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11: Pilgrims - with Fr. Tony Kruse
2 Plays1 year ago
Have you ever wanted to go on a pilgrimage? How about a virtual pilgrimage to a Church in the Archdiocese? How about a pilgrimage to your own parish's tabernacle?
In this action packed episode, we discuss with Father Tony Kruze, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Waterloo what a pilgrimage is and how he started to get involved in making videos for social media.
The website and resources referenced can be found here:
Virtual Pilgrimages Seasons 1-3
Coffee Talk with Fr. Tony
"In Sinu Jesu: When Heart Speaks to Heart -- The Journal of a Priest at Prayer" by A Benedictine Monk
Angelico Press,
ISBN-10 : 1621382192
ISBN-13 : 978-1621382195
https://dbqarch.org/archdiocesan-eucharistic-revival
https://www.eucharisticrevival.org/
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction of Hosts
00:00:16
Speaker
Hello, everyone.
00:00:17
Speaker
My name is Father Jacob Rouse, and I'm the pastor of Notre Dame Parish in Cresco, Iowa, and I am here on the DeBucharistic podcast.
00:00:26
Speaker
DeBucharistic Revival, because that's the name we're going with.
00:00:29
Speaker
Very good.
00:00:31
Speaker
I am technically a YouTube content creator, and my co-host, Father Kevin Earlywine, is also technically a YouTube content creator.
00:00:41
Speaker
Could you please introduce yourself to our listeners, Father Kevin?
00:00:44
Speaker
Yes, I am Father Kevin Earler.
00:00:46
Speaker
I'm Pastor of St.
00:00:47
Speaker
Patrick's Catholic Church in Hampton and St.
00:00:49
Speaker
Mary's Catholic Church in Iowa.
00:00:51
Speaker
And I suppose I am a YouTube creator.
00:00:53
Speaker
I don't actually do anything.
00:00:54
Speaker
I just talk, but someone else actually creates it.
00:00:57
Speaker
But welcome to our podcast.
00:00:59
Speaker
Thank you.
00:01:01
Speaker
So how's fame treating you, Father Kevin?
00:01:04
Speaker
Oh, you know, I'm kind of losing all my hair, but it's funny if you can see me, but I don't have any hair for those who are listening.
00:01:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:11
Speaker
But, you know, there you go.
00:01:13
Speaker
Here we are.
00:01:14
Speaker
But we've got inside jokes with
Father Anthony's YouTube Project
00:01:16
Speaker
our listeners.
00:01:16
Speaker
And we're so blessed, speaking of fame and famous people, we're blessed to have with us the Reverend Father, Anthony DeCruzzi, pastor of Blessed Sacrament in Waterloo, who taught me everything I know, maybe, at least the bad stuff.
00:01:31
Speaker
So just kidding.
00:01:32
Speaker
I taught you what not to do.
00:01:34
Speaker
Yes.
00:01:36
Speaker
My pastor, who I had the great honor of being his only associate pastor to this day that you ever had.
00:01:42
Speaker
Amazing.
00:01:44
Speaker
So this particular episode, we have three technical...
00:01:50
Speaker
YouTube content creators and three priests in one podcast.
00:01:54
Speaker
What could go wrong?
00:01:56
Speaker
So as Father Kevin said, our guest is Father Tony Kruzy.
00:02:00
Speaker
And the reason we asked him to be on today is because over the past few years, starting during the COVID pandemic, he started a YouTube project regarding pilgrimages to other churches.
00:02:14
Speaker
And I'd just like to give him the opportunity to introduce himself and then
00:02:19
Speaker
what that project is and how it kind of started.
00:02:23
Speaker
Well, thank you very much for inviting me to this podcast here today.
00:02:27
Speaker
It's yes, I'm kind of like Father Kevin, that I talk, somebody else does the creating of the content.
00:02:35
Speaker
So yes, we getting into the virtual world of things.
00:02:40
Speaker
And, and I am not a virtual guy.
00:02:43
Speaker
I am
00:02:44
Speaker
You are real.
00:02:45
Speaker
You are real.
00:02:46
Speaker
Not virtual.
00:02:46
Speaker
You are real.
00:02:49
Speaker
That's true.
00:02:49
Speaker
I'm real.
00:02:51
Speaker
I'm going to back up a little bit.
00:02:55
Speaker
I've been at Blessed Sacrament Parish here in Waterloo for six years.
00:03:00
Speaker
I arrived here in July of 2018.
00:03:03
Speaker
Father Kevin was my associate.
00:03:06
Speaker
At that time, I was pastor of four parishes of St.
00:03:10
Speaker
Patrick Hampton, St.
00:03:11
Speaker
Mary's Ackley, St.
00:03:13
Speaker
St.
00:03:13
Speaker
Mark's in Iowa Falls and St.
00:03:16
Speaker
Mary's in Eldora.
00:03:18
Speaker
And I was lucky enough to get Father Kevin, who spoke Spanish, and I didn't.
00:03:23
Speaker
And we had the Hispanic community up in Hampton.
00:03:26
Speaker
I needed help.
00:03:27
Speaker
And I think that was probably the greatest year of Father Kevin's life.
00:03:34
Speaker
And then finally, I told Archbishop Jekylls, this place is not big enough for the two of us.
00:03:39
Speaker
Either Father Kevin goes or I'll go.
00:03:43
Speaker
And he said, fine, go.
00:03:44
Speaker
And so I might've read that into, I might've exaggerated that a little bit.
00:03:49
Speaker
We had a good year together.
00:03:50
Speaker
We had a good year together.
00:03:51
Speaker
It was a great, it really was a great year together.
00:03:55
Speaker
And it's nice to know that my successor was already there, especially the last few months.
00:04:01
Speaker
So when we had to make decisions like Father Kevin, what do you want?
00:04:04
Speaker
You know, how do you want this to be done?
00:04:06
Speaker
Then I had to be the bad guy and he had to be, you know, oh,
00:04:10
Speaker
we'll get through this, everybody.
00:04:11
Speaker
Don't worry.
00:04:12
Speaker
We'll get through this, everybody.
00:04:13
Speaker
No, but it was a great year.
00:04:14
Speaker
We had a lot of fun, a lot of laughs.
00:04:16
Speaker
And just seeing
Impact of Live Streaming Masses
00:04:18
Speaker
him grow as a pastor has been very, I'm a proud papa.
00:04:22
Speaker
Well, thanks.
00:04:23
Speaker
Thank you, Father Tony.
00:04:26
Speaker
But when I came here to Blessed Sacrament in Waterloo, this parish just installed and just started online programs.
00:04:38
Speaker
masses like streaming online but the camera and the parish and the goal is to reach the homebound our homebound parishioners that was kind of a goal part of strategic planning to reach the homebound parishioners so father tom mcdermott my predecessor got it going got it installed just started it and he left then i came in and i come in with
00:05:01
Speaker
What are you doing having cameras in the church?
00:05:03
Speaker
You know, just kind of, you know, grumpy, grumpy me.
00:05:07
Speaker
But I'm like, I'm the newbie.
00:05:08
Speaker
I'm not going to get rid of it.
00:05:08
Speaker
What am I going to do?
00:05:11
Speaker
Praise be to God that somebody had the insight and foresight to do this because when the pandemic hit in 2020 and when the world shut down, we already had a system in place where we can still reach the people.
00:05:26
Speaker
And so we have live on stream or live stream masses.
00:05:31
Speaker
I think for a while, besides the Archbishop over in Dubuque, I think we're there one of the only places that had that capability for live streaming.
00:05:40
Speaker
And we sent out our information all over the Archdiocese and eventually everybody kind of started doing their own virtual.
00:05:47
Speaker
So that's where we kind of start dabbling into the virtual world, the Internet online component a little bit deeper.
00:05:55
Speaker
And during that time of the pandemic, my staff member, she's our pastoral associate for stewardship and evangelization, Maggie England is her name, started hounding me during that same time.
00:06:09
Speaker
You need to get in front of the people.
00:06:10
Speaker
You need to speak to the people.
00:06:12
Speaker
You need to let them know that everything's going to be okay and just...
00:06:17
Speaker
you put your face out there, presence and all that.
00:06:20
Speaker
I'm like, well, why am I doing that?
00:06:21
Speaker
We already got the live stream masks.
00:06:22
Speaker
They're gonna be hearing my homilies.
00:06:24
Speaker
I don't need to do any of this stuff.
00:06:26
Speaker
And then she's like, no.
00:06:27
Speaker
And she kept emphasizing, you need to do this.
00:06:30
Speaker
People need more.
00:06:31
Speaker
They want something more informal.
00:06:34
Speaker
Fine.
00:06:35
Speaker
And so then weekly, we started recording these videos, Coffee Talk with Father Tony.
00:06:40
Speaker
And Father Kevin was a guest, I believe, once or twice.
00:06:44
Speaker
Yeah, it was a couple of times, I think.
00:06:45
Speaker
Yeah, I was a guest on your show.
00:06:47
Speaker
And we just talked about kind of whatever popped in our heads and our minds, especially every weekly pandemic, because we had a lot of time on our hands.
00:06:57
Speaker
And I didn't realize how...
00:07:01
Speaker
that was for people.
00:07:03
Speaker
I still hear, cause we don't re we still record not as much as we used to just because of life of the parish and the busyness we had.
00:07:12
Speaker
But I, we learned how impactful that was from people and we still get people.
00:07:16
Speaker
We want content.
00:07:17
Speaker
We want content, want content.
00:07:19
Speaker
And so it could be a topic could be something that I, you know, on the scriptures, I could be, you know, one time, you know, after the George Floyd, um,
00:07:28
Speaker
death up in Minnesota, we did a little topic about race, you know, and we talked about, I talked about lives of saints.
00:07:37
Speaker
I asked people to give their vocation stories or their faith journey stories, and it just seemed to pick up steam.
00:07:46
Speaker
So that was kind of the introduction of getting into the virtual life, you know, life, but it took somebody else to push me to get there because I'm old fashioned, stubborn every now and then.
00:07:58
Speaker
didn't want to get into it.
00:07:59
Speaker
So I think that opened the door to, as we fast forward to, um, the pilgrimages we did.
00:08:08
Speaker
So we just, you know, concluded our quote unquote third season of a virtual Lenten pilgrimage throughout the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
Virtual Pilgrimages
00:08:21
Speaker
Myself, along with my staff member, Maggie England, um,
00:08:26
Speaker
a staff member at St.
00:08:28
Speaker
Stephen the Witness Student Center in Cedar Falls, Paul Lee helped us out for a little bit.
00:08:33
Speaker
And then I have a seminarian right now.
00:08:35
Speaker
I may only have one associate pastor, you know, associate pastor under my belt, but I've had a lot of seminarian interns for years.
00:08:43
Speaker
So Peter Binder, a seminarian intern with me, we went out to, all of us went out to different locations for the third year in a row.
00:08:53
Speaker
The premise behind
00:08:55
Speaker
Pilgrimage is, so the first season we did nine churches.
00:08:59
Speaker
Second season we did seven churches.
00:09:02
Speaker
Third season we did six churches.
00:09:05
Speaker
And the premise behind it was A, the success of the content.
00:09:11
Speaker
People are looking for something.
00:09:15
Speaker
They're turning to other sources like virtual content.
00:09:21
Speaker
But it was also...
00:09:24
Speaker
It's based on a Roman tradition.
00:09:28
Speaker
In the city of Rome, for all the days of Lent, there are station churches, like the 40 ancient churches of Rome, that each day of the Lenten season, a particular church is a station church, where there will be masses all day in the various languages in that church.
00:09:50
Speaker
that people would make pilgrimages to that particular church that day.
00:09:56
Speaker
Some of those churches, because there's churches all over the place in the city of Rome, for those who are listening, I forgot to say, I was a student.
00:10:04
Speaker
I studied at the North American College in Rome.
00:10:07
Speaker
So I participated in the station churches each year.
00:10:10
Speaker
Some of these churches,
00:10:15
Speaker
they're only open on their station day.
00:10:18
Speaker
There's so many churches that they may not be open regularly to people.
00:10:21
Speaker
They're only open during that one day in Lent.
00:10:25
Speaker
And then people just come and flock and be there all day.
00:10:28
Speaker
So I was taking that concept of going on pilgrimage.
00:10:32
Speaker
There's something about pilgrimages.
00:10:35
Speaker
It's hard to explain.
00:10:38
Speaker
At least maybe you guys can explain it better.
00:10:39
Speaker
But for me, it's hard to explain.
00:10:42
Speaker
The power of pilgrimage is God.
00:10:44
Speaker
going that extra mile, being moved to go on a trip, to go someplace different, special for a spiritual reason.
00:10:54
Speaker
And so it was taking that idea like pilgrimage.
00:10:58
Speaker
Most of our folks in plus Blessed Sacrament has been since I've been here, a more elderly parish.
00:11:05
Speaker
We have a lot more gray heads than some of the younger folks, but that's changing.
00:11:12
Speaker
We're starting to see a lot more young families come to Blessed Sacrament.
00:11:15
Speaker
But early on, a lot of our folks are homebound.
00:11:18
Speaker
They're elderly.
00:11:19
Speaker
They're not going to travel, especially during Lent, which is in the winter.
00:11:22
Speaker
So how do we bring, if they can't get out to the churches, how can we bring these places to them?
00:11:28
Speaker
And so that's where the virtual idea came to mind.
00:11:33
Speaker
Instead of going to Rome, I wish the parish would pay for me to go over there.
00:11:38
Speaker
That would be great to do this.
00:11:41
Speaker
So what can we do locally to emphasize our worship sites, our communities?
00:11:47
Speaker
What makes our community our community?
00:11:49
Speaker
So it's not only going on a pilgrimage to pray, but also to give a little historical background of the church building, of the community itself,
00:11:59
Speaker
I like to invite the pastors to give us a tour and point out different aspects of the building.
00:12:03
Speaker
What do they mean?
00:12:05
Speaker
Why is that devotion there?
00:12:06
Speaker
Or why is that there?
00:12:07
Speaker
You know, all those sorts of things.
00:12:09
Speaker
And I thank the both of you because both of you participated in the pilgrimage.
00:12:14
Speaker
Father Kevin was season one when he was still pastor of St.
00:12:18
Speaker
Mary in Eldora.
00:12:19
Speaker
And then Father Jacob up in Notre Dame earlier this year.
00:12:25
Speaker
So that was the premise.
00:12:28
Speaker
We didn't know how this was going to go, of course.
00:12:30
Speaker
You know, we are not professional recorders.
00:12:33
Speaker
We don't have professional equipment.
00:12:36
Speaker
We don't have professional tour guides.
00:12:38
Speaker
We don't have a script.
00:12:40
Speaker
Everything I do, I put on the internet.
00:12:42
Speaker
There's no script.
00:12:43
Speaker
I got to get an idea.
00:12:44
Speaker
Okay, let's go with it.
00:12:45
Speaker
We'll see how it goes.
00:12:46
Speaker
Like right now, this is not planned.
00:12:49
Speaker
I'm just going with it.
00:12:51
Speaker
One take Tony, I've been called.
00:12:58
Speaker
So anyway, so we recorded.
00:13:01
Speaker
And again, the feedback from the people that they just were blown away by how these people
00:13:09
Speaker
about these buildings.
00:13:10
Speaker
And each, I've come to learn that you can go to a lot of churches and there's the same kind of architectural style.
00:13:18
Speaker
However,
00:13:20
Speaker
there's still definitely, there's
Church Architecture and Community
00:13:22
Speaker
a bit of that community, that community history, especially those who built it.
00:13:26
Speaker
It's a bit of themselves in it and has a story.
00:13:28
Speaker
Each building talks about the story of that community, of that people, and why they intentionally put certain things in there.
00:13:36
Speaker
Why, like in Gilbertville, they have a, I think, underneath the high altar by the tabernacle, only the priest could see it.
00:13:43
Speaker
There's particular angels painted there.
00:13:47
Speaker
And it's like, it's,
00:13:49
Speaker
They just, you know, that spoke to them that we need to have that.
00:13:54
Speaker
Whereas, you know, and, you know, my hometown of Petersburg,
00:14:01
Speaker
just the ornate, the stained glass windows and the altar being wood.
00:14:06
Speaker
It just, the design kind of speaks to the Germanic background or why Irish churches have St.
00:14:12
Speaker
Patrick and St.
00:14:13
Speaker
Bridget in the Irish churches.
00:14:15
Speaker
And, you know, the German churches have, you got to have St.
00:14:18
Speaker
Boniface there and some of those great.
00:14:20
Speaker
Everything tells a story.
00:14:22
Speaker
And I think it's good for us
00:14:24
Speaker
as we're part of one community to kind of hear the story of everybody.
00:14:30
Speaker
Like this is what makes the parish the parish, the people the people, the church the church.
00:14:34
Speaker
Yes, worship unites all of us, but there are those little details that we get to share with people what makes the community community.
00:14:42
Speaker
And the reaction from the folks has been fantastic.
00:14:45
Speaker
In regards to the tour, I had got a card this year.
00:14:49
Speaker
We went to a little community, Immaculate Conception in Wexford.
00:14:54
Speaker
Well, up in Alamakee County, if I remember right, just south of Lansing, along the Mississippi River.
00:14:59
Speaker
And at Easter, I got a card from a couple from Manchester, who I've kind of known over the years.
00:15:07
Speaker
And on the front cover was a picture of the Wexford Church.
00:15:11
Speaker
Based on the pilgrimage for our video, they decided to make their own trip to Wexford to check it out.
00:15:18
Speaker
Wow.
00:15:19
Speaker
So we've been hearing from a lot of people who are doing, be based on this.
00:15:22
Speaker
They're learning a little bit about this community.
00:15:24
Speaker
They want to check it out themselves and go on their own little pilgrimage.
00:15:28
Speaker
So, okay.
00:15:29
Speaker
That's excellent.
00:15:30
Speaker
Before we get into the value of traveling and pilgrimages and the universal church, I just want to back up to the very beginning of your story when you said, nah, I'm not.
00:15:39
Speaker
I don't want to do it.
00:15:40
Speaker
No, that's not.
00:15:41
Speaker
That's not.
00:15:42
Speaker
I'm not the one for it.
00:15:43
Speaker
I mean, that is like play by play.
00:15:46
Speaker
Every prophet in the Old Testament pretty much is like I want you to do this thing and they think, no, no, no, that's not me.
00:15:51
Speaker
So first of all, the fact that you were open to.
00:15:55
Speaker
whatever was going to happen is a true testament to being docile to the Holy Spirit.
00:16:00
Speaker
And I think there's a lot of value in that.
00:16:02
Speaker
But then the other side of that is, is it really was true for myself as well.
00:16:07
Speaker
Starting to make videos before the pandemic and then really realizing that this is a, this is a big thing that I started making videos and saying to myself, well, sheep are there too.
00:16:18
Speaker
So I need to be there as well.
00:16:20
Speaker
But imagine if you had a church full of people that,
00:16:24
Speaker
And then there was just like one section off to the left, like six or seven pews.
00:16:28
Speaker
And imagine if you just ignored them.
00:16:31
Speaker
And that's kind of how I see the virtual stuff.
00:16:34
Speaker
Even no matter what generation we're from, it can be a little daunting to take on a new form of communication.
00:16:39
Speaker
But what was that like to have...
00:16:42
Speaker
this new section of pews, I suppose, in your mind's eye of people that were responding to you and that you were ministering to, what was that like to have them kind of come out of the woodwork?
00:16:53
Speaker
It was mind blowing.
00:16:55
Speaker
Just the sheer volume of responses.
00:16:58
Speaker
And especially when we were during the pandemic and live streaming our mass, our tech guru guy, Harlan Robinson is his name.
00:17:11
Speaker
Um, he runs the equipment, the live stream equipment, and he can keep track of all the IP addresses that are on watching through whatever, through our, the software.
00:17:22
Speaker
And he can track to see where in the world people are viewing from.
00:17:28
Speaker
And we even had, we had people from all over the world, um, tuning in for Christmas.
00:17:34
Speaker
I got a card from a gentleman.
00:17:36
Speaker
He's an Iowan.
00:17:37
Speaker
I blanking on his name all of a sudden, but, um,
00:17:41
Speaker
I got a card from an Iowan who's living in Poland and he's, I think he's married and has a family there.
00:17:48
Speaker
So he's living in Poland, but he discovered us.
00:17:52
Speaker
So when he wants an English mass, he goes to mass in Poland, but yet he wants that to hear the mass in his native language.
00:18:00
Speaker
He'll tune us in.
00:18:02
Speaker
And he wanted to send a card to thank me.
00:18:05
Speaker
All the cards of thank you.
00:18:06
Speaker
We were getting cards from people all over the United States during the pandemic.
00:18:10
Speaker
You know, just thank you.
00:18:11
Speaker
And people are sending money to us.
00:18:13
Speaker
Keep it going.
00:18:14
Speaker
Keep it going.
00:18:14
Speaker
Keep it going.
00:18:15
Speaker
And then one day Harland told me he was tracking IP addresses.
00:18:19
Speaker
We have people in Europe watching us participating via live stream and even Milan, Italy.
00:18:26
Speaker
We had somebody from Milan, Italy.
00:18:27
Speaker
When he said from Milan, Italy, I'm like, whoa, Italy.
00:18:31
Speaker
Look at that.
00:18:32
Speaker
And he told me, calm down.
00:18:36
Speaker
If it was Rome, then I would be impressed.
00:18:39
Speaker
So it was like, oh my gosh, we're reaching people.
00:18:44
Speaker
And I know people have joined the parish because they were not going to church at all.
00:18:53
Speaker
Or they moved to the area, but they just never got involved and looked around.
00:18:58
Speaker
But somehow, some way, they discovered our stuff.
00:19:01
Speaker
And that moved them to come to the parish.
00:19:04
Speaker
And I'm not in my particular normal coffee talk space.
00:19:08
Speaker
So I'm a fan of professional wrestling.
00:19:11
Speaker
And I have a toy wrestling belt I would have on display.
00:19:15
Speaker
A, because I know it drives my sister crazy.
00:19:19
Speaker
And she told me about that.
00:19:20
Speaker
And there's another priest brother who drives him crazy when he sees that.
00:19:24
Speaker
And that's why I do it.
00:19:25
Speaker
Maybe I need to go to confession for that.
00:19:27
Speaker
But yeah.
00:19:28
Speaker
But I know somebody joined the parish because he happened to walk, his wife was watching.
00:19:37
Speaker
He was walking past the screen.
00:19:39
Speaker
He saw the wrestling belt and he's a wrestling fan himself.
00:19:42
Speaker
And he stopped and he listened and, and they kind of talked amongst themselves.
00:19:47
Speaker
We need to discover this place.
Global Engagement During Pandemic
00:19:50
Speaker
And they registered with the parish, you know, because of that.
00:19:54
Speaker
And to have those encounters with people who like, you know,
00:19:59
Speaker
Of course, there could be those who take advantage of it, the live stream that, oh, I don't need to go because I'm watching it from the comfort of my home.
00:20:10
Speaker
And we're encouraging, great, but nothing compares to actually being in person.
00:20:16
Speaker
However, for the homebound, this is great, but we're using this as a tool if you're searching.
00:20:24
Speaker
Maybe you feel more comfortable this way for a little bit, but eventually we want you to come.
00:20:29
Speaker
come be a part of us.
00:20:32
Speaker
So yeah, it was just a fantastic mind blowing experience and through probably most of 2020, our bulletin board in the office was just cards, cards, cards, cards from people all over.
00:20:43
Speaker
And then I had email after email, Facebook postings, and I don't do Facebook either.
00:20:51
Speaker
I'm not a Facebook person, but my staff was showing me all the Facebook
00:20:55
Speaker
postings of people leaving comments from all over the place.
00:20:59
Speaker
Well, before we move on, listeners, listen up.
00:21:02
Speaker
If you are being presented and a nudge from the Holy Spirit or a staff member or a friend to do something and you say, no, I'm not the person.
00:21:12
Speaker
I mean, take an example from One Take Tony and our prophets.
00:21:15
Speaker
The virtual prophet, One Take Tony.
00:21:18
Speaker
Virtual prophet, One Take Tony.
00:21:21
Speaker
Thank you.
00:21:23
Speaker
Well, I want to jump in about, so going back to kind of the pilgrimage idea and story.
00:21:29
Speaker
I think that part of story is really important.
00:21:31
Speaker
So when we were in seminary, we had the opportunity to do a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
00:21:35
Speaker
And the priest who led us, our priest professor from the seminary, I remember he gave us a preparation about pilgrimage and kind of the whole spirituality pilgrimage and how it's different than being a tourist.
00:21:47
Speaker
And that was actually one of the main things he, I remember him emphasizing was
00:21:53
Speaker
was connecting with the story of the place, you know, and that's an important part of pilgrimage.
00:21:58
Speaker
So there's something about, yeah, disrupting your life, your usual and going to a new place.
00:22:03
Speaker
But it's not just any new place.
00:22:05
Speaker
And it's and also you're not just going as a tourist to be like, oh, that's kind of neat.
00:22:09
Speaker
But it's it's going because there's something about connecting with this story.
00:22:13
Speaker
And of course, for a pilgrimage being a spiritual thing,
00:22:16
Speaker
It's connecting, it's through the story of this place that connects my story more fully to God's story.
00:22:23
Speaker
And I'm actually part of an interdenominational youth program called Youth for Christ.
00:22:26
Speaker
And they have their logos, three rings, and it's my story, your story, God's story, and they're interlocking rings.
00:22:33
Speaker
But that whole idea of a pilgrimage being that we go to a place because of the story of that place, and then how that connects us to the story of God, right?
00:22:41
Speaker
So whether it's the story of a saint or
00:22:43
Speaker
whether it's the story, um, of, of the faith of the people there and what God has done in that place or, um, or like, for example, the Holy land or the story, uh, of, of very explicitly the story of Christ where this is where he walked and did these things.
00:22:59
Speaker
Right.
00:22:59
Speaker
And, um,
00:23:00
Speaker
And so anyway, so I thought it was really interesting you said story.
00:23:03
Speaker
And also, when I talk to people about liturgy or like a liturgy being this place to encounter the mystery of God or the Eucharistic mystery, you know, I talk about what is the...
00:23:18
Speaker
How do we communicate mystery to draw us into the mystery of God?
00:23:22
Speaker
And there's three things I usually teach about is symbols, beauty and story.
00:23:29
Speaker
So it's not who is God.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so someone could give a dry lecture about that, but rather it's kind of being drawn into this experience.
00:23:38
Speaker
uh and and at mass you know we use we use symbols we use beauty and we use story and uh and particularly you can see all those things in the architecture of a church space and how that draws us into the eucharistic mystery so um and so you started touching on that just some of the the symbols and the story of the people there and the story of christ so uh so just in this idea of pilgrimage i don't know if you want to say more about just uh um
00:24:03
Speaker
along the ideas of story, what were maybe in some of your experiences of these virtual pilgrimages to these different places, were there any particular symbols or stories or spaces that particularly struck you or any insights maybe they gave you about kind of the Eucharistic mystery?
00:24:20
Speaker
Well, I think this is most fresh in my mind.
00:24:24
Speaker
Each place is special.
00:24:26
Speaker
And so we try to
00:24:30
Speaker
you know, we focus a lot on more of the traditional, like Gothic type churches, it seems like.
00:24:36
Speaker
But we do at least once a year go to a more modern place because they have their own stories too.
00:24:44
Speaker
And so we just want to kind of give a full view of all the various places.
00:24:50
Speaker
So this year we went to Marshalltown, my crew, we went down to Marshalltown, to St.
00:24:56
Speaker
Henry's Church in Marshalltown.
00:24:58
Speaker
And
00:25:01
Speaker
St.
00:25:01
Speaker
Henry, built in 1994, if I remember right.
00:25:06
Speaker
It was built in 1994.
00:25:08
Speaker
So it was very modern.
00:25:11
Speaker
And then I was at the church before the pastor, Father Alan Dietzenbach, got there.
00:25:15
Speaker
So my crew and I were there.
00:25:17
Speaker
And because, Father, for those who don't know, Marshalltown has one parish, but it's two churches.
00:25:26
Speaker
St.
00:25:26
Speaker
Francis of Assisi Parish with two churches.
00:25:30
Speaker
three if you include Haverhill, which is an oratory, but really the two main churches of St.
00:25:36
Speaker
Mary and St.
00:25:37
Speaker
Henry.
00:25:38
Speaker
Father Dietzenbach, his office is at St.
00:25:41
Speaker
Mary, so he's traveling to St.
00:25:43
Speaker
Henry to meet me, my crew, so we're there walking around, and there's off to the side, kind of towards, as you get closer to the front and off to the side, they have the Blessed Sacrament Chapel.
00:25:55
Speaker
They have a separate Blessed Sacrament Chapel, and
00:25:59
Speaker
as I'm kind of walking around, I'm right at the threshold of the door.
00:26:04
Speaker
I'm still on the outside.
00:26:06
Speaker
And as soon as I walked through the doorway, I'm standing in the chapel.
00:26:11
Speaker
It was just like, I got enveloped with a presence.
00:26:15
Speaker
It was just like, it was palpable.
00:26:17
Speaker
It was tangible.
00:26:19
Speaker
You could feel it.
00:26:20
Speaker
You're like, oh, it kind of made me skip a beat a little bit.
00:26:24
Speaker
I'm like, holy cow.
00:26:26
Speaker
And then I stepped out of that space and then everything kind of returned to normal.
00:26:33
Speaker
Maggie, who was taking some pictures, and I told her, I said, Maggie, go in that chapel.
00:26:38
Speaker
Tell me if you notice anything.
00:26:41
Speaker
And she walked over to the chapel and she was looking from the outside, like I did, kind of on the outside.
00:26:46
Speaker
I said, walk in, walk in and tell me if you notice anything.
00:26:51
Speaker
She walked in.
00:26:53
Speaker
didn't come out right away.
00:26:55
Speaker
So I walked over to the chapel myself and I'm like, so did you notice anything?
00:27:01
Speaker
And she responded, you're talking about the overwhelming sense of presence?
00:27:05
Speaker
I said, yes, that's exactly what it is.
00:27:08
Speaker
So she noticed it as well.
00:27:10
Speaker
And during our recording, even though St.
00:27:13
Speaker
Mary has Eucharistic exposition going on, during the course of our recording, we were only in there for about an hour.
00:27:20
Speaker
People were constantly coming in.
00:27:22
Speaker
constantly coming in and out, in and out, going to that space for a few minutes, leave, come in, out, in, out.
00:27:28
Speaker
And so we're like, are we interrupting with our, with our recording?
00:27:31
Speaker
So just that devotion just was, wow, inspiring to me.
00:27:38
Speaker
Do people have that sense of awe?
00:27:39
Speaker
And I've experienced that before, but it just always knocks me for a loop when I, when I, when I experienced that or a particular place, you know, of,
00:27:53
Speaker
Well, everything this year is more fresh in my mind.
00:27:57
Speaker
Like I've mentioned Wexford before.
00:28:00
Speaker
You go there, you feel like you're in Ireland.
00:28:03
Speaker
You know, this is an Irish community.
00:28:05
Speaker
It's out in the country and there's hills and there's a cemetery and there's the church right there.
00:28:09
Speaker
And then just how deliberate...
00:28:14
Speaker
Or even the Stations of the Cross in St.
00:28:15
Speaker
Donatus.
00:28:16
Speaker
We went to St.
00:28:16
Speaker
Donatus and how everything was very deliberately placed.
00:28:20
Speaker
And the structure of the St.
00:28:23
Speaker
Donatus was based on what they experienced back home.
00:28:27
Speaker
This is what they would have in Luxembourg.
00:28:30
Speaker
I don't know if that answers your question, but those are some of the things that kind of struck me.
00:28:37
Speaker
But every year was, of course, always hanging out with the pastors.
00:28:42
Speaker
That's always, you know, that's the coolest.
00:28:44
Speaker
Oh, yeah.
00:28:45
Speaker
So cool.
00:28:46
Speaker
Yeah, especially the guy up in Notre Dame, up in Cresco.
00:28:49
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
00:28:51
Speaker
That's tremendous testimony there.
00:28:54
Speaker
I think it's...
00:28:55
Speaker
Speaking about the value of being a pilgrim is that someone I knew, I won't say who or what trip he was on, was on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land.
00:29:07
Speaker
And some of the people in his group were saying, well...
00:29:11
Speaker
this is, this is like, cause they would change locations.
00:29:13
Speaker
And when they got to another particular location, like, well, this is not as nice as the last one.
00:29:18
Speaker
And, you know, it's not a four, five-star hotel and resort and stuff.
00:29:23
Speaker
And it's like, no, you're on pilgrimage.
00:29:26
Speaker
You're not on vacation.
00:29:28
Speaker
And I think that goes into the, uh,
00:29:31
Speaker
the aspect of we ourselves, every single person is a pilgrim on this earth.
00:29:35
Speaker
We are not at home.
00:29:37
Speaker
And so when you are on pilgrimage, you are not home until you go back to your own home parish or until we're at home in eternal life in heaven with the Father forever.
Universal Nature of the Eucharist
00:29:47
Speaker
But also if you are not able to go to Milan or Rome,
00:29:51
Speaker
Or Wexford or any of these other places.
00:29:54
Speaker
It is good to travel and experience the story of so many different places.
00:29:58
Speaker
But if you are not able to experience all these things, you still have the very same presence, the very same mystery.
00:30:05
Speaker
The Eucharist that the Pope celebrates is the exact same Jesus that happens in Allamakee County.
00:30:11
Speaker
or Marshalltown or wherever.
00:30:13
Speaker
And I just love the broad scope of how universal this church is, but then also how small and intimate and personal relationship with the mystery is.
00:30:25
Speaker
End of thought.
00:30:26
Speaker
My childhood pastor, Father John O'Connor, I distinctively remember, you know, Father O'Connor one day saying, you know, yeah, it's great if you want to go on a trip, on a pilgrimage overseas.
00:30:41
Speaker
but you don't have to do it because something even greater is right here.
00:30:45
Speaker
You know, Jesus, you know, you don't have to experience encounter Jesus in a faraway land.
00:30:51
Speaker
He's right here in our own communities.
00:30:53
Speaker
He's right.
00:30:54
Speaker
You know, he's reposed in our, in our tabernacles and our churches, just go to your own church, um, as a pilgrim, you know, go in that church.
00:31:02
Speaker
I always struck with me.
00:31:04
Speaker
I, as one who's starting to get into more pilgrimages overseas, um,
00:31:10
Speaker
I tell my pilgrims, this is, yeah, like you're saying, this is not a vacation.
00:31:15
Speaker
This is a pilgrimage.
00:31:16
Speaker
It involves work.
00:31:17
Speaker
We work.
00:31:19
Speaker
So there's going to be early mornings, late nights.
00:31:22
Speaker
We're on the move.
00:31:23
Speaker
We're going to go.
00:31:23
Speaker
Yeah, we're not staying at five-star hotels.
00:31:26
Speaker
But, you know, we're pilgrims.
00:31:27
Speaker
And it involves some effort.
00:31:29
Speaker
Of course, you get, well, you know, you get some of those nice little stories.
00:31:34
Speaker
But at the end of the pilgrimage, when they come back and say, that was life-changing.
00:31:39
Speaker
And then you're like, okay, it was worth it.
00:31:43
Speaker
You can have that life-changing experience just right in your next door, in your own parish.
00:31:49
Speaker
Like you said, pilgrimage.
00:31:50
Speaker
We're in pilgrims on this earth right now.
00:31:52
Speaker
And we're pilgrims through the drudgery of every day.
00:31:56
Speaker
Go to your local church.
00:31:58
Speaker
Be with Jesus.
00:31:59
Speaker
Let him touch your heart.
00:32:00
Speaker
And that's a life-changing experience right there.
00:32:03
Speaker
And to partake in the sacraments there as well.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah, so hopefully that answers your question.
00:32:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:32:11
Speaker
And it's neat how, and one thing I appreciate about you doing these pilgrimages is just showing, I think helping people to learn how to...
00:32:19
Speaker
appreciate a church space um because like we're saying there's a lot of symbols and imagery uh and sometimes we see them and we don't think anything about them but i think that's one thing you do in these pilgrims is helping people you know like that the church is imbued with a story uh and all these symbols that they teach us and draw us into the story um you know like one thing uh you know we talked about on a previous podcast about the symbol of like
00:32:43
Speaker
Like I've been to churches and I see a pelican, for example, and I'm like, that's odd.
00:32:46
Speaker
Why is there a pelican on the altar?
00:32:48
Speaker
Well, of course, come to find out pelican is a Eucharistic symbol, right?
00:32:52
Speaker
Because there's a legend of the pelican that can't find food, tearing off its own flesh to feed its children pelican, you know, or...
00:33:00
Speaker
like for example or I know you mentioned Petersburg St.
00:33:04
Speaker
Peter and Paul in Petersburg your home church which I think you did a video of that one too didn't you?
00:33:08
Speaker
Oh that was first season of course.
00:33:10
Speaker
Oh yeah that was season one yeah one of the originals so yeah which is a beautiful church by the way and I highly recommend especially it was beautiful before the renovations but now they renovated it it's even more beautiful but
00:33:21
Speaker
I remember the first time I was ever in that church, I was struck by the intentionality, speaking of stories, of the layers of stories that particularly pointed to the Eucharist, like standing up in the sanctuary.
00:33:32
Speaker
And I remember looking at the stained glass windows.
00:33:34
Speaker
There's particularly beautiful stained glass windows.
00:33:36
Speaker
But I remember there was this.
00:33:38
Speaker
I remember looking and there's one stained glass window, Moses with the with the bread in the desert, you know, the manna from heaven.
00:33:44
Speaker
It's like, oh, manna from heaven.
00:33:46
Speaker
Like, OK, I remember that story.
00:33:47
Speaker
They gave him right in the desert.
00:33:49
Speaker
And then there's a story of Abraham sacrificing of Isaac, you know, and it's like, oh, Abraham sacrificing Isaac.
00:33:55
Speaker
Like, oh, what's that have to do with any of this?
00:33:57
Speaker
And then and then there was there's one more Old Testament one.
00:34:00
Speaker
I forget what.
00:34:01
Speaker
But then on the other side, it's, of course, the crucifixion of Jesus, the Last Supper.
00:34:05
Speaker
And maybe I'm not remembering exactly what the windows are.
00:34:08
Speaker
But anyways, the point is, is I realized how all these windows in the sanctuary were all intentionally the layers of stories that is that underlie the story, the connection, the mystery of the Eucharist that are layers of meaning in the Eucharist.
00:34:21
Speaker
You know, of course, the Eucharist is the bread come down from heaven.
00:34:23
Speaker
Of course, it is where we're united to the sacrifice of Christ.
00:34:28
Speaker
But God himself provides the sacrifice, you know.
00:34:31
Speaker
And so that's the story of Abraham and Isaac.
00:34:32
Speaker
He doesn't have to sacrifice Isaac because
00:34:34
Speaker
Because then God provides a ram and then Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.
00:34:37
Speaker
So there's the Passover layer and everything like that.
00:34:40
Speaker
And how when we start to be able to appreciate these symbols, you can start to see how all these things are connecting our story to the stories of Christ and drawing us into the story of the Eucharist.
00:34:53
Speaker
And of course, every week we're drawn to the story of Christ's passion, particularly in and through the commemoration of his Last Supper.
00:35:00
Speaker
This is my body given up for you.
00:35:01
Speaker
This is my blood poured out for you.
00:35:04
Speaker
So anyway, so just like things like that.
00:35:05
Speaker
And I appreciate like having, you know, that I think your virtual pilgrimages are helping people to see these symbols a little more, you know, and what do they mean and how do they draw us into Christ?
00:35:20
Speaker
Now that you brought that up, I think you asked that question about something specific that, you know, that's touched me or that I remember striking.
00:35:29
Speaker
I think that is what I thank you for reminding me.
00:35:33
Speaker
Well, some of that story about the symbols.
00:35:37
Speaker
how they all speak, you go and you take these things for granted, especially if you're a native of a particular parish, you know, a native of a particular church, you see this all the time, you take it for granted and you forget the story of why the intention, why did they build this this way?
00:35:52
Speaker
And I think I'm hoping with these stories, it's bringing these pilgrimages to bring these stories back to life, to remind people, because you just said something, Father Kevin, I've been, you know, native of Petersburg.
00:36:03
Speaker
I didn't even put that connection together.
00:36:06
Speaker
No connection whatsoever.
00:36:08
Speaker
And I'm like, oh, crap, that's true.
00:36:10
Speaker
You know, I've never known it because I was around it all my life.
00:36:14
Speaker
I took it for granted.
00:36:15
Speaker
And so we're bringing these things to life.
00:36:18
Speaker
Not only the story of scripture and sacramentality, but even layered throughout there is the stories of the humans that have been involved in each of these places.
00:36:27
Speaker
If you go to St.
00:36:27
Speaker
Patrick's in Cedar Rapids on First Avenue, you'll see a plaque.
00:36:32
Speaker
in the back of church next to the St.
00:36:34
Speaker
Padre Pio statue.
00:36:35
Speaker
And it's a gold plaque that says, this is the water level on June, whatever, 2008.
00:36:41
Speaker
That's when my family and the whole parish experienced the flood.
00:36:45
Speaker
If you go to Notre Dame, you'll see this little tiny hole in the carpet.
00:36:48
Speaker
And if you were asked what that came from, well, that's when father knocked the incense against the altar and the charcoal fell out and burned a hole there.
00:36:56
Speaker
You know, like all these places have their own stories, not only of the,
00:37:03
Speaker
overall salvation history story, but also just the stories of the humans who've been there, lived there, died there, celebrated there.
00:37:09
Speaker
It's really, really beautiful.
00:37:10
Speaker
So St.
00:37:12
Speaker
Patrick was season one.
00:37:13
Speaker
We did go to St.
00:37:14
Speaker
Patrick and Father Greg Ball was pastor there at that time for that one year.
00:37:18
Speaker
And so he kind of pointed out
00:37:20
Speaker
you know, pointed that out to us.
00:37:22
Speaker
So, you know, I think it's the other part about this, these pilgrimages, I've been to these places before, but it's, but yet it's allowing me to appreciate them even more.
00:37:33
Speaker
That's why I think I enjoy it.
00:37:35
Speaker
It's a lot of work to do all these, these sites.
00:37:37
Speaker
It's more for my, my editor slash cinematographer, you know, for me, I just go and do my thing and I'm done.
00:37:45
Speaker
And she has to do all the editing and put things together.
00:37:48
Speaker
But I really appreciate learning more about these sites and appreciating the intentionality behind it.
00:37:56
Speaker
I just had someone in my office and he works for a mine company and the conveyor belts and elevators that pull minerals out of the earth.
00:38:06
Speaker
But part of his job is walking along the pathway that the workers walk every single day.
00:38:11
Speaker
And him being from another town, he has his eyes on these conveyors and elevator belt systems.
00:38:18
Speaker
to look for things, either mistakes or problems or things that the everyday normal workers might happen to miss because they see it every day.
00:38:26
Speaker
And I think that's, that's the great gift of having a visitor come to my parish, even a visitor to Notre Dame or a visitor to the faith when there's someone who I know is not Catholic, or who doesn't see this kind of thing every day, I take on new eyes.
00:38:40
Speaker
Think, oh, I'm lifting up this giant golden book before I read from it.
00:38:45
Speaker
I wonder
00:38:46
Speaker
I mean, to us, that's just obvious.
00:38:48
Speaker
Oh, it's the book of the Gospels.
00:38:49
Speaker
We're elevating it and then enthroning it.
00:38:51
Speaker
But to someone who's completely new to it.
00:38:53
Speaker
And so I think that's why just experiencing different pilgrimages in different places, you can see things that you would have never seen before, especially if you see it every day.
00:39:03
Speaker
Yeah, we're going to have we're going to have an episode coming out after this one.
00:39:08
Speaker
about, we were talking to some people about the catechesis, the good shepherd, and just the whole idea of cultivating a contemplative spirit that helps us to, and I think that's part of what this is doing too, kind of, yeah, those things we take for granted, the symbols we walk by, but actually what these pilgrimages do is kind of allow you to have more of that contemplative spirit to pause, to look at.
00:39:28
Speaker
What do these symbols mean?
00:39:30
Speaker
Why is this here?
00:39:31
Speaker
And what is the story this is trying to tell me or connect me to?
00:39:34
Speaker
And again, and like you said, your own human story
00:39:38
Speaker
of like the people in Cedar Rapids, the but even just our own, you know, like I know people it's like, Oh, that church, that's where I got my first community.
00:39:44
Speaker
That's where I was baptized.
00:39:45
Speaker
That's where, where I was married, you know, and, and there's just always something special about how
00:39:50
Speaker
how are these significant life events of the sacraments, but are in a bit, this clear intersection of our choices in life and our daily living with, with the story of Christ, you know, and I think particularly striking that of, with marriage, you know, and things like that, but, but where people grew up in their hometowns and stuff.
00:40:09
Speaker
So, um,
00:40:11
Speaker
Yeah, and there's probably more we could say about that.
00:40:13
Speaker
But speaking of, I mean, kind of in this whole idea of pilgrimage, I also wanted to mention, I know it was declared this year, and some people may or may not know this, but Blessed Sacrament for this year of Eucharistic Revival, Blessed Sacrament Church in Waterloo.
00:40:27
Speaker
has been named a Eucharistic pilgrimage site, I think is the right term.
00:40:33
Speaker
So what's the deal with that?
00:40:34
Speaker
What does that mean?
00:40:37
Speaker
And so if you could say a little bit about that, being the pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Waterloo.
00:40:42
Speaker
So, yes, you know, the Eucharist is, you know, there's a tabernacle in all of our parishes, parish churches.
Eucharistic Revival at Blessed Sacrament
00:40:50
Speaker
You know, we don't need to necessarily go to Waterloo from,
00:40:55
Speaker
from Cresco or from Hampton to experience this.
00:41:01
Speaker
But again, there's that idea of pilgrimage, just the idea of let's do something more.
00:41:08
Speaker
Like we're just for a little extra little,
00:41:11
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for?
00:41:12
Speaker
Just that, go that extra mile.
00:41:15
Speaker
Leaving what's familiar, disrupting your life for the sake of God, for the sake of a spiritual reason, I think.
00:41:22
Speaker
Yes.
00:41:22
Speaker
So that mindset, but Blessed Sacrament here in Waterloo is the only church in the Archdiocese of Dubuque named after the Blessed Sacrament.
00:41:33
Speaker
And Waterloo is pretty much the smack dab right in the middle of the Archdiocese of Dubuque.
00:41:39
Speaker
So for the most part, I can be anywhere in the Archdiocese in an hour and a half.
00:41:44
Speaker
For the most part.
00:41:45
Speaker
When I left at Wexford, that was two hours.
00:41:48
Speaker
But other than that, I can be, for the most part, anywhere within an hour and a half.
00:41:53
Speaker
So A, it's a centrally located place.
00:41:56
Speaker
B, we're in the midst of the Eucharistic revival.
00:41:58
Speaker
And another about that pilgrimage, the idea of pilgrimage.
00:42:05
Speaker
But really, the thought came to me...
00:42:10
Speaker
out of a love for the Eucharist, love for Jesus and the Eucharist.
00:42:15
Speaker
Now I want to backtrack a little bit.
00:42:17
Speaker
So when I was a seminary, when I was a seminarian and went over to Rome to the North American college, when I went there, I did not know one person when I went over there, didn't know anybody except for the vice rector who was the, who was the,
00:42:38
Speaker
So I only knew the vice rector who was his name.
00:42:44
Speaker
Now he's a bishop, Bishop Robert Groose, but then he was Monsignor Robert Groose from the Diocese of Davenport.
00:42:49
Speaker
He was vocation director for Davenport, so he was the only guy I knew, but I didn't know anybody.
00:42:53
Speaker
And so I'm miserable.
00:42:55
Speaker
I'm homesick.
00:42:56
Speaker
I didn't want to be there.
00:42:58
Speaker
I'm really struggling and really suffering.
00:43:00
Speaker
And that, the seminary, that college, North American College would have...
00:43:06
Speaker
Adoration every day, Eucharistic exposition every day.
00:43:09
Speaker
Now, I had some experience with it at the St.
00:43:11
Speaker
Pius X seminary.
00:43:14
Speaker
in Dubuque, but nowhere near to the extent as they had at the North American College.
00:43:19
Speaker
And so every day I found myself going to, because I didn't know anybody, the only person I knew was Jesus.
00:43:26
Speaker
And so like, I got to be with Jesus.
00:43:29
Speaker
And that's kind of where this love for the Eucharist started really honed.
00:43:34
Speaker
And also at the same time, reinforced my own vocation, as I was still discerning my own vocation that,
00:43:42
Speaker
You know, it was drawing me to a deeper encounter with Jesus.
00:43:47
Speaker
And I distinctively remember prior to my ordination, I'm a back row guy because on a Thursday evening mass, we had supper was right afterwards and we had some evening classes.
00:44:00
Speaker
So I sat in the back row so I could be first in line in the, in the, in for the cafeteria.
00:44:06
Speaker
Naturally.
00:44:07
Speaker
And plus we're Catholic.
00:44:08
Speaker
We like to sit in the back row.
00:44:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:44:11
Speaker
And I just remember distinctively remembering during the mass, whoever the presider was, the celebrant was that day, elevated the host.
00:44:21
Speaker
And I just had this overwhelming sense of, again, presence.
00:44:24
Speaker
And I just thought, oh, my gosh, I'm going to do that.
00:44:29
Speaker
Oh, my gosh.
00:44:30
Speaker
It was just overwhelming.
00:44:33
Speaker
So this desire to get to Jesus, to connect with Jesus.
00:44:37
Speaker
Fast forward over the years that I was given a book.
00:44:43
Speaker
It's called Insinu Jesu, if I'm pronouncing that right.
00:44:47
Speaker
Insinu Jesu, Insinu Jesu.
00:44:52
Speaker
I'm forgetting what it's translated into, like on the chest, on the breast of Jesus or something like that.
00:44:58
Speaker
When heart speaks to a heart, it's a diary of a Benedictine monk who
00:45:05
Speaker
who's anonymous in this book, that he would have locutions or he would hear Jesus speak to him during Eucharistic exposition.
00:45:17
Speaker
And it took me a year to get through this book because it was so in-depth.
00:45:20
Speaker
And I only could read so much of it, and I got to let it digest a little bit.
00:45:25
Speaker
And then this one passage, and I have it marked because it was so inspiring to me,
00:45:33
Speaker
It was on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010.
00:45:37
Speaker
In the midst of prayer, this priest hears Jesus speak to him.
00:45:42
Speaker
And if it's okay, I'd like to read this passage.
00:45:46
Speaker
So it's from the journal entry from Saturday, January 2nd, 2010.
00:45:50
Speaker
So Jesus said to the monk,
00:45:55
Speaker
I have not asked you to found a monastery, but rather to adore me, to love me, to seek my Eucharistic face, and draw near to my Eucharistic heart.
00:46:07
Speaker
I have asked you to trust me and to place in me alone all your hope and all your dreams for happiness and peace.
00:46:15
Speaker
Seek me, trust me, and all the rest will be given you besides.
00:46:20
Speaker
I will build the monastery stone by stone,
00:46:23
Speaker
I will fashion the men I have chosen for it.
00:46:27
Speaker
You have only to remain humble and little and faithful.
00:46:30
Speaker
Without me you can do nothing, but to me nothing is impossible.
00:46:36
Speaker
Be faithful then to me, not to a project or to an ideal.
00:46:42
Speaker
I am your all.
00:46:43
Speaker
Live for me alone.
00:46:45
Speaker
Seek me.
00:46:46
Speaker
Seek my face.
00:46:47
Speaker
Take comfort close to my broken heart.
00:46:50
Speaker
See how I love you, even to the piercing of my heart by the soldier's lance, even to the last drops of blood and water.
00:46:59
Speaker
There is nothing I will not do for you, and this because I love you, and because you are mine.
00:47:06
Speaker
Only allow me to act freely, choosing the means and the day and the hour.
00:47:12
Speaker
Here in the sacrament of my love you have everything.
00:47:16
Speaker
Here you have all of heaven.
00:47:18
Speaker
Here you have the creator of earth and all that it holds, and of every human being who has ever seen the light of day.
00:47:26
Speaker
I am all yours.
00:47:28
Speaker
Be all mine.
00:47:30
Speaker
Ask me to unite you more and more to myself until you are completely hidden in the secret of my face.
00:47:39
Speaker
So when I saw that, or when I read that, excuse me, it just blew my mind.
00:47:46
Speaker
Because we have a tendency to overthink things, over-rationalize things, try to think of this program and that program, and all programs are good.
00:47:54
Speaker
We need faith formation programs, we need activity, everything is good.
00:47:58
Speaker
But we can put so much effort into that, we're forgetting who we are trying to have in an encounter.
00:48:03
Speaker
And there are so many people out there I've discovered that, well, we all do, carry our baggage.
00:48:09
Speaker
We have a load.
00:48:09
Speaker
We have a story.
00:48:11
Speaker
Some of it's a negative story.
00:48:12
Speaker
Some, they don't trust what's being taught or they don't necessarily trust the priest or a program.
00:48:19
Speaker
I just wanted an opportunity for people to go to Jesus.
00:48:22
Speaker
Don't think about anything.
00:48:24
Speaker
Don't try to do anything.
00:48:25
Speaker
Don't just try to take anything on.
00:48:28
Speaker
Just go to Jesus and open your heart and let him work.
00:48:32
Speaker
like in this story in this journal entry that was kind of the main premise behind it how can we get people to jesus to open hearts to jesus so so i petitioned the archbishop to uh zincula to make this place a pilgrimage site which means we have adoration exposition here for the most part every day um
00:48:57
Speaker
all the way from beginning of December all the way through June 2nd.
00:49:00
Speaker
That's when the pilgrimage period ends on the feast of Corpus Christi.
00:49:03
Speaker
That's where the pilgrimage ends.
00:49:05
Speaker
So we have confession opportunities, our daily masses, there's adoration, Eucharistic exposition going on.
00:49:12
Speaker
We have other prayer opportunities during that time period.
00:49:17
Speaker
It's just to get people to Jesus.
00:49:20
Speaker
And there is an indulgence behind that, an indulgence
00:49:26
Speaker
that if you spend 30 minutes with Jesus before the Blessed Sacrament and you have a total detachment of sin, from sin, you renounce it, you are praying for the intentions of the Pope, you're contemplating, praying, reading something spiritual in the midst of that time, you can be eligible for an indulgence.
00:49:49
Speaker
And so that was a little caveat that we asked to give that little motivation, especially for those who know about indulgences, a little extra motivation to come on pilgrimage.
00:50:02
Speaker
And it's bearing fruit.
00:50:04
Speaker
I'm seeing more and more people coming on their own.
00:50:08
Speaker
without scheduling for adoration.
00:50:10
Speaker
I've seen people who have no experience at all, they're coming about every day to spend that time with Jesus.
00:50:16
Speaker
And I've seen hearts changed.
00:50:19
Speaker
People who are holding on to baggages, but spending that time with Jesus with an open heart, allowed them to finally move for the sacrament of reconciliation.
00:50:28
Speaker
to confess whatever that hurt, that wound that they've been on their heart for so long.
00:50:34
Speaker
I've seen miracles happen.
00:50:35
Speaker
Just the other day, we have a little prayer ministry here on Thursday nights at seven o'clock.
00:50:41
Speaker
I heard the confession of a person who I knew, I knew who had a lot of pain, physical pain.
00:50:47
Speaker
I know he's not making it up, but after the end of the confession, he caught me at the end, at the very end, he caught me and said, I'm not in pain anymore.
00:50:56
Speaker
that he, through the confession, he was healed.
00:51:00
Speaker
He said because he was holding on to this wound, but it was because of being in front of Jesus that allowed this to happen.
00:51:07
Speaker
So...
00:51:09
Speaker
It's just been awe-inspiring.
00:51:11
Speaker
So to get people to Jesus, that was the motivation.
00:51:15
Speaker
Even if you're overthinking it, just go to him with an open heart, like the monk.
00:51:22
Speaker
I'm not asking you to do anything.
00:51:23
Speaker
Just open your heart to me.
00:51:25
Speaker
I'll do everything else.
00:51:26
Speaker
So that's the motivation behind it.
00:51:30
Speaker
And that's a great motivation.
00:51:33
Speaker
What Father Tony has met.
00:51:35
Speaker
By the way, Father Kevin got really bored and left.
00:51:40
Speaker
No, I'm just kidding.
00:51:40
Speaker
His, uh, the office that he was at, uh, suddenly lost power.
00:51:44
Speaker
And so he, uh, hopefully he's going to try to join back in us, but we can, we can finish this out anyway.
00:51:50
Speaker
Um, uh,
00:51:52
Speaker
you uh that book you mentioned in sinu yesu and i will put a uh link to that uh title translation and uh how to buy the book but that book is very very powerful for me i've i remember getting it in um ordon uh for ordination and thinking i don't know about this private revelation stuff i don't know about this see that the monk was completely anonymous did not want his name to be there i thought i'd give it a try and i still have not made it through because like you said the paragraphs are so dense but
00:52:20
Speaker
What Father Tony just mentioned is an idea of healing prayer that you can listen to episode five, I believe, which is Father Andy Upaw and Father Michael McAndrew talking about the Holy Spirit healing fire mission that are happening in our archdiocese.
00:52:37
Speaker
The idea that the physical maladies and effects of sin and wounds are truly healed inside and out by Jesus.
00:52:49
Speaker
And then finally, he mentioned indulgences, which is a
00:52:54
Speaker
a really cool part of our Catholic faith.
00:52:56
Speaker
We believe that there is, even if you, God does forgive our sins.
00:53:01
Speaker
And even if you are in good standing with the church through confession, there is still what's called temporal punishment, which is a fun, fancy theological term for attachments, really attachments to things, either whether it be old sins or addictions or whatever it may be, we can be forgiven of our sins, but there's still things in us that tend towards things that are not God.
00:53:24
Speaker
And that's what we believe as Catholics is purgatory is, I call it the front porch of heaven, is going to purgatory and being purged of these attachments, being purged of anything that is not God.
00:53:37
Speaker
And to receive a plenary, which means total or plentiful, to receive a plenary indulgence here on earth means that all the detachment that needs to happen in purgatory is taken care of
00:53:51
Speaker
right then and there.
00:53:52
Speaker
And it seems absurd.
00:53:53
Speaker
And it seems like a really gross use of God's mercy, because it is.
00:54:01
Speaker
The Lord is so merciful and wants to give us things.
00:54:03
Speaker
So, and I'll put links to for what what indulgences actually are.
00:54:07
Speaker
But like Father Tony said, praying for the attentions of the Pope, truly hating and wanting to be a
00:54:14
Speaker
separated from your sin and doing the actual physical act of going.
00:54:19
Speaker
We had the mercy doors about seven, eight years ago.
00:54:23
Speaker
Some of our listeners might remember the door of mercy in the cathedral in Dubuque.
00:54:28
Speaker
And you think, really?
00:54:29
Speaker
Just walk through the door and I'll get... Yeah, that's almost as simple as that.
00:54:33
Speaker
That's kind of the absurdity of God's mercy.
00:54:36
Speaker
But I love how when you were...
00:54:38
Speaker
I mean, you did not set out to be a huge YouTube star, which you of course now are.
00:54:43
Speaker
I mean, the chosen is on season four and you're on season three.
00:54:47
Speaker
And I think, but you, you just said, yes, one step at a time to Jesus in the Eucharist.
00:54:55
Speaker
And you just kept saying yes, every step of the way.
00:54:59
Speaker
And look at you, Milan.
00:55:00
Speaker
Yeah.
00:55:02
Speaker
I'll be more impressed if I see Rome.
00:55:05
Speaker
Okay, we'll keep going for that.
00:55:07
Speaker
But just like the priest in that book said, that we do not, we're not after a project here, just Christ.
00:55:15
Speaker
And when we keep him at the center, that's really what we're after.
00:55:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it was so dead, so powerful.
00:55:23
Speaker
I don't remember.
00:55:25
Speaker
I probably I'm going to go on retreat here within a week or so.
00:55:28
Speaker
I should bring this with me again.
00:55:30
Speaker
But that that January 2nd, 2010,
00:55:37
Speaker
That passage, it's just forever etched in my brain and my heart.
00:55:40
Speaker
It hit me like a ton of bricks that day that I read.
00:55:43
Speaker
And that's kind of the basis of a lot of the things that I do.
00:55:45
Speaker
It's like, yes, we need our programs.
00:55:48
Speaker
We need our activities.
00:55:49
Speaker
That's all important.
00:55:50
Speaker
But yet at the same time,
00:55:53
Speaker
Don't overthink it.
00:55:54
Speaker
Just open your heart.
00:55:55
Speaker
Go to him, open your heart.
00:55:56
Speaker
He'll guide you where you need to go.
00:55:58
Speaker
If you want to go, that's my, I believe that.
00:56:01
Speaker
And I'd welcome our listeners too, to just go to Jesus.
00:56:04
Speaker
If you feel called to go to Wexford or Rome or the Holy Land or whatever the pilgrimage is that you feel that, oh, I see this coming up in the bulletin.
00:56:11
Speaker
Truly take it to him first.
00:56:13
Speaker
Don't plan it.
00:56:13
Speaker
Think of it like a vacation or a getaway.
00:56:15
Speaker
Think of it as, is Jesus leading me to go on this pilgrimage right now?
00:56:19
Speaker
Because the people who are going to go,
00:56:21
Speaker
the things you're going to experience, the things that you're going to encounter there are all ordained by the Lord.
00:56:28
Speaker
And it's really cool when we just surrendered his plan.
00:56:31
Speaker
Well, I want to put a selfish plug in right now.
00:56:34
Speaker
If you want to go overseas this September, leaving right after Labor Day for 10 days, we're going to, I'm leading a pilgrimage to Greece and Turkey, walking in the footsteps of St.
00:56:49
Speaker
Paul.
00:56:50
Speaker
Very good.
00:56:50
Speaker
I want to go to some of those like Corinth and Ephesus and a lot of those things.
00:56:54
Speaker
So our information is on our website.
00:56:57
Speaker
I think I have something on, at least in the bulletin.
00:57:00
Speaker
It'll be there at some point in time.
00:57:01
Speaker
I'll throw that in the description too.
00:57:03
Speaker
Okay.
00:57:06
Speaker
And we'll have the description if you wish to go on that particular pilgrimage.
00:57:10
Speaker
Yeah.
00:57:12
Speaker
So we're reaching about the end of our episode here, but just to reiterate, April 21st at Blessed Sacrament is the site and the location and the destination of the Eucharistic pilgrimage.
00:57:26
Speaker
So there's April 21st.
00:57:28
Speaker
Yes, there is an event happening here at Blessed Sacrament on Sunday, April 21st.
00:57:34
Speaker
It's sponsored by the Archdiocesan Council of Catholic Women.
00:57:39
Speaker
The ACCW.
00:57:40
Speaker
ACCW.
00:57:41
Speaker
So it's an event organized by them.
00:57:44
Speaker
It's not a parish-sponsored event.
00:57:46
Speaker
It's an ACCW-sponsored event.
00:57:51
Speaker
They're looking at adoration, adoration,
00:57:56
Speaker
They're going to start with confessions, I think, at 1 o'clock, confessions at 1 o'clock, mass at 2 o'clock.
00:58:01
Speaker
Then there will be, I think, some adoration time.
00:58:05
Speaker
Then I think a little reception.
00:58:06
Speaker
I don't have those details in front of me.
00:58:09
Speaker
The ACCW is hoping that Archbishop Zincula could preside.
00:58:13
Speaker
I don't know if that's finalized or not.
00:58:16
Speaker
If it's not, then Father Dan Kinper, the spiritual director, the chaplain for the ACCW,
00:58:22
Speaker
he will be presiding at that mass.
00:58:24
Speaker
I'll be helping with confessions.
00:58:26
Speaker
Everybody's welcome.
00:58:27
Speaker
This is for everybody, not just the ACCW members themselves.
00:58:32
Speaker
This is for everybody.
00:58:33
Speaker
But there is a registration link behind that.
00:58:36
Speaker
So maybe you got to post that as well, because we only have so much space at Blessed Sacrament Church.
00:58:42
Speaker
And we don't want people coming in and like, oh, there's no place to sit.
00:58:47
Speaker
So we want to make sure that
00:58:49
Speaker
We know who's coming.
00:58:50
Speaker
There's a place for those who do wish to come.
00:58:52
Speaker
So even my parishioners, Blessed Sacrament parishioners, would need to register if they want to come to this particular event.
00:59:00
Speaker
So that's what's going on April 21st.
00:59:02
Speaker
I'm just helping with confessions, but I'm not the organizer.
00:59:05
Speaker
But that's also why we have this event this year, this six-month pilgrimage, to allow different organizations to organize their own pilgrimages,
00:59:16
Speaker
to hear.
00:59:16
Speaker
I had different parishes reach out.
00:59:18
Speaker
We want to do a parish holy hour there.
00:59:20
Speaker
Great.
00:59:20
Speaker
Give me a call.
00:59:22
Speaker
And the different languages.
00:59:24
Speaker
I had some sacred heart parish in Waterloo here, which caters to people from Burma.
00:59:30
Speaker
Okay.
00:59:31
Speaker
For me, Father Paul, their priest, the pastor who is from Burma, wants to do something here at some point in time, a holy hour in Burmese.
00:59:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:59:41
Speaker
And for his Burmese people, I'm like, yeah, great.
00:59:44
Speaker
Just call me.
00:59:45
Speaker
What are you looking for?
00:59:47
Speaker
And we'll try to make it happen for you.
00:59:49
Speaker
So that's the goal.
00:59:51
Speaker
Excellent.
00:59:52
Speaker
Well, one take, Father Tony, this has been a pleasure.
00:59:57
Speaker
Thank you for saying yes to this virtual prophetic ministry that you've been given.
01:00:05
Speaker
We'll see how long it lasts and just keep saying yes to the Lord.
01:00:08
Speaker
And I hope everyone listening at home has found kind of a new perspective on the word pilgrimage and being a pilgrim.
01:00:16
Speaker
So I hope that I didn't scare Father Kevin away, you know, being that...
01:00:22
Speaker
that we work together.
01:00:24
Speaker
Oh, no, I wouldn't take it personally.
01:00:27
Speaker
I think it's just an electrical problem.
01:00:29
Speaker
Oh, okay.
01:00:29
Speaker
No, I take everything personally.
01:00:31
Speaker
Oh, is he back?
01:00:34
Speaker
Is he back?
01:00:36
Speaker
Can you hear me?
01:00:36
Speaker
I can hear you.
01:00:37
Speaker
Yes.
01:00:38
Speaker
Oh, hopefully you didn't hear the last word I said.
01:00:41
Speaker
No.
01:00:43
Speaker
This is great audio.
01:00:44
Speaker
So we're just wrapping up and want to encourage everyone.
01:00:48
Speaker
Yes, you're welcome.
01:00:50
Speaker
Oh, I just want to say great episode.
01:00:51
Speaker
Sorry I cut out a little bit.
01:00:52
Speaker
We had some technical issues, but everything you said was great.
01:00:56
Speaker
Oh, thank you.
01:00:59
Speaker
I didn't leave because you said anything offensive, but yes, but I'm jumping on in the end and saying thank you for joining us and didn't mean to interrupt there.
01:01:08
Speaker
We didn't realize, yeah, I kind of jumped in back last minute.
01:01:12
Speaker
Well, I appreciate you inviting me to this.
01:01:15
Speaker
Again,
01:01:16
Speaker
I'm wondering, what am I going to say?
01:01:18
Speaker
What am I going to talk about?
01:01:20
Speaker
He will provide.
01:01:21
Speaker
God provided.
01:01:23
Speaker
One take, Tony.
01:01:23
Speaker
Here we go.
01:01:24
Speaker
Things come up.
01:01:26
Speaker
And I want to give credit that Father Kevin is, of all the associate pastors I've had over the years, Father Kevin is my favorite associate pastor.
01:01:36
Speaker
Wow.
01:01:36
Speaker
That's right, I am.
01:01:38
Speaker
What an honor.
01:01:39
Speaker
Because I'm the only one you've ever had.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yes, that's right.
01:01:45
Speaker
I just prefer to stick with favorites.
01:01:47
Speaker
All right.
01:01:48
Speaker
Thank you, everyone.
01:01:49
Speaker
Well, I will see you in the Eucharist, and pro wrestling is real.
01:02:08
Speaker
Okay, that was chaotic.
01:02:10
Speaker
Kevin, you there?
01:02:12
Speaker
That's all right.
01:02:14
Speaker
It was chaotic on my end.
01:02:15
Speaker
So you can hear me, but I can see you guys just fine.
01:02:18
Speaker
But for some reason, my camera's not coming up.
01:02:20
Speaker
So right now, the only problem I see that could happen is that it gave me a message saying over and over again that guest Kevin is not recording.
01:02:29
Speaker
Guest Kevin is not recording.
01:02:31
Speaker
So that little bit at the end might be us just speaking into the silence, which I'll...
01:02:37
Speaker
We'll work with... Oh, oh, oh, this is why.
01:02:41
Speaker
Kevin, this is why I record... This is why you do the backup recording.
01:02:44
Speaker
This is why... So, Tony, every episode, I also have recording here on my phone, just in case, as a triple check.
01:02:53
Speaker
So...