Episode Transcript
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. It's a beautiful Wednesday, January 1st. It's World Day of Peace and the solemnity of Mary, the Holy Mother of God. We are into Christmas time and it's time for the Immaculate Heart of Mary podcast with JD And Father Greg. Each week, Father Greg and I will discuss a variety of topics related to our faith and our wonderful parish, Immaculate Heart of Mary, located in Winona, Ontario. We are here to help spread the good news about Jesus and help further unite our parish community. Happy New Year, Father Greg. How are you today?
[00:00:42] Speaker B: I'm well, thanks. Happy New Year, too. This is good. I'm excited. We're excited. We're constantly improving our podcast life here at Heart of Mary Parish. Podcast. Can't even say it yet. That's how new it is. So it's great, great to be here. And we just celebrated some nice Masses with some awesome people here at the parish. So, yeah, life is good.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: And we've just turned the clock or the calendar to 2025. What do you have in mind for your goals for 2025?
[00:01:06] Speaker B: Yeah, I haven't really stopped and thought about that much, but my goals for 2025 would be holy, follow Jesus, be the best priest I can be, and keep asking the Holy Spirit to lead me. That kind of encompasses everything, you know?
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Beautiful. I love it. Well, we have one podcast under our belt so far. Feels great, and that one has a grand total of 13 views and 8 listens, climbing higher every day. But I have to confess, a bunch of those might be for me as I was making sure things worked, but those other ones, genuine, real new listeners. I do have a quick question before we begin, though.
[00:01:43] Speaker B: Sure.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: What do you call a parishioner who spends time wandering the countryside looking for inspiration and peace?
[00:01:49] Speaker B: I think that's got to be a race. Roman Catholic.
[00:01:54] Speaker A: A Father Greg quality joke right there. I think after a Father Greg quality joke, you better start us off with a prayer.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah, sure. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we thank you for this day and this new Year, and we thank you for your love. Wherever we are right now, Lord, we just know you're with us, you love us, and you're getting us through anything we're going through. Bless us, Bless our new year. Bless our parish and. And help everyone who listens to this be blessed by your presence and your love. We ask Mother Mary, St. Joseph and all the saints to watch over us and our families and friends. We ask all of this in Jesus name. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Beautiful. Going back just a second to that Roman Catholic joke, reminds me to ask you about your upcoming pilgrimage.
[00:02:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So for those who are aware and those who are not aware, we have a pilgrimage. Where? I'm going to Rome in May for the jubilee year of hope. And anyone is welcome. It's still open. Anyone who wants to come, we would love to have you come. The more the merrier. Just think, you and I get to go to Rome. I've never been to Rome before and have the privilege of going to so many incredible world renowned places led by people who know the place really well. And you can have Mass. I'll offer Mass every day. Whatever you need from a priest, I'm happy to offer that. And we can really have a wonderful time together. So I hope that you will really think about and pray about joining me.
[00:03:19] Speaker A: So as a Roman Catholic, you could be a Roman Catholic in Rome.
[00:03:23] Speaker B: Indeed. You are so clever.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: It works for me. Works for me.
Let's reveal our Saint of the Week. Each week we recognize a saint and share some interesting information about them as we strive to live out our mission. As Catholics, we can always look to our saints for inspiration. This week's saint wrote Commentarius in Evangelium Matia, which is more spiritual interpretation of the first Gospel. His is the first Latin commentary on Matthew to have survived in its entirety. I'm talking about, of course, Saint Hilary of Poitiers. Saint Hilary of Poitiers was a bishop of Poitiers and a Doctor of the Church serving until the year 367.
Did you know there are only 37 people called Doctor of the Church?
37.
[00:04:13] Speaker B: Only 37. Whoa.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: The title Dr. Of Church is given to saints who have made a significant contribution to theology or doctrine through their research, study or writing. Others you may know are Therese of Lisieux and St. Jerome. And St. Jerome, considered the greatest Doctor of the Church. He translated the Bible into Hebrew, Greek into Latin, from Hebrew and Greek into Latin. I did not know that.
I love this quote from St. Hilary. Christ does not cease to be divine because he became human, nor fail to be human because he remained forever divine.
[00:04:52] Speaker B: Awesome. Love that. So it's basically just saying that Jesus really fully human, fully divine, and there's no opposition between those two.
[00:04:59] Speaker A: No totally smooth, perfect flow.
It is time for Ask Father Greg. Each week we respond to a question submitted by a listener or a question that we made up ourselves. This week's question comes from John, a made up listener and A first time caller. John has a two parter, if you're ready, Father.
First he asks, what is God doing in our church right now?
[00:05:24] Speaker B: Amazing question. What is God doing in our church right now? I think he's bringing a lot of people to himself in so many ways. And I'm very blessed to see this. Whether it's in the sacrament of confession that we have every day, whether it's in our rcia, whether it's in different, various different groups. We have new Knights of Columbus, new Catholic Women's League members, just new people showing up at Mass and saying, hey, I've been away for a while, Father. I'm here. So glad and just welcoming them. And so I think that's a big thing. Our parish is growing. We're blessed to see people also wonderfully wanting to share their gifts and talents. And this is something I'm always looking at is how can I empower people to share their God given talents. Gifts from the Holy Spirit and even what we're doing right now was an example of that. You know that here JD and I are having this podcast and it takes wonderful people like jd. Am I allowed to say your real name, jd?
[00:06:21] Speaker A: You can say my real name is James.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: His real name is James. Okay. Just in case. Case.
So, I mean, we've got, you know, our social media is doing amazing. We have amazing help there. And it's just, you know, so many great things that we're constantly getting better at because I think we're never going to stop improving because we love the Lord and our neighbor. We want to keep getting better. But what God is doing in our church, I think is continuing to, to really bless us with people who are coming to him and who are sharing their gifts and enriching our parents. And we're blessed by that.
[00:06:52] Speaker A: And I think once we connect with our social media team, we'll get our views up to, you know, from 13 to 15, 16 or a thousand.
[00:07:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: That'll be fun.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Indeed.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: All right, well, the second part of John's question is what aspects of ministry are you most passionate about?
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Oh, it's great. I love questions from fictional people such as this one. Yeah. What aspects of ministry are you most passionate about?
I. It's hard to. Yeah, I love. I love being a priest. I just love being a priest. I'm so blessed to be a priest. I love doing priestly things. I love offering holy Mass, I love preaching. I love hearing confessions. You know, I think that some of the things that come to my mind, although this is not to say that I don't like the other parts. Some things that come to mind first. I love explaining the faith. I love chatting with people, meeting them where they're at, and hearing their real questions. If you hang out with me long enough, you hear me say this phrase a lot, you'll hear me say, I love questions. That's a great question, because I love questions. As a person who had to ask a lot of questions myself to get to where I am in the faith. I just love when someone is a truth seeker and willing to ask the questions because it takes courage to do that. So I love answering questions. I love explaining our faith. I love the sacraments. You know, weddings. I enjoy weddings. And I would say this is going to sound a little strange, but I would say I also find there's a real beauty, there's a profound beauty in celebrating funerals or offering last rites. I mean, the healing and the comfort that that offers families. It's just hard to put into words what it's like to be a priest and offer that for people. So, I mean.
And yeah, I also like podcasting apparently, too. And I like rapping. I like trying to leverage technology, like social media. We're starting our young adults group going this year. I like that. I mean, visiting our schools.
It's all exciting. So I better stop there and just say it's all a very exciting ministry to be a priest.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: You love it all. And did you do some extra wrapping at Christmas?
[00:08:55] Speaker B: Did I do extra wrapping at Christmas?
Ah, I see what you did there. Yeah, I actually didn't do extra wrapping at Christmas.
That was wrapp, I think W, R.
[00:09:09] Speaker A: A, P. All right. Oh, beautiful. Love that you love so much about the ministry.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: That's incredible.
[00:09:17] Speaker A: Let's look ahead to next week. We are into Christmas time. And you said something in your homily last week referring to Christmas being more than just the 25th.
[00:09:26] Speaker B: What was that about?
Great. So Christmas is a liturgical season, and it's not just. It's not just one day. Like, you know, with Easter, we have Easter, but then we have the octave of Easter, and we have the season of Easter. And it's because the Church, in its great wisdom, guided by the Holy Spirit, knows that one day can't really give us full vent to how excited we are about. Yeah. Whatever it is we're celebrating, in this case, Easter or Christmas. So we also have an octave of Christmas. In fact, today, the solemnity of Mary and the Mother of God is an octave. Oct is referring to eight, like an octagon. So some feasts in the church, they have this kind of week long type thing called an octave. And so now the season of Christmas in the new calendar lasts considered basically till the feast of the baptism of the Lord, which is, well, it has its proper place usually around the second Sunday of January and so, but then also more traditionally in the old calendar anyways, which some people still like to follow.
Christmas went all the way until the feast of the presentation on February 2nd. So that's like 40 days of lots of celebration. Just like again, we have lots of times of celebration after Lent we have a long Easter.
And so with Advent we have Advent, but then we have Christmas. So that's what I mean. So keep living that Christmas spirit. You know, if you want to keep saying Merry Christmas, we talk about the 12 days of Christmas.
That's part of the way that we continue rejoicing this season.
[00:11:06] Speaker A: Excellent. That's lots of questions for me. And if you have questions, feel free to reach out and we can answer them on this very podcast next week. Indeed, there is so much happening in our vibrant community. Our parishioners can obviously check out the bulletin every week. But for everyone else out there, what are some of the highlights in the coming weeks at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish?
[00:11:26] Speaker B: Great question. Well, I definitely would say, yeah, if you want to know all the things happening, check out our bulletin because we have an upcoming events kind of section that can help offer that. Now, this upcoming weekend we're going to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany. And the Epiphany is a beautiful celebration of how God was revealed, Jesus was revealed to the world. Epiphany means unveiling or revealing. And as part of that, I'm going to explain this to you on the weekend how we can have the Epiphany Chalk blessing and we can invite God to bless our homes. And that's a beautiful thing. So that's something I'll talk about. And then I'm looking at my calendar here to see what else I get prompted by.
I would say RCA picks up again, we had a little break for Christmas, but those who are becoming Catholic and rcia Rite of Christian Initiation for adults, they're excited to continue their journey towards fully being part of our faith. And we've got a finance council and a parish pastoral council coming up next week. For those who are part of that, that's always fun because, you know, it takes a great team to continue the great work we're doing. And yeah, there's just lots of great stuff on January 11th we've got our young adults gathering where I'll give a talk on Jesus AI and you'd. Anyways, lots of cool stuff. Check out our bulletin and a lot more. And yeah, come and hang out with us. It's a great time.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: Excellent. And all those involve so many of the great people here at the parish. There's so many people doing great work at Immaculate Heart of Mary. Last week we had a shout out to Ellaria, our amazing parish secretary. Who do you want to recognize in the parish this week?
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Ah, great question.
I think I want to recognize in the parish. JD this week is also named James. That's great. How do you say your last name?
[00:13:13] Speaker A: Dohanyuk.
[00:13:14] Speaker B: Dohanyuk. Wow. So now you know James.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Now you know.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: That's amazing. I want to shout out to James a very long distance shout out across this table and to thank him for the good work he's doing behind the scenes to make this possible podcast happen. Because it's fun. It's a great way for us to build parish community and get messages out there, let people ask questions and just kind of have another opportunity to. To share outside of the other ones we already are using.
[00:13:39] Speaker A: That is so super kind of you.
[00:13:40] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:13:41] Speaker A: You deserve is just a joy to be part of this with you. I gotta say that is just about all the time we have for today. Thank you for your insights, Father. You are truly helping us get closer to heaven. And you're not even using a ladder.
Let's close with a prayer.
[00:13:58] Speaker B: Awesome. Okay. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we just thank you again as we begin this new year. We thank you for the ways you're growing our parish and blessing our families and working even when we don't always see it. Lord, we know you are there and we thank you for your mercy. We thank you for your compassion. We ask you to bless us and help everyone to know your love and and help us through this podcast, through our own personal discipleship to share your love with others. And we ask you to bless all those who listen to this podcast as well. We ask this in Jesus name, the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Thank you Father. And thanks to you, our fans and friends and odds and ends for listening this week. You should be able to find us on Apple podcasts and the YouTube now and soon on Spotify and Amazon music.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: Hello, the YouTube.
[00:14:47] Speaker A: Soon you'll be able to check out the parish YouTube channel and view Father's homilies and raps. R A P raps. Well, you maybe do a wrap segment.
[00:14:56] Speaker B: We could do that. We could do that.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Well, if you like our show, subscribe and tell your friends. And if you don't like our show, tell your friends anyway and let them discern for themselves. Have a great week, everyone. We are JD and Father Greg, leaving you small, smarter, happier and more blessed than you were yesterday.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Bye for now.
