Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Immaculate Heart of Mary parish podcast with Father Greg and jd Probably Winona's best Catholic podcast.
Each week, Father Greg and I connect on a variety of topics related to our faith and our parish in Winona, Ontario. We are here to help spread the good news and further unite our parish community.
This is episode number 30, and we are celebrating the passion of St. John the Baptist, St. Augustine or St. Augustine. And I want to ask you about skipping verses in the readings when. When they formally leave them out, not when somebody inadvertently skips them. Just to be clear.
Remember, you can find us on the Spotify, the Apple podcasts, and the YouTube every week. So please like or subscribe and we will find your inbox every week with a fresh episode.
I do have a quick question before we begin.
So if God created everything, does he.
[00:00:56] Speaker B: Create these jokes by mediation, in mediation, or mediated in a mediated manner? He has created them by means of us, our participation in his divine will.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: So he's responsible for these?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Yeah, he has some level of responsibility for them?
[00:01:13] Speaker A: Not total responsibility, but some level of responsibility.
[00:01:15] Speaker B: Yeah, because he created us and brought us to this moment.
[00:01:18] Speaker A: Okay, perfect. All right, looking forward to hearing that intro into a homily coming up soon, a Father Greg quality joke right there. After that, you better start us off with a prayer.
[00:01:29] Speaker B: Sure. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we thank you for our parish, our podcast, our listeners, our viewers, and we just ask that you pour your grace upon us. Each one of us comes to you with special needs in this moment, Lord, and we just ask that you would grant all we need and more. Pour out your Holy Spirit upon us. Give us wisdom, light and insight as we entrust ourselves in this time and anything in our hearts to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the heart of St. Joseph, the protection of St. Michael. May you guide us and inspire us in all we do. Thank you, Lord, for your love for us. We pray this in Jesus name. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Hey, I have something to say.
[00:02:04] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:02:04] Speaker B: I know it's not on the script.
Every once in a while people ask me, father, why do you do this, like, thing? At the beginning of the podcast, you're not talking, you're just acting out.
And just for anyone who might be wondering why, like, if. And you only get this if you watch it, if you listen to it, you have no idea what I'm talking about. But if you watch it, you know what I'm talking about?
I'm really, like, against interrupting people. So when, like, when James is doing, like, his. His little intro, I don't want to just sit here and do nothing. It's kind of boring. And also I want to show that I'm like, united with what he is doing. So that's why I go into, like, the body language made up sign language, because that way I get to at least participate.
But it's not.
It's not like I can't talk. It's not like I'm sick. It's not like I can only say so many words per episode. It's not like that. It's just for. In case you ever wondered, there's your fun fact.
[00:02:58] Speaker A: A little bit of fgsl. Father Greg Sign language.
[00:03:00] Speaker B: That's right. It's just for fun and spice it up. But I don't want to interrupt, like, you're talking. So it's like.
[00:03:08] Speaker A: So for people who don't listen regularly, maybe next week I'll just throw it. What are you doing? And then totally get you to explain it right in the time. That would be fun.
I do have a side question, though.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:03:18] Speaker A: As we had our opening prayer and I was doing the center cross, and I've seen in the church, some people will do the sign of the cross and kiss their fingers at the end.
[00:03:28] Speaker B: Right.
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Is that.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Do you mean, like, tell me more about it?
[00:03:34] Speaker A: I've seen it and can you tell me more about it?
[00:03:35] Speaker B: That's great. Okay. Yeah. So some people have. I'm not sure where it originates. Some people have the custom of, yeah, they'll make the sign of the cross and they'll do something, I think more in a more full way, they would make a cross with their fingers and then they kiss it as a sign of kissing the cross.
Right. So that's, I think, the more full expression of this.
Otherwise it's like, why are you kissing your hand like, so the sign of the cross. And then they make the cross again with their fingers and kiss it. And so it's a sort of additional, I guess, element that some people do. And I notice some cultures are more likely to do it than others. It's not obligatory, nor is it forbidden.
So if that helps you to get closer to the Lord, by all means.
But it's not something you have to do if you feel like, oh, man, I've been failing all along. All these years. We didn't do it.
Don't worry. It's. It's not wrong. It's Just whatever works for you.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: Also popular among the culture of baseball players.
They do something good like hit a home run. It's just a little bit of a.
Yeah, yeah.
[00:04:42] Speaker B: It could be a sign of love and affection to Christ and his cross.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: But never when they hit into a double play.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Yeah, I don't know. I'm not a. I can't. You probably watch more than I do.
[00:04:53] Speaker A: So is there any connection with.
Hey, for those of you who watch us or don't watch us regularly, we'll cover all the crowds. Go back and check out our shorts, because we did talk about the baptismal font.
[00:05:05] Speaker B: The shorts.
[00:05:06] Speaker A: And the shorts. And.
And you talked about when people dip their hand into the font, they dip three fingers together, two off to the side.
[00:05:17] Speaker B: That's right. For the two natures of Christ.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Okay, so.
[00:05:20] Speaker B: But that's optional.
[00:05:21] Speaker A: Would that kind of tie into this?
[00:05:25] Speaker B: Actually, that was a totally wrong.
I don't know. I'm not an expert on.
[00:05:30] Speaker A: That was.
[00:05:30] Speaker B: I don't know. I don't know what to say. Like, I.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Well, that was a. I think you're just kissing.
[00:05:35] Speaker B: No, you're kissing the Trinity and honoring God's divine nature.
[00:05:38] Speaker A: So I think that an extra hand gesture was not warranted, so.
[00:05:41] Speaker B: Well, I won't read into it. So I'm just gonna. I'm missing it. I'm ignorant. I don't even know what just happened. So.
[00:05:47] Speaker A: But anyway, thank you for that explanation because I've seen that quite often, and I was kind of wondering if it's, you know, expected or.
Or where maybe its origin might have been. So.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: Great.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: Okay, let's. Let's roll along to our saint of the week. Each week we feature a saint or several and share some facts about their lives as we strive to live out our mission. As Catholics, we can always look to our saints for inspiration. And this week, we talk about St. Augustine of Hippo or St. Augustine.
[00:06:15] Speaker B: Both are good.
[00:06:15] Speaker A: A North African bishop, theologian, and I think a theologian pronounced property this week.
[00:06:21] Speaker B: Absolutely fantastic.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: And a philosopher whose writings Western Christianity and philosophy.
He initially lived quite a hedonistic lifestyle, but he converted to Christianity after profound spiritual awakening, influenced by his mother, St. Monica, and the preaching of St. Ambrose. His foundational works are Confessions and the City of God, which explore human nature, sin, grace, and divine providence.
His doctrine of original sin and emphasis on divine grace became foundational to both Catholic and Protestant theology.
And his integration of classical philosophy with Christian doctrine established him as one of the most influential church fathers in history.
And we celebrated him, I think, on Thursday and St. Monica on Wednesday this past week.
And a couple of quotes for from St. Augustine. Faith is to believe what you do not see. And the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.
I had to sit with that one for a couple minutes, but it was really struck me deeply.
And another that has come up quite often as well. Pray as though everything depended on God.
Work as though everything depends on you.
And a third one, I just want to make sure. I want to get this one in too. Jesus, I trust in you.
So continuing the theme, just what every, every saint is saying.
[00:07:52] Speaker B: What are the odds?
[00:07:53] Speaker A: I know, I know. It's amazing how it always comes up.
[00:07:56] Speaker B: As I thought that he did the.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Third quote of all the famous ones.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: No, I'm just joking.
[00:08:02] Speaker A: It's 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 I want to ask you about some readings in the official readings in church.
They omit some verses that are preached to the people. And I'm kind of. I'm a little bit unsure about that. This coming Sunday. In Hebrews, we start at. In chapter 12, verses 18 to 19, and then we skip to verse 22.
Is it because of the language or is it clarity of message, or is it to alleviate confusion? I wondered about the language part because there's so much rich language that can be challenging that's still kept in there.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: So I'm not sure it's a good question. Basically.
Yeah, for those who don't know what this exactly refers to in the lectionary of the church, which prescribes what we read at Mass, whether it's a regular day or a feast or a Sunday, there are readings that are prescribed. Now, sometimes in those readings, to I think, the surprise of a certain number of people. I was surprised too when I found this out. Sometimes in the reading there are certain verses omitted and you're like, you could be reading like chapter five of some book and then you're reading verses one through seven and you skip eight and or nine and you go to verse 10, 11 and 12, and you're like, well, why did we skip those verses?
So that's what James is asking about. I think the main reasons would be, and probably each case is a little unique, but I think the church is probably saying that for whatever theme that that batch of readings is focusing on, maybe certain verses are not considered as essential or helpful for focusing on that theme. So maybe just to shorten it so it's not too long, they'll remove some verses so that it can be just a little more streamlined so that we're focusing on the part of the Scripture that's most meant to be focused on at that time.
[00:10:00] Speaker A: Okay, that makes sense.
[00:10:01] Speaker B: So it is intentional, but it's not to, like, make you read less of Scripture. You should read all of Scripture. It's just at that liturgy, we're getting kind of our curated focus given to us.
[00:10:11] Speaker A: And sometimes I've noticed that they just take out one verse and that's the part that really strikes me. What's in that verse that's so distracting or.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's true.
[00:10:19] Speaker A: Or off brand or whatever.
[00:10:21] Speaker B: We'd have to probably look at each case.
These are decisions that were made after Vatican II to give us a new liturgical calendar. Like, if you don't know, Currently on Sundays, there's a three year cycle, A, B and C.
So every year those readings change and then they begin again after the third year is done.
And on daily Masses, there's a two year cycle. So there's kind of year one and two for daily Mass, and there's A B and C for the Sundays. And it is true that sometimes, you know, the readings surprise us. And those choices were made after Vatican ii, whereas there used to be just one annual cycle where the readings were the same every year.
It is interesting. So whoever was given that decision to make, I'm sure they had reasons and we might be able to guess at them, but I have a feeling we also might not be able to know all the reasons that went into those decisions.
[00:11:21] Speaker A: Okay, so Sunday readings, three year cycle, abc, weekday two. Is it one and two?
[00:11:29] Speaker B: Yeah, I think. I think. Yeah. Like in the lectionary for weekday lecture, it says year one. Well, actually does say A. And does this say A and B?
[00:11:37] Speaker A: I don't know, because I've been looking up daily readings and I've tagged on year C and daily readings, Year C.
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Will just totally confuse you.
[00:11:46] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay, so we'll have to. Maybe we'll. That'll be homework. And we'll report back next week.
[00:11:50] Speaker B: I think if you say year A or B, it could work. I think year one and two, because year A and B could get conflated with Sunday's A or B. Right. So I think that's probably why I lean towards 1 and 2. Now, that said, the weekday lectionary in Canada, I believe it does say A and B, but there are pros and cons of using A and B in common parlance because they could be confused.
[00:12:15] Speaker A: Okay. And for Sundays we're in year C currently.
[00:12:19] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:20] Speaker A: All right. And we. Are we one or two in weeks.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: You think I would know that right now? But I can't remember right now.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: You read what's in front of you.
[00:12:28] Speaker B: That's right. We. There's. It's set up in the ordo. I can't remember right now.
[00:12:31] Speaker A: Okay, excellent. Okay, more homework. We can report back next week on that one, too.
So our resource of the week, we're going back to the Examined Prayer by Father Timothy Gallagher. And remember, we're going to work through the different five parts of the book. And right now we're focusing on part one, which is the focus on desire for loving and growing communion with God, which moves us to more desire to pray. The examen. So in this part, in part one, he's talking about some of his struggles with regular practice.
And it was incredible to read his reflections on trying to begin a regular practice of the examen and getting distracted or losing steam and trying to do it, but how he would regularly be able to come back to it.
A lot of great thoughts that he shared in here.
One of them was, sometimes you find the examine, sometimes it finds you, which I find comes up very often in different readings.
My daughter and I talk about this quite often that we have a book that we read called Journey to the Heart. And not necessarily a daily read. It does have entries for each day. But sometimes it just calls out to you. Something draws us to it, and the reading on that day will be something very apropos of what's happening in life. And I think that sort of is something that he was getting at in this as well. That.
In that.
Oh, goodness gracious.
[00:14:14] Speaker B: Can you still focus after what just happened?
Only the viewers will see what just happened.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: Oh, golly gee whiz. Yeah. So sometimes the examiner will find you and you will be drawn to it for reasons that you can't explain.
Something else he talked about was that was very impactful for him was the examine becomes more powerful when people share their experiences with it, and that generates so much more inertia. To continue, the examiner, he drew another parallel with regular practice, with regular physical.
[00:14:52] Speaker B: Exercise.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: And it makes so much sense. So when you regularly physically exercise, you come to desire that exercise, and you feel it's absent when you don't do it. And he found it was the same with the examine. The more frequently he prayed it, the more he desired it, and the more he missed it when he felt too busy or too tired to do it.
[00:15:12] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. Can you Give me an example of what it looks like. If the examine finds you.
[00:15:19] Speaker A: I think it's being drawn to it. So there may be an experience that has, that happens. So he explained how the more he prays it, the more blessings enter his life.
And so there was an example where he began to notice small things that made a difference. For example, the effort to reach out to a particular person gave him an uplift of heart.
And as he remembered and reviewed the experience, he discovered to his surprise that now he felt less interior resistance to that person than before.
And so now he, now that he realizes that he can plan to be more forthright with that person and with others if the Lord will give him.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: The courage to do that.
[00:16:04] Speaker A: So that's a little bit of an example there.
And so that's in the second chapter of part one. Did focus on St. Ignatius and what he went through to develop the exam and prayer. Quite an impactful day.
I think I would like to stick with just where Father Timothy Gallagher's experience right now and an ongoing commitment to try to pray, pray, pray the examine every day.
[00:16:33] Speaker B: Awesome. I love this practice. Just so you can hear it from me too, like just towards the end of the day, review your day.
Be aware that God is with you or do whatever you want, but that's the most common. Be grateful for what God's given you. Ask God for light to help you in this process. Review the day, look at how your thoughts were with God, maybe not with God, choices you made.
See if you need any forgiveness from God or need to share forgiveness with others and just kind of recommit to following God's plan for you and then just continue to gently carry that with you as you move forward. It's very, very powerful.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: And a huge element is trying to take the pressure off of it.
You know, it's not nitpicking on mistakes or, or a to do list, but really trying to have a conversation with God.
[00:17:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's right. It's a relational experience you and God experience over the day. Like, you know, you the content of your shared reflection or conversation with God is this kind of type of framework. But it's not meant to be a straight jacket, but it is meant to help you to get those key parts as parts of your relationship to see.
[00:17:40] Speaker A: Then common threads in your life as you continue to pray it regularly.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: That's right. And the more we pray, the happier we are.
[00:17:47] Speaker A: I'm so excited to continue with this.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: All right.
[00:17:51] Speaker A: All right. On our church calendar today we celebrate the passion of St. John the Baptist. Father, can you share what makes the Passion such a meaningful and powerful celebration? And maybe a little bit. I saw two titles actually to this. One called it the Passion and the other called it the Beheading.
[00:18:08] Speaker B: That's right.
I mean, they're both legit.
[00:18:12] Speaker A: They're both legit hit way different ends of the spectrum in, I guess, sensory impact.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: There we go. Yeah. Okay. So, yeah, today is liturgically the Passion of St. John the Baptist or also the Beheading of John the Baptist. Like in the Roman Missal, it says the passion of St. John the Baptist. In the breviary, it says. The breviary is the thing the priest prays every day, several times a day for his people, it says the Beheading of John the Baptist. So they're both current titles of this celebration. It's a memorial, but it's a memorial that sometimes there's certain memorials that it's like, wow, it's almost like it's a feast. It's like there's a lot of extra special prayers that are in there.
And St. John the Baptist is probably one of the most underrated saints in the church's year because he gets interestingly like he's so important, but we forget. That's what I mean. We don't think about how important he is. But we have the Feast of the Nativity of John the Baptist, but we also have the Passion or the Beheading of John the Baptist. No other saint has, like birth and death. Right. We have Jesus and Our lady that have similar type of celebrations. But beyond that, it's really unique to John the Baptist, who Jesus says is the greatest born of woman. And in fact, in the Litany of the saints, because of that scripture, John the Baptist is traditionally listed even before St Joseph, who is more traditionally considered the greatest saint in heaven after Mary. So John the Baptist is a pretty big deal.
And we know that he prepared the way for Jesus. He leapt for joy in St Elizabeth's womb when the Mary and Jesus came. And he baptized Jesus. And he has a lot of profound quotes like he must increase and I must decrease. What a great motto for life. But also he called out Herod for living a life that was not in accord with God's plan for marriage. And he was willing to die for God's truth about marriage and the family.
And, you know, in today's world, where marriage and the family is so often under attack, John the Baptist can be a powerful intercessor for us.
Brilliant.
[00:20:19] Speaker A: Love that.
Yeah. When you mentioned. No, not many have A birth and end of life. I thought Mary had birth and assumption, right?
[00:20:32] Speaker B: No, Mary is kind of unique. So, like I said, other than Jesus and Mary.
[00:20:35] Speaker A: Yeah. Excellent. Okay.
[00:20:36] Speaker B: Also, maybe one other thing that I at least find interesting is traditionally in the Roman rite, we. We call a martyr the day they died. We call it the Dies Natalis, which is Latin for the day of birth. You might think we would say that for, like, their birthday. Birthday, like when John the Baptist was born. But actually we call the day of death of a martyr the Dies natalis, the birthday. The idea that they are born into heaven, that, like, in a certain sense, they are reborn now in the fullness of life, which I find a very interesting habit.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:13] Speaker B: That goes back right to the beginnings of Christianity.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: Gosh, that's fascinating.
Okay, well, thank you for that, Father. Always a pleasurable learning experience here.
[00:21:22] Speaker B: Yeah. Hopefully it's not too much.
[00:21:24] Speaker A: There is so much happening in our community, and our parishioners, of course, can check the bulletin every week. We're heading into September, so a whole bunch of new initiatives are. Will be kicking off in new programs this fall.
You'll hear about more of those in the coming weeks. Anything immediate that's happening to draw attention to this weekend?
[00:21:43] Speaker B: Actually, we have the relic of Blessed Michael McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus, at all the masses. And then on Tuesday night, we'll have a special time as well at that Mass honoring that. And after all the masses, there will be an extra half hour of time where people can pray with the relic and write down petitions asking Blessed Michael McGivney to pray for them. And on Sunday, 3 to 4pm we'll have a special prayer hour in the church where, again, people can pray with the relic and ask his intercession. So that's coming up this weekend from the time of this recording. And.
[00:22:19] Speaker A: Yeah, excellent, excellent.
All these upcoming projects and, you know, everything that goes on here doesn't happen in isolation. There are so many people doing great work here.
Who would you like to recognize with a shout out this week?
[00:22:32] Speaker B: I really like to give a shout out to Pope Leo.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:22:35] Speaker B: Pope Leo is doing a great job at so many things. And you might be like, come on, you're supposed to choose someone from the parish.
But I want to be a little playful, but I also want to be sincere and say, like, pope Leo is awesome. He's the bomb. I'm loving Pope Leo, and so is there. He encourages me.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Is there something that you could point to that, you know, that's just. Wow. Pope Leo, look at that.
[00:22:55] Speaker B: You know what? Right from the beginning, I've really liked Pope Lee. Not that I didn't also like and appreciate Pope Francis. It's not that. But I just really find Pope Leo as well. It's just he is.
He's such a holy man, and also, in my opinion, anyways, but also, like, I really appreciate he's very precise in his language. And I was reading something he said to altar servers, and in fact, he says this. It's just nice to hear, because I love this kind of approach. He says to altar servers, may your demeanor, your silence, the dignity of your service, the beauty of the liturgy, the order and majesty of the gestures, draw the faithful into the sacred grandeur of the mystery.
That's just so beautiful. And I just love how I think his words and his example are continuing to build on Pope Francis efforts to really help us to appreciate what we have in our Catholic faith. And just that type of. Of encouragement to altar service, for example, or highlighting the importance of the sacred liturgy, the Mass.
I just love that kind of stuff. And maybe he's not directly decreeing things in relation to our parish, but at the same time, he is our spiritual father. He's the Holy Father, and he has an important role for all of us, even if we're not hearing special stuff from him all the time. I mean, you can always read his homilies and hear what he's saying and look online.
And I want to give him a shout out for the way that he is praying for us, encouraging us, supporting us, and being a father figure for us.
[00:24:24] Speaker A: And it really highlights the role of. The altar servers are just more than.
[00:24:28] Speaker B: Yeah, they're not just like helpers. They are really helping the people, hopefully by their own manner, to enter into this encounter with God, which is that this is the highest form of prayer that we have.
[00:24:40] Speaker A: Excellent. And through their crisp bell ringing as well.
[00:24:43] Speaker B: Crisp bell ringing. Yeah, all the things.
[00:24:46] Speaker A: All the things.
[00:24:48] Speaker B: All right.
[00:24:48] Speaker A: Well, that is just about all the time we have for today. Thank you for all of your insights, Father. Let's close with a prayer.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Sure. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. God, we thank you for all that you give us. We thank you for our Holy Father, Pope Leo. We thank you for our church's liturgical calendar, the sacred scriptures, saints like St. John the Baptist who inspire us and the ways that we can continue to just draw closer to you and know that you love us. May you bless us, our families and friends. We pray this in Jesus name in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:25:19] Speaker A: Thank you for that, Father.
And thank you for dropping wisdom, laughter, and maybe a few even holy mic drops along the way. Thanks to our fans and friends and odds and ends for joining us this week through the Immaculate Heart of Mary social media channels, the Apple podcasts, the Spotify, or the YouTube. If you like our show, subscribe and tell your friends. If you don't like our show, tell your friends anyway and let them discern for themselves.
Until next time, keep the faith, say your prayers, and hey, don't forget to tip your priest with a smile and a Hail Mary. Have a great week everyone. We are Father Greg and JD leaving you smarter, happier and more blessed than you were yesterday.
