Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
Hey, everybody. It's a beautiful Wednesday, January 22nd, and we are officially still in ordinary time. And it's time for the Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish podcast with JD and Father Greg. Each week, Father Greg and I connect on a variety of topics connected to our faith and our parish in beautiful Winona, Ontario. We, we are here to help spread the good word and to help further unite our parish community. Happy hump day. Father Greg, how are you doing this week?
[00:00:33] Speaker B: It's going great. It's going great. Life is good.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Excellent.
[00:00:36] Speaker B: God is good. How about you, J.D.
[00:00:39] Speaker A: Top of the world. Couldn't be better.
[00:00:40] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:00:40] Speaker A: If I was any better, I couldn't stand it, really.
We are super appreciating all of our new watchers and all of our new listeners. Please keep on and tell your friends. We are adding a new feature this week, a resource of the week that we are going to keep track of. We just talked about maybe setting up a parish, a sorry podcast webpage for you to reach back and to see other things we've talked about and connect with other resources that will be coming your way in the future. So just super exciting to be on this adventure with you, Father.
[00:01:14] Speaker B: Back at you.
[00:01:16] Speaker A: I have a quick question before we begin this week, though. I've noticed that every week when I come here for us to do our recording, there's always a smell of beautiful food.
[00:01:25] Speaker B: Is there?
[00:01:25] Speaker A: Yeah. And it made me wonder that if you, Deacon Joe and Bishop Crosby were here and you asked Ellaria to order lunch, would you be giving her holy orders?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Yeah. Not the sacrament, though.
[00:01:39] Speaker A: Oh, a different kind.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: I like your holy orders joke. It must be like the St. Pat's food they're cooking for those downtown babies. That your smell. Is that what you're smelling?
[00:01:48] Speaker A: I don't know.
[00:01:48] Speaker B: It just in the hall here.
[00:01:50] Speaker A: I. I'm always. I leave here hungry all the time. Hungry for more spiritually and hungry in my 22.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: That's. There you go. The Lord wants to satisfy every hunger.
[00:02:01] Speaker A: Well, that is another Father Greg quality joke right there. And after that, you'd better start us off with a prayer.
[00:02:06] Speaker B: Okay. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, we thank you that you are always there for us, that as we journey through life in all its ups and downs, you stand by our side. And no matter what we might be going through, you are always there and our biggest champion. You are our biggest advocate. Help us to continue to walk closer to you, knowing that you are our friend, our God, our savior. Our Redeemer and help us to continue to just rest in your presence, knowing that you love when we spend quality time with you. Bless our time, bless our podcast, bless our listeners. We pray this in Jesus name, in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[00:02:47] Speaker A: That was beautiful. Thank you, Father. You're welcome. Well, let's get right into our Saint of the Week. Each week we do feature a saint and share some facts about their lives. As we strive to live our lives as Catholics, we can always look to the saints for inspiration. This week's saint became noted for his deep faith and his gentle approach to religious divisions in his land resulting from the Protestant Reformation. He's known also for his writings on the topic of spiritual direction and spiritual formation, particularly the introduction of the Devout Life and the treatise on the love of God. I'm talking about, of course, St. Francis de Salle, whose memorial we celebrate on January 24th.
In 1923, Pope Pius XI proclaimed him a patron of writers and journalists. You've done a lot of writing today and a lot of things on your schedule to be prepared for.
Well, St. Francis de Salle was making extensive use of broadsheets and books in spiritual direction. He also developed a sign language to teach a deaf man about God, and this made him the patron seat of deaf people. Hmm, I love this quote from St. Francis. Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering your own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them every day. Begin the task anew.
[00:04:15] Speaker B: How awesome.
[00:04:15] Speaker A: What a great mindful thought to carry with us all the time.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Amen. And as a side note, if you look up a picture of St Francis Desales, let us know if you think he looks like me, because I've had lots of people that say, like, you just look like Saint Francis desales.
So no pressure, but if you're looking for a fun task, just Google St. Francis Desales and just let us know your honest thoughts. If I have any resemblance. And we will see what the poll dictates.
[00:04:43] Speaker A: Excellent. And you can send those thoughts directly to Father Greg myself or just comment on the.
[00:04:48] Speaker B: Whatever way you're listening to this podcast, I suppose.
[00:04:51] Speaker A: Or yeah, wherever you get your podcasts.
Well, 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's question is all about being nervous about speaking publicly or being under prepared for something and sort of thinking about when you're preparing a speech or Preparing a podcast. Will you say the right things? Will you forget to say things? And I was reminded of a scripture, and I'm wondering, I'm not using it in the right context. And I'm going to ask you to comment on, is it okay to use it out of context? And here's the scripture. So Matthew 10, verses 19 and 20.
When they hand you over, do not worry about how you are to speak or what you are to say, for what you are to say will be given to you at that time. For it is not you who speak, but the spirit of your father speaking through you. Now, I haven't been arrested. However, I'm, you know, nervous about our presentation and everything that we do. So over to you, Father.
[00:05:58] Speaker B: That's such a good thought, and that's a very good question. People. I'm sure a lot of people ask that. Does this mean I don't have to prepare if I speak or, you know, is that out of context? My thought is that, yeah, as you said, that Jesus says, when they take you whatever, when they kind of, you know, imprison you or whatever, don't worry. So, okay, probably, like, we're not in prison, we're freely doing this podcast. So on the one hand, you could make the argument, well, okay, like, God is not promising in the podcast world to always inspire everything you say. Now, that said, God also just promises us in general to be with us always. And he always promised us to give us what we need. And he doesn't just mean that materially. He also means, I would say, like, the light and the graces. We need to speak what he wants us to say. And so we can ask the Holy Spirit to lead us. And we have to do what St. Augustine said. Pray like it all depends on God. Work like it all depends on you. So if we have time to prepare for something, we try our best. But the truth is, for me, I mean, sometimes I'm just trying to keep up, so I don't have a lot of time to prepare for things sometimes. And so I just kind of trust in the Lord. I do what I can. Maybe if I have a few minutes to think beforehand and pray. Okay, what Lord you want me to say? But sometimes it just comes to the moment and you didn't have a chance to prepare, or someone asked you something out of the blue you never foresaw in that moment, we can be sure God's grace is always there. And even if we say something and we might say, well, okay, maybe what I said, I don't think it was perfect. Hey, that's okay. It was the best you could in the moment. And that's pleasing to God. Our best in the moment is always pleasing to God. If we did our best with a clear conscience and a heart of love, that's all God wants. So that context, I think that we can lean into it to some degree and say, yeah, God is really wanting to give us the words that we need for each occasion. And he's going to inspire us and guide us always in a sufficient way, giving us what we need to do what he wants. And it doesn't mean he's going to stop us from ever making mistakes. Doesn't mean we're never going to kind of say something we think was maybe a little silly later. That happens. That's part of life. And I don't think God wants to eliminate that from life because that kind of keeps us humble, that keeps us having a growth mindset, that keeps us seeing we could get better. So God always gives us the graces we need to do anything.
But we also want to prepare. We want to do our due diligence, knowing that sometimes God is helping us by means of giving us time to do our due diligence. And we want to be responsible stewards of the time he's given us. So does that answer your question?
[00:08:45] Speaker A: That answers my question fully. Thank you. My heart is a lot lighter now. And to know that, yes, preparation is important, but sometimes you can get by on an angel's wing in a prayer.
[00:08:56] Speaker B: Totally. I do it all the time.
[00:09:00] Speaker A: Excellent. Well, thank you for that, Father. That was a beautiful answer and very comforting, too.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Awesome.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: Now, according to our church calendar, we are right into Ordinary Time now. And so what is coming up on our. On our Ordinary Time calendar? I know as we get into Lent, we will be looking forward to those activities and that spiritual preparation. There's A consecration to St. Joseph coming up that we might be able to participate in. But what else is happening in Ordinary Time that we should be aware of?
[00:09:32] Speaker B: Well, we got RCA still Tuesday nights, and just keep praying for those who are on the journey to becoming Catholic. It's so inspiring to journey with these folks. We've got our parish town hall meeting, which is tonight, as of this recording, which is Wednesday, January 22nd at 7. So by the time you have heard this, it's probably gonna have happened. But, you know, I know it's gonna be a great time for us as a parish to look at how we can continue to grow our parish, how we can make it better. What's going great. What, what do we want to continue to put effort into? Very exciting. And then we want to do this regularly. Also. The Rome pilgrimage, May 11th to 23rd. I so want to invite you to come. In fact, earlier I was just filming a little video to promote this. And so I'm sure eventually you'll probably see that video. And I'm very excited. I really hope that you will ask the Holy Spirit. He invited me to go to Rome for this pilgrimage. The more I think about it, the more excited I am. And on February 8, we have our next young adults event. It's the first one. We had like 30 young adults. It was great. Everyone really loved it. And then we've got some confirmations for our schools. February 12th and 13th. Bishops Crosby and Lobsing are coming to confirm our young people, giving them the full outpouring of the Holy Spirit so they can be those missionary disciples of Christ in the world. And last thing I got on my list here is February 14th is the Hamilton Diocese vocations night. They have a dance night. So for young adults, there's a vocations night with a dance. February 14th. I'm actually going to be going, don't worry. I'm not going to be dancing and I'm not looking for any partners. But at the same time, it's a great thing to support young people who are learning more about different vocations, including the vocation of holy matrimony. So there's just a few things good to know what's. What, what's going on.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: I'm excited and proud to be part of such an active and dynamic parish.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Well done, Father.
This week we are introducing a new feature, Resource of the Week. There's so many things out there, books, movies, apps that can help further our faith and help us dive a little bit deeper, or a lot deeper, as the case may be. And this week, I'd like us to focus on the FORMED program.
Father, tell us our involvement and what our potential involvement could be with formed.
[00:11:52] Speaker B: That's great. Formed.org is like the Catholic Netflix. And I'm going to spell it out again. It's F O r m e d.org and it's so great. Now, our parish, like some other parishes, has a paid subscription to this service.
And so you can go there. And when you go there, you can click on Formed for Parishes, find your parish subscription, and then type in Immaculate Heart of Mary, Stoney Creek. Let's see if it look at that. First thing that pops up is our parish. You Click next. You can create a login. Boom. You have a free access to this thing that has incredible movies about saints, audiobooks, ebooks, kids programs, daily reflections, just incredible things.
Things about the sacraments, all sorts of things about how to grow in your faith, Bible studies. I mean, to be honest with you, this thing is exploding. There's so much great content. All of it's trustworthy and so it's free for you because you're part of our parish. So just check it out. Formed.org make a login. Just try a few things. You know, if you're wondering, hey, do you have any recommendations of what I would watch?
Two things that I often recommend to people. One is called the Search. It's kind of a little series about why we believe in God. Like what's the evidence for God? You know, a lot of people rightly have questions about God and this really goes through all those questions and really deals with them in a beautiful way. There's also a series called Symbolon. S Y M B L B O L O N.
Symbolon is a great summary of what we believe as Catholics. Very engaging. All these resources are very new, well produced, high quality and truly going to really help you get closer to God. Great things to watch, maybe with your spouse at home or again, they've got children's shows. You want to give your kids something to watch that you know is going to be good for them. Very good quality content. So as you can see, I don't have any difficulty saying lots of good things about forum.org so many great things and I'd love you to watch it, find something and tell me what you thought of it. But it's such a great resource, you don't want to miss out. So go and make sure you log in formed.org and create your login. Start getting into that great content.
[00:14:18] Speaker A: And if you're intrigued by St. Francis de Salle, there's a four part series, informed that will dive deeper into his life and works. Currently I know myself, I am using it for the daily readings. So I listen to them there and also reflections by Tim Gray. So he ties together the reading and the psalm and the gospel into a nice succinct message and gives us a little to do each day as we move along in our faith.
[00:14:44] Speaker B: That's great.
[00:14:45] Speaker A: So formed.org get on it, go in, go often.
[00:14:49] Speaker B: Amen.
[00:14:49] Speaker A: Check it out.
[00:14:50] Speaker B: Amen. That was good. The sponsored by Forum.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Well, they may be a sponsor, they don't know it yet, but they might be just trying to beat down the door. To help us further getting the message.
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Out, we'll be on forum.org with this amazing podcast.
[00:15:05] Speaker A: That would be cool.
Well, Father Greg, there's so many people doing great work here at the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Who do you want to recognize in the parish this week?
[00:15:15] Speaker B: This week I want to recognize and give a shout out to Kieran, our cleaner. Kieran's such a fun guy, and I always have fun when I see him. You see him around often. Vacuuming, mopping, wiping down windows, keeping things clean, keeping things organized. And I just want to say thank you to Karen. You do a good job. We're blessed to have you. You're a lot of fun. And, yeah, he's doing a lot of work behind the scenes, which we're grateful for.
[00:15:46] Speaker A: Thank you very much, Kieran. And Kieran helps us live the message that cleanliness keeps us close to godliness.
[00:15:52] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: All right. Thank you, Kieran.
Well, that is just about all the time we have for today. Thank you for your insights on all of our topics today. Father, shall we close with a prayer?
[00:16:03] Speaker B: Sure. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen. God, thank you so much again for the fact that you're with us through everything. And day by day, you journey with us. And we never have to worry because we are never alone, no matter what we might be going through. Right now, you are with us right beside us right here as we listen to this and you speak to each one of us and say, my child, I love you. Be not afraid. So help us to continue to walk closer to you, Lord, in this ordinary time, to make drawing closer to you ever more of an ordinary part of our day. You bless our listeners, their family and friends, and all the intentions they hold in their hearts. May the blessing of Almighty God, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit come upon you and remain with you forever. Amen.
[00:16:48] Speaker A: Thank you, Father. And thank you to our fans and friends and odds and ends for joining us again this week. And thank you, Father, for your push into social media that shows us that prayer is really the original wireless connection, isn't it?
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: You can find us through our the Immaculate Heart of Mary social media channels, Apple, podcasts, Spotify, and the YouTube. 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 yesterday.
