after the volume. And now I see, and I have to say, there are certain books, and this is one of those that were transformational books for me. It really affected the way I think. And, you know, years later, my approach even to preaching and to the work, it was that vision of Robert Barron enunciated in that book.
[00:18:00] Speaker C: It's such a wonderful volume. I got that book as a newly ordained priest at my ordination. So someone gifted me a copy of the book. And now I see. And the subtitle of that book is really important. A christian vision of transformation and the idea of going beyond. I was just teaching this downstairs in a class I teach called christian anthropology, to going beyond naive realism, going beyond just seeing, but actually perceiving and thus being able to perceive, to actually see Christ. And then Imago Dei, the image of God and every person, we never lose the image. We can lose the likeness, but we never lose the image.
[00:18:37] Speaker A: He speaks in that book about you quote this, the small soul. There's like this gravitational.
[00:18:42] Speaker C: I love that phrase.
[00:18:44] Speaker A: There's this gravitational pull, and yet that Christ is giving us a different vision.
Absolutely.
[00:18:52] Speaker C: Sin is self sabotage, ultimately. And the way Baron presents it, the smallness of soul, as you said, bishop, is so fascinating, as opposed to that, the anima magna, my soul, magnifies the Lord, and we have the example of our blessed mother in that sense.
[00:19:08] Speaker A: Exactly. The other thing I remember from that book was his idea of, we think, if you want to be like God, we think that it means being all powerful. It means grasping on. It means getting as much as you can or getting your way. And basically, God. Let's go though it was in the form of God. Jesus did not deem equality of God, but emptied himself. And the thing is, we're closest to being godlike. When we give ourselves away, when we let ourselves go, it was a whole new way of thinking.
[00:19:38] Speaker C: That's really ultimately the process of formation, if we think about it, to be able to. To surrender over. And that requires trust on the part of both the seminarian and the seminary formator, whether that formator be in the spiritual direction realm, or that formator be in the what we call an external formator. But we're accompanying, and that's precisely what Pope Francis has really asked all Christians to do, to be someone who's an accompanying person. If you think about the story of the woman at the well, Jesus meets this woman where she's at, and leads her to where she needs to be. And that's what we hope in the seminary and throughout seminary formation, to do with our men that we are blessed with.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: You captured something in your book that I had seen years ago, and I've never been able to find it again. But I seem to remember an article or a piece where he uses the image of the priest as I'll use the words I remember, as the bearer of the mystery and the physician of the soul.
[00:20:39] Speaker C: And it's a beautiful phrase.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: And now you take it a little deeper in your book, and I think you do it. The priest as mystagog and physician of the soul.
[00:20:49] Speaker C: Yeah. The divine physician.
[00:20:50] Speaker A: The divine physician.
[00:20:51] Speaker C: And this notion of a soul doctor, the phrase that Baron uses, and to see that the priesthood. And he mentions in one of this is an interview from us catholic when he was a young professor and formator at Mundelein. He speaks about the idea of one of the images that were being presented to him is that the priest was a facilitator of the ministry of others. And he said, who would want to do that? A facilitator. That's maybe part of our job to encourage others and their apostolates to go forth. But our job is to bring fire on earth. And one of the things that Bishop Barron speaks beautifully about is Jonathan Edwards. That notion of the preacher, the puritanical preacher. When asked how do you preach? He says, I light myself on fire and I let others see me burn.
[00:21:35] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:21:36] Speaker C: And that's what we hope to do. That's why it's called word on FIRe really in terms of that, to have that burning desire. So it's really, it's a beautiful way to see the priest as a healer, a mystagogue, and also as Bearer of the tRadition. I love that image of priesthood because we have this beautiful Catholic tradition that goes back even to our Jewish brothers and sisters. And we carry that forward as best as we can. That's what we try to instill in this holistic formation that we offer at St. Joseph's Seminary.
[00:22:05] Speaker A: That's beautiful. That really is great. And you do a great job throughout the book, but you do a great job connecting that with your own personal experiences. So again, in that particular chapter you speak about your first encounter with his work and seeing that interview that you cite and something I hadn't seen, but it makes sense in a lot of his work. The idea that there's sort of a pull toward mediocrity. And you said you felt like shouting.
[00:22:31] Speaker C: Right, this preferential option for mediocrity.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Preferential option for mediocrity and just get it done.
[00:22:36] Speaker C: The only way you can burn out is if you're on fire. Some of the problems that we have in our spiritual lives, just being from my own experiences, really aren't from burnout, but from rust out. Because we're not giving ourselves over to, as you were saying before, so wonderfully, the idea of letting the Lord fill us. And thus once we're full, then we can go out and be Christ to one another. The first parish I served in was St. Helens and Howard beach. And the motto and God bless Monsignor Joe Pfeiffer, who's still doing well, I believe in Douglas then. Now a retired priest, always had seeing Christ in one another. And that was the motto he wanted ultimately for the parish. So it was always a very powerful thing to connect that to the work of Baron.
[00:23:18] Speaker A: Well, thank you. And thanks to Bishop Massler and thanks to everyone here at St. Joseph's Seminary for the way you not only teach and challenge, but the way you model that something beyond mediocrity, something beyond that sense of getting it done, but to seek and strive after excellence. You know, I was reminded of a line in the movie, the Cabrini movie, and I loved seeing that movie and the connection of a saint who actually didn't just pass through Brooklyn, but actually worked in Brooklyn. There's a line in the movie where she says to the sisters, I'm not always going to be with you. There's going to come a time when I have to go. And while I'm away, you have to learn to face your fears, not just to get by, but to lead and to demonstrate that we can do all things in him who strengthens us. And I think you bring that idea of going beyond just getting by, especially in the priesthood. I think we have something that we can be very proud of in the gift of priesthood. And as you said about the seminary, the same about priests. A great story to tell. You had a great chapter in here about falling in love with the church in good times and in bad. I know that's a big thing for Bishop Aaron, but again, thank you for the way you model that.
[00:24:32] Speaker C: Thank you so much, Bishop Brennan.
[00:24:33] Speaker A: And the book is nothing but you, Lord. It's part of the word on Fire series, and it becomes available on July 15. We'll have to do another reminder as we get closer to July 15 of the availability of the book in this podcast. We'll come back to this again.
[00:24:49] Speaker C: Thank you so much.
[00:24:50] Speaker A: God bless you. And Bishop Massa, thank you both for being with us today. And I know there's always a good feeling at the end of the semester when you can kind of go back and say thank you, Lord, for another year and start to see some of the early fruits of your labors. Thank you for joining us for this week's edition of Big City Catholics. Be sure to tune in again next Friday. Till then, we continue these glorious days of Easter on Sunday. The gospel takes us now to the table of Jesus on the night of the last supper where he speaks to his disciples, his friends. He says, I am the vine, you are the branches. We are that intimately connected to Jesus Christ. God bless you. Have a wonderful week, and let's ask the Lord for his blessing.
[00:25:38] Speaker C: The Lord be with you and with your spirit.
[00:25:40] Speaker A: May the blessing of almighty God, the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit descend upon you and remain with you forever and ever. Amen.
