Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. It's a beautiful Friday, January 10th. We are approaching the baptism of the Lord. Ordinary time is right around the corner. And it's time for the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish podcast with JD and Father Greg.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: Podcast, podcast, podcast.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Sound effects. I love it.
Each week, Father Greg and I will connect on a variety of topics related to our faith at our parish located in Winona, Ontario. We are here to help spread the good news and to help further unite our parish community.
Happy Friday, Father Greg. How's your week been?
[00:00:35] Speaker B: It's been good. It's been good. It's hard to know where to start. I'll just say it's good.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Okay. All right, we'll take. We'll take that. Well, I guess on a good note, we can say that we have two shows under our belts now and Holy moly. A whole 62 views across the YouTube and 17 listens on different podcast apps. And climbing higher every day. I would say we are the number one parish podcast in Winona, Ontario, right now.
[00:01:00] Speaker B: No way.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: Way way. Our social media team is now involved, so shout out to them and we're really on our way to spreading the word now. Plus, I think I have a solution to our sound issues. If you've listened to the first two shows.
I have a quick question before we begin this week.
[00:01:17] Speaker B: I love questions.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: All right, well, I noticed that you don't use a lot of incense at Mass.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Not yet.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: We can maybe dive into that.
[00:01:23] Speaker B: Working our way over there. We gotta. Gotta rise as time goes on.
[00:01:27] Speaker A: Oh, good one. Well done. We'll maybe dive into that in another show, but I wanted to ask, is it really thorough to make jokes about incense?
[00:01:34] Speaker B: It's very thorough.
You're so clever.
[00:01:38] Speaker A: That is another Father Greg quality joke right there. And after that joke, you better lead us into a prayer.
[00:01:45] Speaker B: Sure. Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we just thank you for this day and your love for us. And we just ask you to be with and bless our listeners. Of course, we ask the Holy Spirit to guide us and whatever anyone who's listening to this might be going through, we just ask that you, Lord, will be with them and comfort them and guide them, give them your inspirations. And we ask that you bless us and guide us all in Jesus name. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Amen.
We. Well, let us reveal our saint of the week. Each week we feature 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, Saint wrote the Ladder of Divine Ascent, in which we learned the practice of carrying a small notebook to record a monk's thoughts during contemplation. I am talking about, of course, St. John Climachus, also known as John the Ladder. I did learn a new word this week. Ascetic. It's the practice of severe self discipline. Thought I'd mention that up front because the word comes up a few times in my description.
Well, the latter describes how to raise one's soul and body to God through the acquisition of ascetic values.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: Climachus or virtues.
[00:03:02] Speaker A: Or virtues.
Climachus uses the analogy of Jacob's Ladder as a framework for spiritual teaching. And each chapter corresponds to a specific step and deals with a separate spiritual subject. There are 30 steps to the Ladder, which corresponds, interestingly, to the age of Jesus, when he was baptized in the beginning of his earthly ministry. Within the general framework of the latter, Climachus book falls into three sections. The first seven steps concern general virtues necessary for the ascetic life, While the next 19 give instructions on overcoming vices and building their corresponding virtues. And the final four steps concern the higher virtues toward which the ascetic number four life beams. The final rung of the Ladder, beyond prayer, stillness, and even dispassion, is love.
I love this quote from St. John Climachus. Faith gives wings to prayer, and without it, no one can fly upward to heaven.
[00:04:02] Speaker B: Very cool. So I think to summarize, basically, St. John Climachus wrote a book called the Ladder, and if you read it, it will help you rise in your relationship with God.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Perfect summary. Excellent.
Did you know there are 126St. John's in the Catholic chur?
[00:04:22] Speaker B: I can't say I did know that.
[00:04:25] Speaker A: Fun fact for today.
[00:04:26] Speaker B: There we go. I'm gonna trust your counting.
[00:04:28] Speaker A: And there are two in Canada.
[00:04:30] Speaker B: Okay, cool.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: See the geography nerds. Pick that one up.
It is time for Ask Father Greg. Each week we respond to a question submitted by a listener or a question that we make up ourselves. This week's question comes from Ian, a real life person who has listened to our show. Yeah, love that interaction.
[00:04:51] Speaker B: Yeah, Ian's awesome. I know Ian.
[00:04:52] Speaker A: Oh, perfect. Well, Ian asks, what is the hierarchy of the church, starting with the Pope, and what are the general roles and duties?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Awesome. And I actually prepared for this answer because I want to give better answers than just the best off the top of my head. So here's a quick rundown. You're going to have to bear with me as I run from top to bottom, so to speak, in an abbreviated summary of church hierarchy. So first is the Pope. We all know the Pope, obviously, Christ, actually, I should say God is the top. He's the most important.
But then we got the Pope. He's the Bishop of Rome and the leader worldwide of the Catholic Church. He is the successor to St Peter, who is the first pope. And the Pope is traditionally called the Vicar of Christ. He is a spiritual leader, teacher of doctrine, and the ultimate authority on church governance, law and discipline. And the Pope is also traditionally called the servant of the servants, God. So he's leading, but he's not meant to boss us around. He's meant to help us follow Jesus and keep us on the same page. Okay, then we got cardinals. These are senior church officials, often bishops appointed by the Pope. And they serve as special advisors. Many of them have roles in certain dicasteries or we could call departments in how the church runs. And of course, any cardinal who is not yet over 80, if I remember correctly, can vote in electing a new pope. Okay, so cardinals. Cardinal means hinge. So they. They're kind of key members. And there you go, you know, they wear red as well. Archbishops. An archbishop oversees an archdiocese, which is often, but not always a more historically important diocese. For your reference, an archdiocese is a geographical portion of the church in the world, which used to be bigger, but part of it became another diocese. So a diocese is born out of what then becomes an archdiocese. Like, you know, in Toronto, it's the Archdiocese of Toronto. It used to be bigger, but it was sectioned into smaller pieces, including the dioceses of Hamilton and St. Catherine's so the bishop of an archdiocese is an archbishop. A bishop of a diocese is a bishop. An archdiocese bishops, sorry, arch archbishop, has the same duties as bishop, but in a certain small way they have some extra level of authority over the bishops of those dioceses that grew out of that archdiocese. So, for example, now Cardinal Francis Leo, we would call him the metropolitan, which means that he has some level of authority over who we call suffragandi dioceses. That's like Our Diocese of St. Catherine's is this too much for you yet? Hopefully not.
[00:07:35] Speaker A: Okay, keep going, keep going.
[00:07:37] Speaker B: We're doing good then. So we had talked about archbishops that also kind of covered bishops. Every diocese, which is a community of parishes in an area in the Catholic Church, geographically, that has a bishop that oversees it. And so the bishop is responsible for teaching doctrine governing Catholics that are in their jurisdiction, their territory and ensuring that the sacraments are administered properly. So the bishops oversee priests, deacons, lay people, what we call religious, which I'll share a bit about lately or later.
So the Pope appoints who is bishop and where that bishop is sent to serve. Okay, then you got priests. Priests often serve in parishes administering the seven sacraments. They preach, they guide the faithful in spiritual matters. You know, many priests, but not all priests are pastors leading a parish. There are also certain priests who are not parish priests. That could be an associate who's maybe not a pastor but helping in a parish, or someone who works in the chancery office. Or you could have what we call religious priests like Jesuit priests, Dominicans, Carmelites, those that belong to religious orders.
Deacons also assist priests and bishops in their duties. They can perform baptisms, witness marriages. They can proclaim the gospel preachers preach.
And the word deacon comes from the Greek diakonia, which means servant. Okay, religious, that's just another class in the church. It's good to know about. Those are people like nuns or brothers who make vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. And they often live in communities. Again, this would be Jesuits, Franciscans, Carmelites. We've got a number of these types of folks in our diocese. And some religious are priests and some are not. Okay, lastly, laity. These are all baptized members of the church who are not ordained. The laity are still extremely important. They participate in the mission of the church by living their faith in the world, spreading Christ wherever they go. You go do things the priest can't do, and you spread the church's mission. You are the church's mission made present. So laity are super important. It is a long answer, but I hope that that covered in a relatively short time, different roles in the church.
[00:09:44] Speaker A: I'm sure anyone who is listening learns something through that. Do all priests belong to an order?
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Great question. Not all priests belong to an order. So I'm. I'm a diocesan priest. That means I. I just am stuck to this diocese. Unless for some reason me and my bishop and another bishop change our minds.
[00:10:03] Speaker A: Or you get traded to a different.
[00:10:05] Speaker B: They can't trade without my consent, so.
[00:10:08] Speaker A: And you mentioned that cardinals wear red. Do they always wear red or just at home games?
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Ha ha ha. You're so clever. That's why you're on this podcast.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Beautiful hierarchy. It also made me think of the angelic hierarchy. So we'll maybe get into that some other time. Hopefully somebody can call in with that question about thrones and dominions and what that is and we'll get another beautiful description from Father Greg about that whole side of things.
[00:10:34] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:10:36] Speaker A: Great. Thank you for that summary. Well, looking ahead to next week, we are coming to the end of Christmas time with the baptism of the Lord this weekend. And Ordinary Time begins. What is the deal with Ordinary Time?
[00:10:47] Speaker B: Well, you know, just Ordinary Time. That's. I like to make that joke. Okay, so Ordinary Time is the part of the liturgical year that's not, not the other seasons of Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and so on. And Ordinary Time actually gets divided into two periods. The first starts right after the baptism of the Lord and continues until Ash Wednesday. Then it pauses, you could say, because then you got Lent and then you got Easter, and that concludes with Pentecost. So then that. Then Ordinary Time picks up again after Pentecost, and going up until next liturgical years, Advent starts again. So what is the purpose of this Ordinary Time? Well, ordinary comes from the word ordinal, which means numerical or in a sequence. So Ordinary time focuses us on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ and growing as we continue to, we could say sequentially, continuously read the Scriptures and apply them to our lives. Sunday after Sunday, day after day, we read through the Bible in order to digest God's Word. And that should be an ordinary thing. For us Catholic Christians, the liturgical color for Ordinary Time is green, and that symbolizes hope and growth. Also, we think of green. Light means go. So we want to keep going, keep growing, and keep hoping, especially in this jubilee year of hope, as we just keep taking in the Lord's Word. And so I know sometimes the word ordinary could just sound like not special, but actually it's just as special because it's always special when you're deepening your faith and learning how to follow Christ more.
[00:12:18] Speaker A: Excellent. That's great. So many ideas pop in as we're talking about various topics. You mentioned reading the Bible regularly, and that can be a habit, or following the Bible through a podcast. And so that's probably something else that we can touch on in another show.
[00:12:34] Speaker B: Shout out to Bilinear podcast Catechism in your podcast. Rosary in your podcast. Yes, way better than my podcast.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Let's not sell ourselves short just yet. We. We have 62 plus 8 listens so far. We're getting closer to Father Mike.
There is so much happening at our parish and our community. Our parishioners, of course, can check out the action through the parish bulletin. But for everyone else out there, Father, what are some of the highlights of the coming week?
[00:13:01] Speaker B: Sure. This Saturday, we'll have our first young Adults group Saturday night beginning around 6:30 with Adoration. I'll give a talk on Jesus A I and you. I'll wrap. It'll be a great time with young adults 18 to 39 on Sunday, 2 to 4pm We've got our family catechism program. Amazing program if you're, if you have a family, some kids. If you want to get your family closer to Christ, the family catechism program is amazing. Meet other cool families. Really, really great people. It's a real joy for me and I'm there offering confessions and spiritual direction. So that's this Sunday. Check, check that. We've got those dates listed as well. Elsewhere we've also on Monday night got our men's monthly retreat or recollection that starts Monday at 7:15pm That's a great time. If you're a man, you want to come just have a little quiet time to pray. Meet some other men who want to follow Jesus in a nice relaxing way. Great opportunity. Okay, Tuesday night we have our RCA program that continues every Tuesday night, 7:45. If you are Catholic, you can share this with non Catholics or if you're thinking about becoming Catholic, rca, the Rite of Christian Initiation for adults is a wonderful program.
Also in May. This is like way down the road, but just highlighting. I'm going to Rome May 11th to the 23rd, 2025. If you want to come with me. We've got a great deal, a great arrangement. I'd love for you to come with me. Please pray about it. And then back to closer in time. Visiting Immaculate. Well, we got our regular school visits. I visit the schools, Immaculate heart of Mary, St Gabriel's every Tuesday and Wednesday respectively. And then also I've got a IHM school mass coming up Friday 10:30am so we're looking forward to that. And also just lastly, I want to say our St. Vincent de Paul kind of information meeting is happening January 20th at 7pm we're really looking to see how our parish can serve those in need right here in the geographical bounds of our parish community. So that's, that's my quick ish summary of upcoming cool things.
[00:14:58] Speaker A: Excellent. I want to put an extra plug in for the pilgrimage trip.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: It is a jubilee year indeed.
[00:15:03] Speaker A: So all the cathedral doors will be opened.
[00:15:07] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:15:07] Speaker A: And Rome is going to be jammed. And so if you're really looking to make that trip, do it through this pilgrimage because it's going to be great.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Jubilee year doesn't happen too often.
[00:15:18] Speaker A: Next one will be 25 years from.
[00:15:19] Speaker B: Now, which Is right. And to come with me. I don't know what will happen in 25 years. Come now, let's go.
[00:15:25] Speaker A: All right, let's go. I'm great price. All right.
Father Greg, there are so many people doing great work at Immaculate Heart of Mary and we're doing a weekly shout out. So who do you want to recognize in the parish this week?
[00:15:37] Speaker B: I want to shout out to John Van Troost. John was on our building committee here when this building was built and he does amazing work keeping our church going and keeping in good condition. He's been a huge help. So I just want to thank John. Thank you so much for the great work you and your wife Adele do in our parish community. You keep our parish running all the behind the scenes work. Thank you so much.
[00:16:02] Speaker A: Excellent shout out to John. Thank you very much, John. Outstanding work. And thank you, Father. Well, that is just about all the time we have for today. Thank you for your insights, Father. And I love that you always have a pencil handy to draw people closer to God.
[00:16:16] Speaker B: This prop was here just so he could make that joke. Is this even a pencil?
[00:16:20] Speaker A: It is even a pencil with a special pencil tip protector.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Your jokes are thorible.
[00:16:25] Speaker A: And let's point out that the pencil is green in recognition of ordinary time coming up.
[00:16:30] Speaker B: You are so clever.
[00:16:31] Speaker A: All right, well, that is just about all the time we have for today. I think I already said that. So let's close with a prayer, Father.
[00:16:38] Speaker B: Awesome. The name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we thank you again as we come close to celebrating the baptism of the Lord and our own gift of baptism and beginning this ordinary time where we grow in you. Just bless us, bless our listeners, bless our parish. May you send your spirit upon our parish that it will grow in every way you know is best. And may Mary hold us in her immaculate heart as we continue to try to imitate her in her total perfect discipleship as well. We pray this all in Jesus name. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[00:17:09] Speaker A: Amen. Well, thank you, Father. And thanks to our fans and friends, friends and odds and ends for listening this week. You can now find us through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, social media channels, Apple podcasts, Spotify and the YouTube.
[00:17:23] Speaker B: We love the YouTube.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: So 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 smarter, happier and more blessed than you were last time.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: Do I get more blessed?
[00:17:39] Speaker A: You get more blessed.
[00:17:40] Speaker B: Do I get smarter?
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Smarter all the time.
[00:17:42] Speaker B: Whoa. This is amazing. Keep tuning in. We'll see you soon.
[00:17:46] Speaker A: See you next week, everyone.
