Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Welcome to a new edition of our diocesan podcast, Big City Catholics, with Bishop Robert Brennan, the diocesan Bishop of Brooklyn, serving in Brooklyn and Queens, and myself here, Father Christopher Henry, the pastor of St. Joan of Arc, back on the podcast after a pretty long hiatus. Over the summer, our schedules, Bishop, seemed
[00:00:27] Speaker B: to kind of been going in different directions and at different times and time zones. And us.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: Exactly. But it's a great reflection to lead us into our topic today. But before we begin, we ask our Blessed Mother's intercession for us, for our listeners, for our ministry, and for the diocese as we pray the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. Bishop, you know, I was just looking through the recent podcasts over the course of this summer that has taken you in different directions, but really at the bottom of it is the diversity of those topics, and they're the diversity that represents the Diocese of Brooklyn. I mean, just working backwards. Last week with Father Agudelo talking about Colombia, Father Hilaire the week before with the topic of Haiti, your visit to Nigeria, talking with Barbara about missionary work, and one of my last podcasts on with you before the summer sort of kicked off, we were talking about Venezuela. And all of those topics ring so true to your work here in Brooklyn and Queens and to who we are
[00:01:44] Speaker B: as people of God in Brooklyn and Queens. The world likes to talk about diversity, and there's a blessing in diversity, but I often say there's a Catholic reality to that. And the church really speaks not of diversity, but of universality. We speak of one holy Catholic and apostolic church. Catholic means universal. It means that it embraces the whole of the world. You know, as the apostles went out to proclaim the gospel, there was a beautiful reading earlier this week on the feast of St. Bartholomew. I think it was from St. John Chrysostom. It talked about, you know, how is that God chose humble men, simple men, to become equal to the great philosophers of the age. But it wasn't they. It was the message. It was the power of the message. And it was that mandate of Jesus go out to all the world. And so, yes, diversity is a good word, but from the church perspective, the word is Catholic. Catholic means universal.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: And in all those roads meet here in Brooklyn, and that's it.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: And that brings us to the other word, we talk about unity, but in the church, we have a stronger word for that, and that is communion.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: That's right. That's right.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: It's not just unity in the sense of, okay, we all agree to get along, or unity in the sense that we all think the same thing about this or that communion is that we're all in a bond of communion with Jesus Christ.
And because of that, that brings us into a bond of communion with one another. So we speak of catholicity and communion. Those are the great gifts.
[00:03:23] Speaker A: Often. Bishop, you know, I've asked specifically, I guess, regarding the prayer of the faithful at Mass. You know, people will say, father, why didn't we pray for such a petition? You know, that something that may be close to their particular heart, that's on their mind, someone from a particular country or an ideology or whatever it may be. And it's a great question because, you know, clearly there are. There's a lot to pray for in the world. I mean, there's a lot to pray for here in our diocese. There's a lot to pray for in that Catholicity, that universality of all of us as brothers and sisters throughout the world. But how is it then that we can lift up all of those petitions in prayer, if not by name, but by solidarity with all those in our prayers and in our hearts? I joke, you know, in a sort of a somber way, but it's a reality that if we wanted to call on petition for all of the needs of the world, we'd be standing there for quite some time, you know, offering for all of this needs.
[00:04:21] Speaker B: And then if. And in a sense, again, many people, by habit, we will know it as the prayer of the faithful, but it's actually, again, called the universal prayer. In the new missile, it's called the universal prayer, and it is meant to be universal. And so there are particular local intentions that we name. But the first couple of petitions are for the church, the universal needs of the Church. And the second is for. For the world, for the needs of all people, for all the world. So you're right, there is sort of a gathering of it all as we present it to the Lord. And yes, we have so many different cultures and people with connections all over the world. We try to be both universal. In particular, I pray for the people close in this particular community, but, you know, sometimes it's hard to keep on top of things. You know, we were praying for the people of Columbia. There was also a very serious earthquake in Indonesia, and I don't recall hearing Very much about that in the news. Where I read about it is in the Vatican news. That's sort of the source of that information and certainly the Holy Father's care and concern. And we have an Indonesian apostolate here in the diocese. One of the places where they are is in Elmhurst and the other is in Rigo Park. Yes, we have people from all of these areas. And so we keep the people of Indonesia in our prayers and good grief all over the world. There's always something happening, right?
[00:05:47] Speaker A: We are offering and I know that while this past week you offered a Mass for the people of Columbia at Blessed Sacrament, our neighboring parish, it seemed to have been a great, a beautiful Mass. And we reflected on that in the podcast ourselves here at the parish wanted, with at St. Joan of Arc parish wanted to offer a Mass in solidarity and hope for the people of Venezuela, of Colombia. And then I started to think as my pastoral team is planning this, I said, well, why don't we kind of just make it just a generic Mass of hope and solidarity with all those suffering around the world? Because at the same time we were planning it, we read about the earthquake in Indonesia and even in the United
[00:06:27] Speaker B: States, people in Honolulu faced a storm over the course of the summer. We are united definitely in our prayers. And then of course we add to that the reality of war, violence and suffering. We pray knowing about the war in the Middle east, praying for peace in Gaza, in Lebanon, in Israel, in Iran. We're praying for the innocent people caught in the middle of it all. We're praying for our service men and women who are over serving, trying to promote the cause of peace. That's the other side of it. So there are the natural disasters, but then there's the reality of war and violence.
[00:07:12] Speaker A: That's right. That's right. It's another piece to add to our daily prayer. It's another aspect of people suffering throughout the world in a way to give thanks to God for our own safety and to pray for the safety and well being and peace in all parts of the world. It's.
We certainly have a lot to pray for. I don't think we run out of things ever to pray for, to lift up in prayer to all my world.
[00:07:34] Speaker B: And it is one of the blessings. Going back to your original point, it is one of the blessings of the diocese. Having people from all over the world makes us very attentive to what's happening all over the world.
[00:07:43] Speaker A: It certainly does. It certainly does. We don't take it for granted.
[00:07:47] Speaker B: It's been an Interesting couple of days here. Some beautiful weather and a couple of pretty wicked storms.
[00:07:53] Speaker A: Our shearer at St John took a little bit of water, but I think Blessed Sacrament took some water.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: A lot of parishes took in some flood water. Thank God that's all it was. They're not very serious damage and certainly no one hurt. But, boy, the one last Thursday night, I was driving in and I said, oh, boy, this is really quite.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: You could get very, very easily caught on a flooded highway or something. You see those pictures, you never want to be one of those people. But I guess those people just happened to be in the wrong place, the wrong time. Bishop, in sort of the back and forth of our travels and our summer time to relax and to rejuvenate, I had the chance to visit my parents in Ireland last week. I was able to go to see them and visit a beautiful place. It has to be on the must see list every time I go to Ireland to visit the shrine of Our lady of Knock. And what a beautiful location just as the novena was starting. It was really great to be there and to be able to have Mass offered for my parishioners. I prayed for, I had Mass offered for vocations to the priesthood here in our diocese and just to bring those prayers to Our Blessed Mother. And I'm thinking of that and the different apparitions of Our Blessed Mother. Thinking of the life of St. Bernadette, sort of a long way to say, you know. This week we heard the sad news of the passing of one of the Missionaries of Charity named after Bernadette. Sister Bernadette, you'll be offering that funeral Mass for her.
[00:09:21] Speaker B: That's right. Sister Bernadette was a good and a gentle soul and in a sense, a gift to the community. She suffered for the last few years, was bound to a wheelchair and to constant care.
And she accepted her cross graciously from the Lord with a certain almost childlike openness, which made her. While I'm sure the sisters worked very, very hard to take care of her, she brought a sense of real joy and laughter into the house.
[00:09:53] Speaker A: Your point there, Bishop, about how, of course, a religious community of sisters coming together to care for one of theirs almost goes without say. But the way in which they cared for her and protected her was really just very moving and very inspiring. It's just really nice to see. And you're right, that process of her suffering was not a short one. It lasted quite some time.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: It was before I came. I've never known her, not when she was ill. Yes.
[00:10:25] Speaker A: Sister Bernadette was one of the musicians of the house, and she often liked to. At times, she would just be humming a song.
In that phase of where she was sort of not really all that conscious, but she would just be humming a song. She never lost that gift of song. So it really was kind of very apropos to the name as well. It's a beautiful gift. So we pray certainly for the Missionaries of Charity as they mourn her loss. But of course, with eyes of faith, rejoice that she is called to the Lord as well. Exactly, Bishop. This podcast releases now on the 28th of August. We're coming to the end of summer here. This is it. We've got one more week till Labor Day, and then it all seems to start up pretty quickly.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: It certainly will. It's a later summer because Labor Day is late on the 7th of July of September, it's almost likely get an extra week of it. But you're right, things will gear up very quickly in September. Tell me, are you looking forward to the beginning of school?
[00:11:23] Speaker A: We're ready. I think we need to do a lot in the. In these last remaining days, but our school building has been just undergoing an incredible amount of refurbishment. Refreshment, I guess, is a better word, because classrooms are being painted. We're making improvements to our STEM lab. We replaced the hallway in our third floor. There was an old carpeted hallway in the school building which needed to go. So we're very excited with all of the changes. We've got a growth in our enrollment. We have 100 new students this year. Some of that is caused by the closure of our neighboring school of St. Bartholomew, which we worked very hard to invite many of their students to our school. But we're really excited. But it's going to be nice to get that blow of the pastoral life back in. You know, it's. It's nice. The summer is very enjoyable, certainly the quiet, in a way, and that time for refreshment. But it's nice to hear the children playing in the parking lot in the schoolyard and. And to enjoy their visits back to the. Back to the parish and to have the people home from their vacations. It's a. It's a great feeling. It really is.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: I always used to say I love September, but I also love June.
[00:12:34] Speaker A: You also this. You're the same, though. You recognize that really the summer is not even anymore. It starts really July or, or.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I know, but I mean, I love the beginning and then I love the end when everything's wrapping up and then there's a certain quiet and I certainly, I don't miss the traffic. I mean, we, it is a different kind of a traffic, but there seems to be a little bit of a lull in the summer.
[00:12:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:12:58] Speaker B: But it's all going to gear up again. So why don't we ask the Lord to bless us as we get ready for this coming New Year, Ask his help and guidance along the way as we pray.
[00:13:10] Speaker A: The Lord be with you and with your spirit.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: May the Lord bless you and keep you. May his face shine upon you and be gracious to you, may look upon you with kindness and grant you his peace. And 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.
[00:13:24] Speaker A: Amen. Amen. Thank you, Bishop. Great to be back with you, Bishop, on this new edition of likewise Big City Catholics. And I hope that each of those who join us. Well, join us again next week.
