March 14, 2025 • 43 mins
Join us on the SEEK podcast as Father John Burns opens our hearts to the transformative power of Catholic homilies. Unlike any other form of public speaking, an authentic homily weaves together Scripture, liturgy, and our daily lives, offering a unique conduit for divine grace.
Father Burns delves deep into the essence of impactful preaching, emphasizing that the core of powerful homilies is not in the technique but in prayer. He shares his personal approach to homily preparation, which begins with a prayerful request to understand the hearts of his listeners. This spiritual preparation allows him to transcend his own ideas and deliver messages that resonate deeply with parishioners, often addressing their needs in ways he had not anticipated.
Highlighting the biblical metaphor of sowing seeds, Father Burns reminds us that as preachers, we participate in God’s work by planting the living Word in the hearts of the faithful. It’s a humble reminder that while we may lay the foundations, it is God alone who brings forth the growth.
Father Burns also touches on the need for a holistic approach to Church renewal, suggesting that powerful preaching must go hand in hand with the nurturing roles of both spiritual fathers and mothers within the Church. This unity of masculine and feminine expressions of faith embodies the fullness of God’s design for our spiritual family.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to the Seek 25 podcast, featuring some of
our favorite podcasters recordedlive at the Max Studios podcast
stage during Seek 25 in SaltLake City.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, welcome to Better Preach.
I'm so excited to be here.
My name is Ryan O'Hara and inthe last couple of years I
started a podcast trying tofigure out how do we develop and
deliver great Catholic talks.
Because the thing is, there'syouth ministers, there's priests
and deacons giving talks everyweek and so often I hear from
(00:43):
the non-professionals that theydon't have the confidence that
they want to grow in teachingand preaching the Catholic faith
.
But also we can watch all thevideos we want, but I want to
hear about what happens behindthe scenes before we get the mic
, before we step up to the ambo,because I think we can learn a
lot from that Father.
(01:04):
So that's kind of where thewhole podcast comes from.
We do interviews with Catholicspeakers and priests and
religious and Father John, sograteful to have you here on the
podcast.
Welcome to Better Preach.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, super glad to be with you guys, especially
here, with everybody havingtheir lunch cold cuts on the
floor at the Sikh conference.
Yeah, I'm excited to be withyou guys Awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you, father.
So we were talking before westarted that as Catholics, we
hear homilies if we're if I meanwe want to every week of our
life, for the rest of our life,and sometimes I wonder what
expectations should we have asCatholics who listen to homilies
(01:47):
each week?
But here's the thing what makesa homily unique.
It's not like any other kind ofteaching and preaching.
What is a homily and maybe whatisn't a homily?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I haven't thought about it thatway that you are all, every one
of the faithful, you're hearinghomilies all the time.
Every time you go to mass,you're in a homily every weekend
or in daily mass.
We're like on the other side ofthat.
As priests, we are alwayspreaching homilies and they
don't really prepare you.
In seminary they're like youknow you're going to do that.
You come up with a differenthomily.
It's a pretty interestingjourney into trying to always be
(02:28):
creative, trying to always befresh and then also stay within,
like what the church expects,what you need from a homily.
So a question like what is ahomily?
It's a good question.
A homily is.
It's unlike any other deliveredword, it sits inside the action
of the church and the liturgy.
So the homily has to be a partof this bigger thing, of what
(02:49):
we're doing when we go to mass,which is to worship God and to
step out of time into theeternal and evaluate what's
going on while we're within time.
So the answer to the questionof like, what is a homily,
what's the ideal homily?
There's going to be a lot ofdifferent answers.
I would say, when I prepare ahomily or when I preach.
My hope is that I can help theassembly, the people who are
(03:12):
praying mass.
I hope that they can recognizethat what we're doing at mass
has something to do with theirlife and their life has
something to do with what'shappening at mass the connection
between the day-to-day of justwhat happens in our lives and
the constant work of the churchto bring all of that back to God
(03:32):
and into right order.
So the homily is like the mostcreative part.
Nothing else at Mass is verycreative.
You have rubrics, which isliturgical law that tells you
what you can and can't do allthroughout the Mass.
You ought to obey that.
Not everybody does.
Sometimes there's a little morelatitude, but the homily you're
given total freedom.
It should connect thescriptures to the liturgy and to
people's lives and that's aboutit.
So there's a pretty widelatitude, which is why you're
(03:54):
going to get a lot of differentanswers about what is a homily
and what's a good homily and howdo you write a good homily.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, Growing up are there, or even through your
conversion.
Were there moments in the masswhere your heart was pierced?
Do you remember those moments,Any particular preaching that
had a profound impact on yourlife, your priesthood, even your
(04:20):
call to the priesthood?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, I mean I would say actually probably the
experience of a lot of usgrowing up.
I remember not being deeplymoved by a lot of homilies.
I mean I was through highschool and college.
I didn't want to be a priest.
I was afraid of the priesthood.
I didn't want to be very closeto the church even in case I was
called to the priesthood.
So I didn't like listening tothe homily.
(04:42):
I didn't really like I foundmass kind of boring.
Actually it didn't reallyanimate my soul deeply.
But I knew I needed to be there.
I knew it was good for me, Iknew God was asking me to be
there.
So it wasn't until in college wehad a priest come to my parish
a new priest and he just was anexceptional preacher and he
preached out of his prayer andyou could hear in what he was
(05:03):
preaching a love of the churchand he loved to study theology
and make it approachable for us.
And it was the first time Iremember seeing a priest who I
thought was on fire, lovedpreaching, loved what he was
preaching and wanted me to lovethe same thing.
So, starting in college, midwaythrough college, I started to
notice the homily actually canlead me to pray better and was
(05:23):
calling me to conversion.
And so from that point on Ichanged my stance about the
homily and realized it's animportant part it's not the most
important part of the Mass, butit's a very important part for
our own connection with thesacred action.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's beautiful.
So if you were to fill in theblank, catholics would get a lot
more out of homilies.
If.
How would you answer thatsentence?
Catholics, all of us would geta lot more out of homilies if.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So let me add a bunch of pieces to an answer, because
the first I think the mostimportant thing about writing
homilies is the preacher needsto preach out of his prayer.
What we bring to you has tocome from the Lord and not our
creativity or our ideas or ouragendas.
It's gotta come from prayerfrom the Lord.
(06:13):
So we've gotta have a deepinterior life, a prayer life.
On the recipient side, the ideawould be you know that your
preacher is a man of prayer andhe's preaching out of his prayer
.
He's bringing you the fruit ofhis interior life.
So if that were the case thatevery preacher is always praying
deeply and he's preaching outof his prayer the best thing
Catholics could do who arecoming to mass would be to say I
(06:34):
believe the Holy Spirit has aword for me and that the
instrument for the delivery ofthat word is the preacher.
And so I want to be open to theword of God proclaimed by a
preacher and I want to pray forthat preacher and his prayer
life and what he wants to bringto me and I want to receive,
even if I don't like his styleor I'm not very attentive that
(06:56):
day or I'm going through a badseason in life.
I want to receive a fresh glanceinto what God is trying to do
as I worship him in the mass.
So the idea would be we are allpraying around the homily,
aware that this is the HolySpirit's moment to speak beyond
the prayers of the mass, beyondthe lectionary, to speak into
(07:17):
the particulars of what's goingon in the world, in my life, my
pastor's life.
So if we could pray for eachother in that and we were people
of prayer about openness to theword instrumentally delivered
through a homily fresh words forme from God, not just the
preacher, that would change theway that priests prepare and the
way that we in the assembly arewilling to be pierced by a
(07:37):
fresh word every time we hearthe word broken open.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, because it seems like, even if my
disposition matters, that if I'mready to receive something,
greater likelihood that the Lordcan speak, even if it's
ineffective or monotone or youknow all of these other sort of
human or natural factors.
That seems a part of whatyou're kind of pointing to is
(08:04):
just, there's somethinghappening on the level of the
Spirit, regardless of so-calledeffectiveness, that we ought to
be open to every time the Wordis proclaimed and preached.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Especially at Mass.
Like when we're at Mass, thereason for the homily is to help
bridge the readings which wewalk through in a two and three
year cycle, bridge that with ourlives and the actual prayers of
the mass, the Eucharist, and Idon't always have an easy time
connecting those.
So I want help from God andplease God, his preacher.
So there's a je ne sais quoi,there's an element of divine
(08:40):
activity that, if we reallybelieve it's happening and we
pray into it, we're alwayswilling to be caught off guard,
surprised, blessed, by what Godis trying to bring through this
particular mass and thisparticular homily.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's awesome.
So could you share somethingfrom your you're talking about
preaching from a real andauthentic prayer life that we're
going to receive the fruits ofa man, a priest, who's praying,
and you're coming in some waysto tell us that word of the Lord
(09:14):
through you, to us.
Can you share with us maybesomething about your own
preparation that might surpriseus, something you do that's
maybe different, or a habit thatyou began spiritually, as you
are preparing to preach, evenpreparing to celebrate mass,
(09:35):
that might surprise us.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think maybe the surprise would be
that people expect that we, andmaybe me in particular people
might expect that I have amethod and that if you ask me to
write a book about how toprepare good homilies or talks,
I could do that.
I couldn't do that because Idon't really have a method in
place for writing a talk orwriting a homily.
(09:57):
I really begin, and this wouldbe the habit that I put in place
early on.
I begin any talk, preparationfor any talk or any homily, by
leaning back on the Lord andsaying okay, lord, you know
who's attending Mass, you knowwho's attending the talk, you
know who's attending thispodcast, you know what they're
dealing with, what they're goingthrough, you know their stories
?
I don't.
So would you please put onto myheart your own heart or the
(10:20):
sentiments of your heart, andwould you please inspire in me
an interest in the topic or theparticular reading or this
element of the mass that theyneed to hear.
And now they might be sixpeople at daily mass or a
thousand people or 2000 peopleat Christmas vigil.
So that's a wide swath and Ican't, as a human being, grab a
(10:41):
topic general enough or craft ahomily.
That's gonna catch everybody.
But it's very easy for the Lordto knowing the hearts of the
people that are gathering forthe talk or the homily or the
mass or the podcast, to inspirein me a word or an idea or a set
of ideas.
So I always and I repent of anytime I haven't done this, but I
always.
I begin in prayer and I say God, give me the word that is for
(11:05):
them.
And what surprises me aboutthat is I might look at the
readings or I might look at thetalk.
If they asked me to give a talkon the father, like Friday, I'm
giving a talk on the father.
I might look at the prompt,look at the text and I'll have
an idea.
And then I'll go to prayer andsomething very different comes
to mind.
I'll be like no Lord, this idea, look at this, this is a way to
preach on this gospel.
This is a idea of the Father.
(11:25):
Something else happened in myprayer and I'm not always
attracted to this idea coming inprayer.
I have my own ideas, but when Itest it in prayer and the
Lord's like, I want you topreach on that.
There are times where you haveto set aside your plan or your
ideas what the talk should be,the homily that you don't think
(11:45):
is very interesting, but when itcame out of prayer, you just
have to sit there and be likewell, God, I asked you to
inspire me.
You know who's going to bethere.
You've given me this word andyou get up there and you preach
this word and to you it's notthat exciting, or maybe it
doesn't fit or it's off topic,and every time you do that,
there is an experience, aprofound experience, of noticing
how it affects people.
That was not you, and I'd saymaybe the best example is like
(12:07):
after mass.
If you're shaking hands withpeople as they're leaving mass,
you'll have like six or eightpeople I mean most people at the
end of mass will say greathomily, father.
And if you ask them, they can'treally tell you exactly what
you preached.
You know, because they're justcomplimenting you to be nice.
But once in a while I'll saylike tell me what you liked
about it.
And when you do that, sixdifferent people will give you
six different answers andthey'll all say you were
speaking right to my heart, whatwas affecting you this point,
(12:29):
father, or when you said this,and you'll be like I'll be like
I don't know if I made thatpoint.
I don't.
I wasn't trying to say that,yeah, but because it came out of
prayer and the Lord puts thewords together, it reaches the
heart of the recipient in justthe way they need.
And that's when you really justbow down before the sacredness
of the task and be like this isnot my work, this is not my
(12:50):
achievement, this is not myperformance.
This is an activity of God.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Wow.
So if I follow that ideathrough, that means you're
really not giving the samehomily twice.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I would say I've never preached the same homily
twice and I grew up this is aparticular thing of mine that I
think is a personality flaw I amterrified of repeating myself.
I grew up in a situation wherewe just had a priest who gave
the same homily every year onthe same feasts and he was a
very good preacher.
But after a while I was likehere's that same idea.
(13:26):
And I didn't.
I tuned down on the rest of theidea because like it's the same
idea every year and it justkind of put me into a place of
saying I'll never do that and Ihad to like renounce any unholy
vows there in any way that Ibound myself to like never
repeating because we needrepetition.
But I I'm really careful not torepeat myself.
So I actually keep track in thelectionary, the three-year and
the two-year rotations.
I keep track of what I preachedin the parish on that reading
(13:49):
last time.
So I don't preach the same ideathe next time.
And if I have a text that I use, I'll look at that text and
make sure I don't use that sametext.
I'll never pull an old homilyoff the shelf and deliver it
because I'm in a different spot.
And if I tried to do that,which I have a couple of times,
it's not.
It doesn't animate me anymorebecause that's not the fresh
word, that's not where my prayeris, that's not what's happening
in my people's lives, so Ican't preach the word the same
(14:12):
way I did the first time.
So I really never.
Even if I'm giving a talk at aretreat and I have the same text
, the talk comes out differently.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So you made the point that so often you know, as
we're leaving Mass and we'regreeting you, and oftentimes
great homily Father, greathomily Father, what would be
helpful?
How could we give?
How could us give betterfeedback, or, I should say,
appropriate feedback?
What would you find helpful asa priest?
(14:52):
It's not going to happen everyweek and you're not going to
have 300 people telling you youknow in an email, but what kind
of feedback would you appreciate.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So it is.
That's a great question.
I'm laughing because the storycomes to mind.
It's a great question becausemeaningful feedback is helpful.
If it's critical feedback likeyou missed the point or that was
offensive or insulting, todeliver that carefully, but
feedback on a talk or a homilythat helps me get better and
where it's clear to me that youactually were paying attention.
My brother's a priest.
(15:22):
This is a great story.
This is a story I was laughingabout.
He's a priest as well and he'sthree years behind me in
ordination and he's like mybrother is.
He hates me talking about him.
My brother's like a saint.
He's a really holy priest.
He's a beautiful, beautiful manof the Lord, a deep, deep
prayer, and he was an associatepastor at a parish where the
pastor was near retirement wasmy brother's very short, he's
(15:43):
like five foot eight and thepastor would be about six foot
two, maybe six feet tall andprobably 240 pounds.
And my brother is very skinny,so they look nothing alike.
It was Christmas Eve.
My brother finished the earlyvigil mass and the other mass at
the other church had started 30minutes after.
So he finished mass, gets offhis priesty vestments and goes
(16:07):
in his suit and stands at theback of the mass to greet
everybody at the other mass anda guy comes up to him, shakes
his hands, says Father, MerryChristmas, great homily.
My brother's, dressed in a suit, was clearly not presiding.
The pastor was presiding, whois 40 years older than him and
120 pounds heavier than him andsix inches taller than him.
Whatever the math is, it wasclearly not his homily.
And my brother's like, oh, mygoodness, I may never be able to
(16:29):
take great homily, Father,seriously again, because there's
no way I preach this homily andthat guy's just saying it
because he always says it.
So we can sometimes tell whenit's just like what you say
after mass.
But to your question, if youadd something like here's what I
loved about the homily or thispoint, I never thought of it
that way, or I needed to hearthat, or I'd love to hear more
(16:50):
about that, or that didn't makesense.
But if you can explain it to me, I'd love to hear more about
that, or that didn't make sense,but if you can explain it to me
, I'd love to like go deeper init.
That kind of feedback justshows us that you're paying
attention and makes it an actualcompliment instead of something
that, yeah, clearly you're justsaying because you want to be
kind to us, but it's notactually very kind when it's
clearly not sincere, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You know, my wife did her master's thesis in
education on the power ofspecific praise.
So she was a teacher and shewrote her own thesis on how
important it was to be specificin the praise that you give to
your students, and it seems likethat's exactly what you're
describing there.
If we could just give onespecific thing, do you
(17:33):
appreciate that?
Do you like to get an emaillike that?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Well, yeah, I mean, don't we love to hear we did a
good job?
So positive emails, positivefeedback, is always awesome.
Negative feedback is hard toreceive and I would say for
anybody who speaks or preacheswhen you're receiving negative
feedback, it's worth asking, youknow, because I get defensive
immediately or I'm like, oh,come on, that's not what I meant
to say.
Or I intend well, but I have tonotice to myself, like when I
(17:57):
don't like the feedbacksomeone's giving, what's going
on in me, like why do I feelthreatened by negative feedback
and I need to kind of workthrough that?
Or what is the Holy Spiritreally inviting in terms of my
own healing?
But it's got to be deliveredvery carefully, because not
everybody's willing to likereceive that and pray about it.
(18:18):
Sometimes it just triggers afight.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How important is the relationship of the person
outside of this bit of feedback?
Or, and also, have you had someconstructive criticism that has
really helped you as a preacher.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, tons.
I mean I hate receiving itbecause I do my best in the talk
or the homily and then someonetells me it didn't make sense or
it missed or was offensive orwhatever.
I don't like hearing that.
But I want to be for the peoplebetter, so I need that.
And when it's a friend orsomeone I know, when I have a
relationship with the persongiving me feedback, it's easier
(18:54):
for me to receive that and belike okay, that hurts, Tell me
why you're saying it that way ordid I offend you?
Like can we talk through thatIf it's a stranger?
When the worst thing is theletter that's unsigned, the
anonymous letter or the emailthat is just shot off five
minutes after mass on the drivehome, when someone's angry,
that's not helpful for anybody.
It's not helpful for the one whosent it or for the one who is
receiving it.
(19:15):
So, in the context offriendship or relationship prime
and maybe like around that,another place we could just
always be praying for ourpriests is like Lord, help my
priests, love me, love thepeople, love the parish, because
it's like being a dad ofthousands of people who don't
know you, yeah, and so you'relike trying to love them and
(19:37):
give them good things, but theydon't have a relationship with
you always, and so it hits themwrong.
It hits you wrong.
It's not always easy to walkwith a family like that, so to
pray that our priests would befatherly and loving and open to
the cost of fathering, and inthat context then the context of
friendship and filial orfraternal relationships, it's
easier to have a conversationabout where the homilies are not
(19:58):
going or where they are goingwell.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, does one moment of kind of feedback stick out
to you as something that someonesaid, whether it was a brother,
priest, a bishop, one of yourformators, a friend.
They said something and itreally resonated and you've seen
(20:22):
a change in your preachingbecause of that helpful word.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, it would be, and this would be an advice
maybe to anybody who preaches orteaches or speaks publicly,
with a caveat.
So the advice first and thenthe caveat.
My second year of priesthood Ireceived feedback from one of
the staff and it was a homilyI'd preached where I just shared
a way that I was strugglingwith my family and something we
(20:48):
were kind of going through and Ididn't know what to do and I
was kind of naming that in thehomily that I like reached a
dead end and I had to likesubmit or surrender to the Lord.
And the staff person came backto me and they said, father,
that's the first time thatyou've ever been vulnerable and
talked about your personal life.
And I was like that's not true,I always.
And then I kind of paused, I'mlike, oh, maybe I.
(21:10):
And I realized I think for thefirst couple of years of
preaching I was trying to teachtheology well and give a good
catechetical homily and makesure the point gets across and
maybe not show too much of myheart.
Sure, because the here's thecaveat, because we can go way
too far in that you'll havespeakers or preachers who are
just working through their ownstories constantly in their
(21:32):
homily and they're only talkingabout their personal life, only
talking about their struggles,and that's exhausting and not
the point of proclaiming thegospel and preaching and
teaching.
So the caveat is we don't wantto go too far here, but the
council is like we do need to behuman and if we're going to
walk with the audience, thepeople, they need to know we
care and that we're grapplingtoo Like we don't have it all
(21:55):
figured out.
No priest has it all figuredout.
No preacher or public speakerhas figured out the nuts and
bolts of how to live the gospel.
So, to be appropriately honest,when the Lord seems to invite
like an opening up of your heartor a sharing of how it's not
going great in the pursuit ofthe gospel, recognizing if you
(22:17):
start manifesting yourconscience, or sharing about
your sin or your struggle withaddiction, that's going to go
too far and make people you'regoing to like enter into like
the total cringe zone and peopleare going to really want to run
.
So you got to find that sweetspot.
But it moved me, struck me whenshe said you've never really
shared your heart and from thenon I'm like Lord, are you asking
me to open up a little more andthat changed the direction of
(22:38):
my preaching ever since, and I'mgrateful, because she and I
wouldn't be on the same page.
We didn't really get along verywell.
Who was this person?
It was a person on the staff.
It was like one of the staffpeople, a lay person, a lay
woman, yeah, we had differentapproach to everything, we would
actually disagree about a lot,but she's, I love her, I pray
for her so often and we have nowhave a great friendship.
But she brought the feedback ina way that I'm like oh man, I
(23:00):
I've got a question whether ornot I'm opening my heart as I
preach appropriately, and sincethen I try to say like I want
you to have a connection alsowith the fact that I'm working
through how this gospel appliesto my life.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I haven't figured it out, love that what's your
favorite season of the year topreach?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Ooh man, I mean Advent is like the most
condensed.
It's so short but you have allthe themes of conversion and
beginning and the nativity andthe family and yeah, you have so
much in Advent.
And the readings are like allof the most classic readings at
mass and so when you sit down topreach, I was walking with one
of the newly ordained the otherday he was we're at a mass
(23:42):
together and he was preachingand we're in the sacristy and
he's like father, I don't knowwhat to preach because
everything in the readings isawesome.
I'm like welcome to Advent,like everything in Advent is
awesome.
So that's my favorite, becauseyou just never know where the
Holy Spirit's gonna invite youto go and you can open up the
rest of it's the beginning ofthe liturgical year.
You know Advent starts our newyear and so you can help people
(24:03):
begin again every Advent and,yeah, just invite a reset and a
willingness to move into all theLord has and something new as
Christ is born again in ourhearts.
So, yeah, I would say Advent.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I love that.
Is there a particular feast dayor saint day that you look
forward to preaching on, alsoeach year?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh yeah, it's become the Feast of St John, the
Beloved Feast of St John theBeloved St.
John the Beloved, or John theEvangelist, john the Apostle.
I just I've been praying a lotwith the fact that St John is at
the foot of the cross and Jesus, knowing the church is gonna
need our lady, need a mother,entrusts her to St John and the
(24:48):
text says he took her into hishome from that moment forward.
So St John is a priest wholearned how to be a priest by
living with Mary and learninghow to serve Mary and to be
around this most beautiful woman, blessed among all what it
means to be a man around thegift of the perpetual virgin,
(25:11):
the mother of the church.
How to live with Mary has beena theme of my prayer.
So when it comes to St John,that's my favorite feast right
now.
It's my name as well, but, likethe feast of St John the
Beloved or John the Apostle ismy favorite because we have got
to learn how to live with Maryand let Mary draw our hearts out
, which is what she does for StJohn in the home at Ephesus, I'm
(25:33):
sure, I'm convinced.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
How.
I'm guessing you have adevotion to our Blessed Mother.
How did that first take root inyour life and what has been the
what is?
Could you describe yourrelationship with her for us?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I think watching my mother always had
great devotion.
She'd always have like a littlefresh flower in front of our
Marian statue or we'd pray therosary in the car, which I don't
know if you guys growing up, ifthis was a thing you did, I
hated it as a kid.
Just being honest, anytime wehad a drive that was more than
15 minutes long we would pullout the rosary.
So we'd have like we would knowwe'd be going to like Uncle
(26:12):
Mike's or, you know, auntColleen's house and if it's a 20
minute plus drive we would allbe like trying to make
conversation fill the air.
So mom wouldn't pull the rosaryout because we just did not
want to pray the rosary.
But it was habitual, we knew itwas coming and it taught us to
pray and have a relationshipwith Mary.
I would say my relationship withMary at the level of the heart
(26:33):
did not come alive untilseminary when I realized that I
was going to be I was not goingto marry.
I thought I was going to bemarried and have a wife and
children, but I said it wasn'tgoing to be a woman in my life
who I would hold in my arms andshare life with materially.
But I knew my heart was stillmade for woman, because I'm a
man and we are complimentary andit's not good for the man to be
alone.
(26:53):
So I just started to look atMary and say, Mary, there's
going to be a bunch of gaps inmy heart.
If I don't let these placescome into the light, I will end
up an unhealthy priest.
Would you, would you be thewoman to my heart?
Would you teach me what it isto be a man who's unafraid of
being a man, who's also chasteand celibate but is in love?
Because I want to be a priestwho's in love with a bride, with
(27:16):
the church, and Mary puts aface to that.
So I realized even in seminary,if I'm going to fall in love
with the church and serve thechurch as a bride, as the church
wants to be served, I'm goingto need Mary to show me how to
do that.
So I began entrusting myseminary years to her and then
my priesthood's.
Why I wear a ring.
I consecrated my ring to OurLady and I just said teach me to
(27:36):
be a spouse of the church bybeing, as it were, your spouse
or treating you like my bride,so that I'm not a single dad.
I'm not a man living alone witha dried up heart that's bitter
and resentful.
So it's grown over the yearsand she's taught me how to stay
in love and treat the church asa woman, as a bride who I don't
(27:57):
hold in my arms the way that aman holds his wife in his arms
but I strive to serve the churchthe way that I would serve her
if she were my spouse.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
That's beautiful, father.
Wow, when it comes to preaching, what's at stake?
What's at stake if we get themessage right, if priests and
lay people kind of pour theirheart into this particular call,
(28:28):
how will they believe?
We can't believe if we don'thear.
And so what's at stake?
What do we stand to gain as achurch if we get it right?
What do we stand to lose if wemiss it?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to preaching, teaching,
proclaiming the gospel, I justalways go back to what we see at
the beginning in the earlychurch, like in the book of the
Acts of the Apostles, when Peterand when Paul are preaching and
the audience, the receivers,are caught to the heart, or
thousands that day return orgive their lives to the Lord.
(29:04):
What's at stake is conversion,properly speaking, like the
choice of every heart to be forGod or to come out of the ways
that they are against God.
It's prayer and study and thesacramental life are all going
to be instruments of conversion.
But in preaching you are takingthe fruits of your own prayer
(29:25):
and the context of the liturgyand the sacraments and applying
it to the heart and often makingan invitation to that heart.
So what's at stake is theconversion, the desire of God to
bring souls into relationshipwith him, and so to be about the
work of preaching and to beabout the work of receiving the
contents of the preaching.
We just have to look at theearly church and notice like the
(29:46):
early church exploded becausethe apostles had received the
Holy Spirit and were so on firethey couldn't help but talk
about the God they'd come toknow who was different from all
the gods they used to know.
And the way they talked aboutGod was so attractive that the
audience was like, okay, I'mgonna have to change my life,
I'm gonna have to give up theseother false gods.
I'm gonna have to live a lifethat is not as comfortable,
(30:08):
maybe, as I wanted before, but Isee in you a fire and I want
that fire.
I want to welcome that.
So what's at stake is anopening to the Holy Spirit, is
the falling of the Spirit in thepreaching, the proclamation of
Christ living dead, risen,glorified.
I mean everything is at stakethe expansion of the church and,
again, conversion of souls, thefire of the Spirit that's meant
(30:30):
to go out and is not currentlygoing out the way that it's
meant to.
So everything's at stakebecause if we preach well and we
receive what's preached well,we worship well, we return to
the Lord and we receive whatGod's trying to give us through
the sacramental economy, andthen nothing can limit what God
would do across the face of theearth, because this church is
the one church that is for allof humanity and the preacher is
(30:53):
the one who's trying to showthat to the world and invite the
world into that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Amen.
You know, I was even struck byour gospel yesterday at how the
proclamation began with theshepherds and even Mary was
preached to, and so there werefour or five mentions of a
(31:17):
message going out even in thosefirst moments and I don't think
I had noticed that before and Ithink doing this podcast has
helped me see things throughkind of a preaching lens.
I have a great hope that we'rein a season of renewal in
preaching.
Do you carry a similar hope, orwhat is the possibility that's
(31:39):
before us in our church today asit relates to preaching?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I mean I like to use the image of seeds and the Lord
is the sower.
He uses the parable of thesower, he's the sower of the
good word.
The word is sown in our hearts,as Justin Martyr and all these
great early church saints talkedabout.
But when you have a seed andyou look at just when you take,
like an apple seed I don't knowif there's fruit in the lunches
today, but you look at an appleseed, an orange seed, and you
just hold that seed up, you'relike, okay, this seed right now
(32:05):
is dormant, it's just there,kind of appears to be dead.
If I give this seed what itneeds, if I plant it in the soil
, if I water it, if I protect itfrom the elements, it is going
to grow into a tree or a plantthat bears fruit, that feeds the
nations and spreads out thatfruit in the form of new plants
and trees.
The word of God is the seed andpreaching is like helping the
(32:28):
Lord put that seed out thereinto the hearts of the people
and at times even with the Lordwatering that seed or pressing
it down into the soil of theheart, with the Lord watering
that seed or pressing it downinto the soil of the heart.
So what's at stake again tothat other question, but also
like what enables or empowers arenewal in preaching is the
conviction that it is not aboutus finding the right framework
(32:52):
or the right strategy, or eventhe right words necessarily.
It's about our believing thatthe word of God is living and
true, is alive.
When we proclaim it in thescriptures and when we expand
upon it in preaching, we aregently pressing that down to the
hearts of the believers and thelife principle is in that seed.
It's not mine to awaken orarouse the life of that seed.
(33:15):
It is God's work and as apreacher, to believe that the
scripture and its proclamationhave an effect in the open
hearts, that takes a lot ofpressure off.
But it's also like Lord, ifyou're always sowing seeds, if
you're always bringing the wordout into the hearts of the
church, you also always wantfruit.
60, 80, and a hundredfold.
So how can I get to know you inmy prayer enough, lord, that I
(33:38):
realize every time you invite meto open my mouth to proclaim
the scripture or to preach onthe scripture, you have a desire
that that seed would bear fruitin the hearts of the listeners,
the audience, those who goforth, and they would in turn
take that seed into the heartsof their families, their
communities, their peers.
This becomes a work of God thatwe have inhibited or curbed by
either getting in the way orbeing afraid to be bold, or
(33:59):
being afraid to trust our prayer, and we've bound our preaching
and bound our teaching tostrategies and methods and ideas
and ideologies and kind offramed the power of the word.
If we let that frame go, if wepronounce our hold on it and
then, out of our prayer, we justactually believe what God says
is true, that the word is alive,it's living and true, and we
(34:19):
are invited to be proclaimers ofthat word, then we get to say,
okay, now, lord, show me how towrap that word in the invitation
, in the pathos, in the fire,the love, the zeal, the
relationship, the follow-up, allthe things that need to be the
water and the wind and theprotection.
But the word itself is yours.
And if that mindset comes toreign in the hearts of the
(34:41):
audience, the listeners, theassembly and the preachers,
there is again no limit to whatpreaching and the proclamation
of the word will do, and that'swhat we see in scripture, in the
Acts of the Apostles.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Amen.
Before we close, I want to askyou a couple of questions about
something that I know is nearand dear to your heart and even
in the last few years, has hastaken on more of kind of, more
of your heart and more of themission that God has for you in
the world and and that's thefriends of the bridegroom this
(35:11):
desire that you have and othersfor the healing, the renewal and
the expansion of women'sreligious life here and around
the world.
I want to hear a little bitabout that, but I also think
that their life, theirparticular call, proclaims a
powerful, irreplaceable message.
(35:34):
What is that message thatwomen's religious uniquely
proclaims to the world?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Yeah, thank you for that question.
This is the deepest thing in myheart.
You're asking about it beforethe podcast and I literally
started to choke up because it'ssuch a deep fire in my heart.
I am convinced that the churchwithout consecrated women is
always sick and atrophied anddrying up and curved and is
missing something essential thatwe often, in their absence,
(36:05):
don't notice is gone.
So in my own journey growing upin the seminary and before that
, I didn't really have womenreligious in my life.
I didn't see consecrated womenvery much in my archdiocese.
It just wasn't a part of thestory.
When I went to seminary, mysecond round, when I went over
to theology in Rome and I wasaround a lot of sisters, I
noticed in my heart as a man andas a man preparing for the
(36:26):
priesthood, something come tolife in me because of these
sisters and I realized I wantedto serve them.
I wanted to understand what thepriesthood is.
I wanted to bring them into thelives of my friends, my lay
friends, my brother seminarians,my brother priests, and I
realized that had not been apart of my life, my whole story.
So I've been watching thechurch in places where we don't
(36:47):
have consecrated women andnoticing without them
something's missing and I canfeel the ache and I think the
church we all know like thechurch is being renewed and is
missing something reallyimportant.
We can feel like something'soff and that the language that's
come to me lately is like thechurch without consecrated women
is like a family without amother.
It's the way one of our laysupporters put it recently when
(37:10):
you don't have a mother and afamily, everything just feels
like it's missing and thepriesthood is the father.
Right In the parish we'respiritual fathers.
You call me father for thatreason.
Ideally, please got to be agood father.
But father is father best whenthey're able to love the
children because they love theirspouse, their men in love, and
(37:31):
marriage is drawing their heartsinto the life of service and
education and rearing thatfatherhood requires.
When you take the spiritualmother out of the local church,
the idea of that becomes veryabstract and I think the church
has been living in an abstractedidea of spiritual motherhood,
of Mary, of Our Lady, for a longtime.
Even Mary, like we're talkingabout Mary before, without the
(37:53):
image of Mary, we end up with animage of Our Lady or the kind
of stuck in stone and paint.
We have icons of Our Lady inour churches, but the
consecrated woman is a livingicon and she preaches to your
question.
By her existence, by herconsecration and by the way she
ministers.
She proclaims Mary and thechurch as bride in the midst of
(38:18):
the local church.
And the local church is notgoing to understand that on her
own.
She needs to see that live inthe way that God has intended
that it would be lived, andthat's a compliment to the
Dastan priesthood and to thereligious priesthood.
Men and women consecrated are asupernatural fulfillment of men
and women, lay men and women whoare called to live together.
And so we've been lately theFriends of the Bridegroom.
(38:40):
The language we're using isrestoring the family of God.
The church is a family Marriageand family shows us that in an
imminent fashion.
The priesthood shows us that inan eschatological, we point out
the heavenly marriage.
But religious and consecratedwomen do the other half of that,
pointing out.
They show us the bride, theyshow us our lady, they do the
other half of that, pointing out.
(39:00):
They show us the bride, theyshow us our lady, they show us
the wedding feast in a feminineway.
And if you don't have thefeminine way alongside the
masculine.
That's all abstract theology.
And then we become amechanistic, functional church
and priests become functionariesand are kind of reduced to
their functionaries and dutiesand they fall out of love.
So the renewal of religious life, helping communities to heal,
(39:21):
helping them to grow, helpingfamilies to talk about vocations
again for young women, even ifthey maybe haven't seen sisters,
that's like at the baseline ofwhat Friends of the Bridegroom
is trying to do.
But through that it's also toheal the priesthood, so that
priests can be men in love withthe church and can be unafraid
of asking for help and can seean icon of the bride, an icon of
(39:43):
Mary.
So through serving religiousand consecrated women they can
understand better what it meansto serve the parish and the
church in a spousal mode whichhelps them want to be good
fathers because they're in lovewith the bride.
So it's a high leveltheoretical and theological
endeavor.
But I believe it's a renewalthat we've not seen and I think
it's tied to JP2's theology thebody.
(40:05):
It's tied to our biology andour theology and our eschatology
especially.
And if we don't take that tomind, all the best models of
renewal and all the bestprograms and the videos and the
books.
They're going to take us so far, but there's still going to be
strategies that are absentrobust theology and especially
like a horizon-oriented desireto bring heaven here and help us
(40:31):
, in the midst of the earth,long for the heaven that is
there.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Amen, amen.
Thank you so much for beinghere, father, and telling us
about the.
I don't think I've heard itspoken how crucial it is that a
priest be in love, a priest onfire, a priest in love.
You exemplify that.
You point us in that direction.
(40:55):
I think it's Friday.
Is it Friday?
You're giving a talk, an impactsession here.
Could you give us just a quickdirection?
I think it's Friday.
Is it Friday?
You're giving a talk, an impactsession here.
Could you give us just a quickpreview?
I think it's 3.30, january 3rd,2.55, room 2.55,.
If people want to check it out,you tell us a little bit about
that talk.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yeah, I'm going to speak on the father because I'm
learning about the fathers, I'mtrying to be a good father and
I'm going to speak.
Bishop Muggenberg, this morningin the homily, talked about
this too, but about the factthat we listen to a lot of
voices today, the voice of theworld, the voice of the enemy,
and it's hard to hear the firstvoice, which is the voice of our
father speaking over us in thewomb, in the womb of our mothers
(41:32):
, in the womb of the church, inbaptism, and telling us what's
actually true.
And because we fail to noticethat's there as a foundation.
We listen to lots of othervoices, the voices of our peers,
our friends, even our lovedones, our enemies, and we let
those voices define us and wetake our identity from the world
, which is a confusing voice,and in that trap we're not free.
(41:53):
Jesus says the truth will setyou free.
When we don't have the truth,we're not free.
If we're not living accordingto the truth, we're bound.
So it's about the truth of theFather and what it means to come
out of the bondage of untruthand really let the Father speak
over.
So I'm going to lead a guidedmeditation into just receiving
the voice of the Father andreally try to guide a prayer
experience so that in real timewe can welcome that voice and
(42:15):
the beautiful gift of a fatherwho's been trying to speak to us
from the beginning of ourexistence.
But we've let that voice becrowded out by the distractions
and the agitations of the worldand the enemy.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Amen.
So that's Friday, January 3rd,3.30 pm, room 255.
I hope folks will check it out.
Where can people connect withyou online?
And also the Friends of theBridegroom.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yes, our website renewreligiousorg.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Renewreligiousorg.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That's where Friends of the Bridegroom is, where
we're inviting lay people andpriests, ancestors, to connect
and just do something about theneed to renew the church through
the renewal of religious lifein their communities, in their
parishes, in their families, intheir diocese.
And then I'm on Instagram, I'mon Facebook, I'm on Twitter at
Father John Burns.
I would say I'm like a passiveuser of social media.
I'm there but I don't do toomuch active posting.
(43:05):
But, yeah, find us atRenewReligiousorg, especially
Sounds great Sounds great.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Father, thanks so much for being here.
It's been a joy and an honor.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, ryan, everybody , it's great to be with you.
Thanks so much, blessings andjoy.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Awesome to be with you.
Thanks so much Blessings andjoy.
Awesome Thanks, father.
Thanks for listening to thisepisode recorded live at SEEK.
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(43:44):
forget to join us for Seek 26.
Check out seekfocusorg for moreinformation and to register.
Welcome to the Seek 25 podcast, featuring some of
our favorite podcasters recordedlive at the Max Studios podcast
stage during Seek 25 in SaltLake City.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Hey, welcome to Better Preach.
I'm so excited to be here.
My name is Ryan O'Hara and inthe last couple of years I
started a podcast trying tofigure out how do we develop and
deliver great Catholic talks.
Because the thing is, there'syouth ministers, there's priests
and deacons giving talks everyweek and so often I hear from
(00:43):
the non-professionals that theydon't have the confidence that
they want to grow in teachingand preaching the Catholic faith
.
But also we can watch all thevideos we want, but I want to
hear about what happens behindthe scenes before we get the mic
, before we step up to the ambo,because I think we can learn a
lot from that Father.
(01:04):
So that's kind of where thewhole podcast comes from.
We do interviews with Catholicspeakers and priests and
religious and Father John, sograteful to have you here on the
podcast.
Welcome to Better Preach.
Speaker 3 (01:15):
Yeah, super glad to be with you guys, especially
here, with everybody havingtheir lunch cold cuts on the
floor at the Sikh conference.
Yeah, I'm excited to be withyou guys Awesome.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Thank you, father.
So we were talking before westarted that as Catholics, we
hear homilies if we're if I meanwe want to every week of our
life, for the rest of our life,and sometimes I wonder what
expectations should we have asCatholics who listen to homilies
(01:47):
each week?
But here's the thing what makesa homily unique.
It's not like any other kind ofteaching and preaching.
What is a homily and maybe whatisn't a homily?
Speaker 3 (01:58):
Yeah, it's a good question.
I haven't thought about it thatway that you are all, every one
of the faithful, you're hearinghomilies all the time.
Every time you go to mass,you're in a homily every weekend
or in daily mass.
We're like on the other side ofthat.
As priests, we are alwayspreaching homilies and they
don't really prepare you.
In seminary they're like youknow you're going to do that.
You come up with a differenthomily.
It's a pretty interestingjourney into trying to always be
(02:28):
creative, trying to always befresh and then also stay within,
like what the church expects,what you need from a homily.
So a question like what is ahomily?
It's a good question.
A homily is.
It's unlike any other deliveredword, it sits inside the action
of the church and the liturgy.
So the homily has to be a partof this bigger thing, of what
(02:49):
we're doing when we go to mass,which is to worship God and to
step out of time into theeternal and evaluate what's
going on while we're within time.
So the answer to the questionof like, what is a homily,
what's the ideal homily?
There's going to be a lot ofdifferent answers.
I would say, when I prepare ahomily or when I preach.
My hope is that I can help theassembly, the people who are
(03:12):
praying mass.
I hope that they can recognizethat what we're doing at mass
has something to do with theirlife and their life has
something to do with what'shappening at mass the connection
between the day-to-day of justwhat happens in our lives and
the constant work of the churchto bring all of that back to God
(03:32):
and into right order.
So the homily is like the mostcreative part.
Nothing else at Mass is verycreative.
You have rubrics, which isliturgical law that tells you
what you can and can't do allthroughout the Mass.
You ought to obey that.
Not everybody does.
Sometimes there's a little morelatitude, but the homily you're
given total freedom.
It should connect thescriptures to the liturgy and to
people's lives and that's aboutit.
So there's a pretty widelatitude, which is why you're
(03:54):
going to get a lot of differentanswers about what is a homily
and what's a good homily and howdo you write a good homily.
Speaker 2 (03:59):
Yeah, Growing up are there, or even through your
conversion.
Were there moments in the masswhere your heart was pierced?
Do you remember those moments,Any particular preaching that
had a profound impact on yourlife, your priesthood, even your
(04:20):
call to the priesthood?
Speaker 3 (04:22):
Yeah, I mean I would say actually probably the
experience of a lot of usgrowing up.
I remember not being deeplymoved by a lot of homilies.
I mean I was through highschool and college.
I didn't want to be a priest.
I was afraid of the priesthood.
I didn't want to be very closeto the church even in case I was
called to the priesthood.
So I didn't like listening tothe homily.
(04:42):
I didn't really like I foundmass kind of boring.
Actually it didn't reallyanimate my soul deeply.
But I knew I needed to be there.
I knew it was good for me, Iknew God was asking me to be
there.
So it wasn't until in college wehad a priest come to my parish
a new priest and he just was anexceptional preacher and he
preached out of his prayer andyou could hear in what he was
(05:03):
preaching a love of the churchand he loved to study theology
and make it approachable for us.
And it was the first time Iremember seeing a priest who I
thought was on fire, lovedpreaching, loved what he was
preaching and wanted me to lovethe same thing.
So, starting in college, midwaythrough college, I started to
notice the homily actually canlead me to pray better and was
(05:23):
calling me to conversion.
And so from that point on Ichanged my stance about the
homily and realized it's animportant part it's not the most
important part of the Mass, butit's a very important part for
our own connection with thesacred action.
Speaker 2 (05:36):
That's beautiful.
So if you were to fill in theblank, catholics would get a lot
more out of homilies.
If.
How would you answer thatsentence?
Catholics, all of us would geta lot more out of homilies if.
Speaker 3 (05:52):
So let me add a bunch of pieces to an answer, because
the first I think the mostimportant thing about writing
homilies is the preacher needsto preach out of his prayer.
What we bring to you has tocome from the Lord and not our
creativity or our ideas or ouragendas.
It's gotta come from prayerfrom the Lord.
(06:13):
So we've gotta have a deepinterior life, a prayer life.
On the recipient side, the ideawould be you know that your
preacher is a man of prayer andhe's preaching out of his prayer
.
He's bringing you the fruit ofhis interior life.
So if that were the case thatevery preacher is always praying
deeply and he's preaching outof his prayer the best thing
Catholics could do who arecoming to mass would be to say I
(06:34):
believe the Holy Spirit has aword for me and that the
instrument for the delivery ofthat word is the preacher.
And so I want to be open to theword of God proclaimed by a
preacher and I want to pray forthat preacher and his prayer
life and what he wants to bringto me and I want to receive,
even if I don't like his styleor I'm not very attentive that
(06:56):
day or I'm going through a badseason in life.
I want to receive a fresh glanceinto what God is trying to do
as I worship him in the mass.
So the idea would be we are allpraying around the homily,
aware that this is the HolySpirit's moment to speak beyond
the prayers of the mass, beyondthe lectionary, to speak into
(07:17):
the particulars of what's goingon in the world, in my life, my
pastor's life.
So if we could pray for eachother in that and we were people
of prayer about openness to theword instrumentally delivered
through a homily fresh words forme from God, not just the
preacher, that would change theway that priests prepare and the
way that we in the assembly arewilling to be pierced by a
(07:37):
fresh word every time we hearthe word broken open.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Yeah, because it seems like, even if my
disposition matters, that if I'mready to receive something,
greater likelihood that the Lordcan speak, even if it's
ineffective or monotone or youknow all of these other sort of
human or natural factors.
That seems a part of whatyou're kind of pointing to is
(08:04):
just, there's somethinghappening on the level of the
Spirit, regardless of so-calledeffectiveness, that we ought to
be open to every time the Wordis proclaimed and preached.
Speaker 3 (08:16):
Especially at Mass.
Like when we're at Mass, thereason for the homily is to help
bridge the readings which wewalk through in a two and three
year cycle, bridge that with ourlives and the actual prayers of
the mass, the Eucharist, and Idon't always have an easy time
connecting those.
So I want help from God andplease God, his preacher.
So there's a je ne sais quoi,there's an element of divine
(08:40):
activity that, if we reallybelieve it's happening and we
pray into it, we're alwayswilling to be caught off guard,
surprised, blessed, by what Godis trying to bring through this
particular mass and thisparticular homily.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
That's awesome.
So could you share somethingfrom your you're talking about
preaching from a real andauthentic prayer life that we're
going to receive the fruits ofa man, a priest, who's praying,
and you're coming in some waysto tell us that word of the Lord
(09:14):
through you, to us.
Can you share with us maybesomething about your own
preparation that might surpriseus, something you do that's
maybe different, or a habit thatyou began spiritually, as you
are preparing to preach, evenpreparing to celebrate mass,
(09:35):
that might surprise us.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Yeah, I mean, I think maybe the surprise would be
that people expect that we, andmaybe me in particular people
might expect that I have amethod and that if you ask me to
write a book about how toprepare good homilies or talks,
I could do that.
I couldn't do that because Idon't really have a method in
place for writing a talk orwriting a homily.
(09:57):
I really begin, and this wouldbe the habit that I put in place
early on.
I begin any talk, preparationfor any talk or any homily, by
leaning back on the Lord andsaying okay, lord, you know
who's attending Mass, you knowwho's attending the talk, you
know who's attending thispodcast, you know what they're
dealing with, what they're goingthrough, you know their stories
?
I don't.
So would you please put onto myheart your own heart or the
(10:20):
sentiments of your heart, andwould you please inspire in me
an interest in the topic or theparticular reading or this
element of the mass that theyneed to hear.
And now they might be sixpeople at daily mass or a
thousand people or 2000 peopleat Christmas vigil.
So that's a wide swath and Ican't, as a human being, grab a
(10:41):
topic general enough or craft ahomily.
That's gonna catch everybody.
But it's very easy for the Lordto knowing the hearts of the
people that are gathering forthe talk or the homily or the
mass or the podcast, to inspirein me a word or an idea or a set
of ideas.
So I always and I repent of anytime I haven't done this, but I
always.
I begin in prayer and I say God, give me the word that is for
(11:05):
them.
And what surprises me aboutthat is I might look at the
readings or I might look at thetalk.
If they asked me to give a talkon the father, like Friday, I'm
giving a talk on the father.
I might look at the prompt,look at the text and I'll have
an idea.
And then I'll go to prayer andsomething very different comes
to mind.
I'll be like no Lord, this idea, look at this, this is a way to
preach on this gospel.
This is a idea of the Father.
(11:25):
Something else happened in myprayer and I'm not always
attracted to this idea coming inprayer.
I have my own ideas, but when Itest it in prayer and the
Lord's like, I want you topreach on that.
There are times where you haveto set aside your plan or your
ideas what the talk should be,the homily that you don't think
(11:45):
is very interesting, but when itcame out of prayer, you just
have to sit there and be likewell, God, I asked you to
inspire me.
You know who's going to bethere.
You've given me this word andyou get up there and you preach
this word and to you it's notthat exciting, or maybe it
doesn't fit or it's off topic,and every time you do that,
there is an experience, aprofound experience, of noticing
how it affects people.
That was not you, and I'd saymaybe the best example is like
(12:07):
after mass.
If you're shaking hands withpeople as they're leaving mass,
you'll have like six or eightpeople I mean most people at the
end of mass will say greathomily, father.
And if you ask them, they can'treally tell you exactly what
you preached.
You know, because they're justcomplimenting you to be nice.
But once in a while I'll saylike tell me what you liked
about it.
And when you do that, sixdifferent people will give you
six different answers andthey'll all say you were
speaking right to my heart, whatwas affecting you this point,
(12:29):
father, or when you said this,and you'll be like I'll be like
I don't know if I made thatpoint.
I don't.
I wasn't trying to say that,yeah, but because it came out of
prayer and the Lord puts thewords together, it reaches the
heart of the recipient in justthe way they need.
And that's when you really justbow down before the sacredness
of the task and be like this isnot my work, this is not my
(12:50):
achievement, this is not myperformance.
This is an activity of God.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
Wow.
So if I follow that ideathrough, that means you're
really not giving the samehomily twice.
Speaker 3 (13:02):
I would say I've never preached the same homily
twice and I grew up this is aparticular thing of mine that I
think is a personality flaw I amterrified of repeating myself.
I grew up in a situation wherewe just had a priest who gave
the same homily every year onthe same feasts and he was a
very good preacher.
But after a while I was likehere's that same idea.
(13:26):
And I didn't.
I tuned down on the rest of theidea because like it's the same
idea every year and it justkind of put me into a place of
saying I'll never do that and Ihad to like renounce any unholy
vows there in any way that Ibound myself to like never
repeating because we needrepetition.
But I I'm really careful not torepeat myself.
So I actually keep track in thelectionary, the three-year and
the two-year rotations.
I keep track of what I preachedin the parish on that reading
(13:49):
last time.
So I don't preach the same ideathe next time.
And if I have a text that I use, I'll look at that text and
make sure I don't use that sametext.
I'll never pull an old homilyoff the shelf and deliver it
because I'm in a different spot.
And if I tried to do that,which I have a couple of times,
it's not.
It doesn't animate me anymorebecause that's not the fresh
word, that's not where my prayeris, that's not what's happening
in my people's lives, so Ican't preach the word the same
(14:12):
way I did the first time.
So I really never.
Even if I'm giving a talk at aretreat and I have the same text
, the talk comes out differently.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
So you made the point that so often you know, as
we're leaving Mass and we'regreeting you, and oftentimes
great homily Father, greathomily Father, what would be
helpful?
How could we give?
How could us give betterfeedback, or, I should say,
appropriate feedback?
What would you find helpful asa priest?
(14:52):
It's not going to happen everyweek and you're not going to
have 300 people telling you youknow in an email, but what kind
of feedback would you appreciate.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
So it is.
That's a great question.
I'm laughing because the storycomes to mind.
It's a great question becausemeaningful feedback is helpful.
If it's critical feedback likeyou missed the point or that was
offensive or insulting, todeliver that carefully, but
feedback on a talk or a homilythat helps me get better and
where it's clear to me that youactually were paying attention.
My brother's a priest.
(15:22):
This is a great story.
This is a story I was laughingabout.
He's a priest as well and he'sthree years behind me in
ordination and he's like mybrother is.
He hates me talking about him.
My brother's like a saint.
He's a really holy priest.
He's a beautiful, beautiful manof the Lord, a deep, deep
prayer, and he was an associatepastor at a parish where the
pastor was near retirement wasmy brother's very short, he's
(15:43):
like five foot eight and thepastor would be about six foot
two, maybe six feet tall andprobably 240 pounds.
And my brother is very skinny,so they look nothing alike.
It was Christmas Eve.
My brother finished the earlyvigil mass and the other mass at
the other church had started 30minutes after.
So he finished mass, gets offhis priesty vestments and goes
(16:07):
in his suit and stands at theback of the mass to greet
everybody at the other mass anda guy comes up to him, shakes
his hands, says Father, MerryChristmas, great homily.
My brother's, dressed in a suit, was clearly not presiding.
The pastor was presiding, whois 40 years older than him and
120 pounds heavier than him andsix inches taller than him.
Whatever the math is, it wasclearly not his homily.
And my brother's like, oh, mygoodness, I may never be able to
(16:29):
take great homily, Father,seriously again, because there's
no way I preach this homily andthat guy's just saying it
because he always says it.
So we can sometimes tell whenit's just like what you say
after mass.
But to your question, if youadd something like here's what I
loved about the homily or thispoint, I never thought of it
that way, or I needed to hearthat, or I'd love to hear more
(16:50):
about that, or that didn't makesense.
But if you can explain it to me, I'd love to hear more about
that, or that didn't make sense,but if you can explain it to me
, I'd love to like go deeper init.
That kind of feedback justshows us that you're paying
attention and makes it an actualcompliment instead of something
that, yeah, clearly you're justsaying because you want to be
kind to us, but it's notactually very kind when it's
clearly not sincere, you know.
Speaker 2 (17:10):
You know, my wife did her master's thesis in
education on the power ofspecific praise.
So she was a teacher and shewrote her own thesis on how
important it was to be specificin the praise that you give to
your students, and it seems likethat's exactly what you're
describing there.
If we could just give onespecific thing, do you
(17:33):
appreciate that?
Do you like to get an emaillike that?
Speaker 3 (17:36):
Well, yeah, I mean, don't we love to hear we did a
good job?
So positive emails, positivefeedback, is always awesome.
Negative feedback is hard toreceive and I would say for
anybody who speaks or preacheswhen you're receiving negative
feedback, it's worth asking, youknow, because I get defensive
immediately or I'm like, oh,come on, that's not what I meant
to say.
Or I intend well, but I have tonotice to myself, like when I
(17:57):
don't like the feedbacksomeone's giving, what's going
on in me, like why do I feelthreatened by negative feedback
and I need to kind of workthrough that?
Or what is the Holy Spiritreally inviting in terms of my
own healing?
But it's got to be deliveredvery carefully, because not
everybody's willing to likereceive that and pray about it.
(18:18):
Sometimes it just triggers afight.
Speaker 2 (18:20):
How important is the relationship of the person
outside of this bit of feedback?
Or, and also, have you had someconstructive criticism that has
really helped you as a preacher.
Speaker 3 (18:34):
Yeah, tons.
I mean I hate receiving itbecause I do my best in the talk
or the homily and then someonetells me it didn't make sense or
it missed or was offensive orwhatever.
I don't like hearing that.
But I want to be for the peoplebetter, so I need that.
And when it's a friend orsomeone I know, when I have a
relationship with the persongiving me feedback, it's easier
(18:54):
for me to receive that and belike okay, that hurts, Tell me
why you're saying it that way ordid I offend you?
Like can we talk through thatIf it's a stranger?
When the worst thing is theletter that's unsigned, the
anonymous letter or the emailthat is just shot off five
minutes after mass on the drivehome, when someone's angry,
that's not helpful for anybody.
It's not helpful for the one whosent it or for the one who is
receiving it.
(19:15):
So, in the context offriendship or relationship prime
and maybe like around that,another place we could just
always be praying for ourpriests is like Lord, help my
priests, love me, love thepeople, love the parish, because
it's like being a dad ofthousands of people who don't
know you, yeah, and so you'relike trying to love them and
(19:37):
give them good things, but theydon't have a relationship with
you always, and so it hits themwrong.
It hits you wrong.
It's not always easy to walkwith a family like that, so to
pray that our priests would befatherly and loving and open to
the cost of fathering, and inthat context then the context of
friendship and filial orfraternal relationships, it's
easier to have a conversationabout where the homilies are not
(19:58):
going or where they are goingwell.
Speaker 2 (20:01):
Yeah, does one moment of kind of feedback stick out
to you as something that someonesaid, whether it was a brother,
priest, a bishop, one of yourformators, a friend.
They said something and itreally resonated and you've seen
(20:22):
a change in your preachingbecause of that helpful word.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah, it would be, and this would be an advice
maybe to anybody who preaches orteaches or speaks publicly,
with a caveat.
So the advice first and thenthe caveat.
My second year of priesthood Ireceived feedback from one of
the staff and it was a homilyI'd preached where I just shared
a way that I was strugglingwith my family and something we
(20:48):
were kind of going through and Ididn't know what to do and I
was kind of naming that in thehomily that I like reached a
dead end and I had to likesubmit or surrender to the Lord.
And the staff person came backto me and they said, father,
that's the first time thatyou've ever been vulnerable and
talked about your personal life.
And I was like that's not true,I always.
And then I kind of paused, I'mlike, oh, maybe I.
(21:10):
And I realized I think for thefirst couple of years of
preaching I was trying to teachtheology well and give a good
catechetical homily and makesure the point gets across and
maybe not show too much of myheart.
Sure, because the here's thecaveat, because we can go way
too far in that you'll havespeakers or preachers who are
just working through their ownstories constantly in their
(21:32):
homily and they're only talkingabout their personal life, only
talking about their struggles,and that's exhausting and not
the point of proclaiming thegospel and preaching and
teaching.
So the caveat is we don't wantto go too far here, but the
council is like we do need to behuman and if we're going to
walk with the audience, thepeople, they need to know we
care and that we're grapplingtoo Like we don't have it all
(21:55):
figured out.
No priest has it all figuredout.
No preacher or public speakerhas figured out the nuts and
bolts of how to live the gospel.
So, to be appropriately honest,when the Lord seems to invite
like an opening up of your heartor a sharing of how it's not
going great in the pursuit ofthe gospel, recognizing if you
(22:17):
start manifesting yourconscience, or sharing about
your sin or your struggle withaddiction, that's going to go
too far and make people you'regoing to like enter into like
the total cringe zone and peopleare going to really want to run
.
So you got to find that sweetspot.
But it moved me, struck me whenshe said you've never really
shared your heart and from thenon I'm like Lord, are you asking
me to open up a little more andthat changed the direction of
(22:38):
my preaching ever since, and I'mgrateful, because she and I
wouldn't be on the same page.
We didn't really get along verywell.
Who was this person?
It was a person on the staff.
It was like one of the staffpeople, a lay person, a lay
woman, yeah, we had differentapproach to everything, we would
actually disagree about a lot,but she's, I love her, I pray
for her so often and we have nowhave a great friendship.
But she brought the feedback ina way that I'm like oh man, I
(23:00):
I've got a question whether ornot I'm opening my heart as I
preach appropriately, and sincethen I try to say like I want
you to have a connection alsowith the fact that I'm working
through how this gospel appliesto my life.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
I haven't figured it out, love that what's your
favorite season of the year topreach?
Speaker 3 (23:20):
Ooh man, I mean Advent is like the most
condensed.
It's so short but you have allthe themes of conversion and
beginning and the nativity andthe family and yeah, you have so
much in Advent.
And the readings are like allof the most classic readings at
mass and so when you sit down topreach, I was walking with one
of the newly ordained the otherday he was we're at a mass
(23:42):
together and he was preachingand we're in the sacristy and
he's like father, I don't knowwhat to preach because
everything in the readings isawesome.
I'm like welcome to Advent,like everything in Advent is
awesome.
So that's my favorite, becauseyou just never know where the
Holy Spirit's gonna invite youto go and you can open up the
rest of it's the beginning ofthe liturgical year.
You know Advent starts our newyear and so you can help people
(24:03):
begin again every Advent and,yeah, just invite a reset and a
willingness to move into all theLord has and something new as
Christ is born again in ourhearts.
So, yeah, I would say Advent.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
I love that.
Is there a particular feast dayor saint day that you look
forward to preaching on, alsoeach year?
Speaker 3 (24:24):
Oh yeah, it's become the Feast of St John, the
Beloved Feast of St John theBeloved St.
John the Beloved, or John theEvangelist, john the Apostle.
I just I've been praying a lotwith the fact that St John is at
the foot of the cross and Jesus, knowing the church is gonna
need our lady, need a mother,entrusts her to St John and the
(24:48):
text says he took her into hishome from that moment forward.
So St John is a priest wholearned how to be a priest by
living with Mary and learninghow to serve Mary and to be
around this most beautiful woman, blessed among all what it
means to be a man around thegift of the perpetual virgin,
(25:11):
the mother of the church.
How to live with Mary has beena theme of my prayer.
So when it comes to St John,that's my favorite feast right
now.
It's my name as well, but, likethe feast of St John the
Beloved or John the Apostle ismy favorite because we have got
to learn how to live with Maryand let Mary draw our hearts out
, which is what she does for StJohn in the home at Ephesus, I'm
(25:33):
sure, I'm convinced.
Speaker 2 (25:34):
How.
I'm guessing you have adevotion to our Blessed Mother.
How did that first take root inyour life and what has been the
what is?
Could you describe yourrelationship with her for us?
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Yeah, I think watching my mother always had
great devotion.
She'd always have like a littlefresh flower in front of our
Marian statue or we'd pray therosary in the car, which I don't
know if you guys growing up, ifthis was a thing you did, I
hated it as a kid.
Just being honest, anytime wehad a drive that was more than
15 minutes long we would pullout the rosary.
So we'd have like we would knowwe'd be going to like Uncle
(26:12):
Mike's or, you know, auntColleen's house and if it's a 20
minute plus drive we would allbe like trying to make
conversation fill the air.
So mom wouldn't pull the rosaryout because we just did not
want to pray the rosary.
But it was habitual, we knew itwas coming and it taught us to
pray and have a relationshipwith Mary.
I would say my relationship withMary at the level of the heart
(26:33):
did not come alive untilseminary when I realized that I
was going to be I was not goingto marry.
I thought I was going to bemarried and have a wife and
children, but I said it wasn'tgoing to be a woman in my life
who I would hold in my arms andshare life with materially.
But I knew my heart was stillmade for woman, because I'm a
man and we are complimentary andit's not good for the man to be
alone.
(26:53):
So I just started to look atMary and say, Mary, there's
going to be a bunch of gaps inmy heart.
If I don't let these placescome into the light, I will end
up an unhealthy priest.
Would you, would you be thewoman to my heart?
Would you teach me what it isto be a man who's unafraid of
being a man, who's also chasteand celibate but is in love?
Because I want to be a priestwho's in love with a bride, with
(27:16):
the church, and Mary puts aface to that.
So I realized even in seminary,if I'm going to fall in love
with the church and serve thechurch as a bride, as the church
wants to be served, I'm goingto need Mary to show me how to
do that.
So I began entrusting myseminary years to her and then
my priesthood's.
Why I wear a ring.
I consecrated my ring to OurLady and I just said teach me to
(27:36):
be a spouse of the church bybeing, as it were, your spouse
or treating you like my bride,so that I'm not a single dad.
I'm not a man living alone witha dried up heart that's bitter
and resentful.
So it's grown over the yearsand she's taught me how to stay
in love and treat the church asa woman, as a bride who I don't
(27:57):
hold in my arms the way that aman holds his wife in his arms
but I strive to serve the churchthe way that I would serve her
if she were my spouse.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
That's beautiful, father.
Wow, when it comes to preaching, what's at stake?
What's at stake if we get themessage right, if priests and
lay people kind of pour theirheart into this particular call,
(28:28):
how will they believe?
We can't believe if we don'thear.
And so what's at stake?
What do we stand to gain as achurch if we get it right?
What do we stand to lose if wemiss it?
Speaker 3 (28:44):
Yeah, I mean, when it comes to preaching, teaching,
proclaiming the gospel, I justalways go back to what we see at
the beginning in the earlychurch, like in the book of the
Acts of the Apostles, when Peterand when Paul are preaching and
the audience, the receivers,are caught to the heart, or
thousands that day return orgive their lives to the Lord.
(29:04):
What's at stake is conversion,properly speaking, like the
choice of every heart to be forGod or to come out of the ways
that they are against God.
It's prayer and study and thesacramental life are all going
to be instruments of conversion.
But in preaching you are takingthe fruits of your own prayer
(29:25):
and the context of the liturgyand the sacraments and applying
it to the heart and often makingan invitation to that heart.
So what's at stake is theconversion, the desire of God to
bring souls into relationshipwith him, and so to be about the
work of preaching and to beabout the work of receiving the
contents of the preaching.
We just have to look at theearly church and notice like the
(29:46):
early church exploded becausethe apostles had received the
Holy Spirit and were so on firethey couldn't help but talk
about the God they'd come toknow who was different from all
the gods they used to know.
And the way they talked aboutGod was so attractive that the
audience was like, okay, I'mgonna have to change my life,
I'm gonna have to give up theseother false gods.
I'm gonna have to live a lifethat is not as comfortable,
(30:08):
maybe, as I wanted before, but Isee in you a fire and I want
that fire.
I want to welcome that.
So what's at stake is anopening to the Holy Spirit, is
the falling of the Spirit in thepreaching, the proclamation of
Christ living dead, risen,glorified.
I mean everything is at stakethe expansion of the church and,
again, conversion of souls, thefire of the Spirit that's meant
(30:30):
to go out and is not currentlygoing out the way that it's
meant to.
So everything's at stakebecause if we preach well and we
receive what's preached well,we worship well, we return to
the Lord and we receive whatGod's trying to give us through
the sacramental economy, andthen nothing can limit what God
would do across the face of theearth, because this church is
the one church that is for allof humanity and the preacher is
(30:53):
the one who's trying to showthat to the world and invite the
world into that.
Speaker 2 (30:57):
Amen.
You know, I was even struck byour gospel yesterday at how the
proclamation began with theshepherds and even Mary was
preached to, and so there werefour or five mentions of a
(31:17):
message going out even in thosefirst moments and I don't think
I had noticed that before and Ithink doing this podcast has
helped me see things throughkind of a preaching lens.
I have a great hope that we'rein a season of renewal in
preaching.
Do you carry a similar hope, orwhat is the possibility that's
(31:39):
before us in our church today asit relates to preaching?
Speaker 3 (31:44):
I mean I like to use the image of seeds and the Lord
is the sower.
He uses the parable of thesower, he's the sower of the
good word.
The word is sown in our hearts,as Justin Martyr and all these
great early church saints talkedabout.
But when you have a seed andyou look at just when you take,
like an apple seed I don't knowif there's fruit in the lunches
today, but you look at an appleseed, an orange seed, and you
just hold that seed up, you'relike, okay, this seed right now
(32:05):
is dormant, it's just there,kind of appears to be dead.
If I give this seed what itneeds, if I plant it in the soil
, if I water it, if I protect itfrom the elements, it is going
to grow into a tree or a plantthat bears fruit, that feeds the
nations and spreads out thatfruit in the form of new plants
and trees.
The word of God is the seed andpreaching is like helping the
(32:28):
Lord put that seed out thereinto the hearts of the people
and at times even with the Lordwatering that seed or pressing
it down into the soil of theheart, with the Lord watering
that seed or pressing it downinto the soil of the heart.
So what's at stake again tothat other question, but also
like what enables or empowers arenewal in preaching is the
conviction that it is not aboutus finding the right framework
(32:52):
or the right strategy, or eventhe right words necessarily.
It's about our believing thatthe word of God is living and
true, is alive.
When we proclaim it in thescriptures and when we expand
upon it in preaching, we aregently pressing that down to the
hearts of the believers and thelife principle is in that seed.
It's not mine to awaken orarouse the life of that seed.
(33:15):
It is God's work and as apreacher, to believe that the
scripture and its proclamationhave an effect in the open
hearts, that takes a lot ofpressure off.
But it's also like Lord, ifyou're always sowing seeds, if
you're always bringing the wordout into the hearts of the
church, you also always wantfruit.
60, 80, and a hundredfold.
So how can I get to know you inmy prayer enough, lord, that I
(33:38):
realize every time you invite meto open my mouth to proclaim
the scripture or to preach onthe scripture, you have a desire
that that seed would bear fruitin the hearts of the listeners,
the audience, those who goforth, and they would in turn
take that seed into the heartsof their families, their
communities, their peers.
This becomes a work of God thatwe have inhibited or curbed by
either getting in the way orbeing afraid to be bold, or
(33:59):
being afraid to trust our prayer, and we've bound our preaching
and bound our teaching tostrategies and methods and ideas
and ideologies and kind offramed the power of the word.
If we let that frame go, if wepronounce our hold on it and
then, out of our prayer, we justactually believe what God says
is true, that the word is alive,it's living and true, and we
(34:19):
are invited to be proclaimers ofthat word, then we get to say,
okay, now, lord, show me how towrap that word in the invitation
, in the pathos, in the fire,the love, the zeal, the
relationship, the follow-up, allthe things that need to be the
water and the wind and theprotection.
But the word itself is yours.
And if that mindset comes toreign in the hearts of the
(34:41):
audience, the listeners, theassembly and the preachers,
there is again no limit to whatpreaching and the proclamation
of the word will do, and that'swhat we see in scripture, in the
Acts of the Apostles.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
Amen.
Before we close, I want to askyou a couple of questions about
something that I know is nearand dear to your heart and even
in the last few years, has hastaken on more of kind of, more
of your heart and more of themission that God has for you in
the world and and that's thefriends of the bridegroom this
(35:11):
desire that you have and othersfor the healing, the renewal and
the expansion of women'sreligious life here and around
the world.
I want to hear a little bitabout that, but I also think
that their life, theirparticular call, proclaims a
powerful, irreplaceable message.
(35:34):
What is that message thatwomen's religious uniquely
proclaims to the world?
Speaker 3 (35:41):
Yeah, thank you for that question.
This is the deepest thing in myheart.
You're asking about it beforethe podcast and I literally
started to choke up because it'ssuch a deep fire in my heart.
I am convinced that the churchwithout consecrated women is
always sick and atrophied anddrying up and curved and is
missing something essential thatwe often, in their absence,
(36:05):
don't notice is gone.
So in my own journey growing upin the seminary and before that
, I didn't really have womenreligious in my life.
I didn't see consecrated womenvery much in my archdiocese.
It just wasn't a part of thestory.
When I went to seminary, mysecond round, when I went over
to theology in Rome and I wasaround a lot of sisters, I
noticed in my heart as a man andas a man preparing for the
(36:26):
priesthood, something come tolife in me because of these
sisters and I realized I wantedto serve them.
I wanted to understand what thepriesthood is.
I wanted to bring them into thelives of my friends, my lay
friends, my brother seminarians,my brother priests, and I
realized that had not been apart of my life, my whole story.
So I've been watching thechurch in places where we don't
(36:47):
have consecrated women andnoticing without them
something's missing and I canfeel the ache and I think the
church we all know like thechurch is being renewed and is
missing something reallyimportant.
We can feel like something'soff and that the language that's
come to me lately is like thechurch without consecrated women
is like a family without amother.
It's the way one of our laysupporters put it recently when
(37:10):
you don't have a mother and afamily, everything just feels
like it's missing and thepriesthood is the father.
Right In the parish we'respiritual fathers.
You call me father for thatreason.
Ideally, please got to be agood father.
But father is father best whenthey're able to love the
children because they love theirspouse, their men in love, and
(37:31):
marriage is drawing their heartsinto the life of service and
education and rearing thatfatherhood requires.
When you take the spiritualmother out of the local church,
the idea of that becomes veryabstract and I think the church
has been living in an abstractedidea of spiritual motherhood,
of Mary, of Our Lady, for a longtime.
Even Mary, like we're talkingabout Mary before, without the
(37:53):
image of Mary, we end up with animage of Our Lady or the kind
of stuck in stone and paint.
We have icons of Our Lady inour churches, but the
consecrated woman is a livingicon and she preaches to your
question.
By her existence, by herconsecration and by the way she
ministers.
She proclaims Mary and thechurch as bride in the midst of
(38:18):
the local church.
And the local church is notgoing to understand that on her
own.
She needs to see that live inthe way that God has intended
that it would be lived, andthat's a compliment to the
Dastan priesthood and to thereligious priesthood.
Men and women consecrated are asupernatural fulfillment of men
and women, lay men and women whoare called to live together.
And so we've been lately theFriends of the Bridegroom.
(38:40):
The language we're using isrestoring the family of God.
The church is a family Marriageand family shows us that in an
imminent fashion.
The priesthood shows us that inan eschatological, we point out
the heavenly marriage.
But religious and consecratedwomen do the other half of that,
pointing out.
They show us the bride, theyshow us our lady, they do the
other half of that, pointing out.
(39:00):
They show us the bride, theyshow us our lady, they show us
the wedding feast in a feminineway.
And if you don't have thefeminine way alongside the
masculine.
That's all abstract theology.
And then we become amechanistic, functional church
and priests become functionariesand are kind of reduced to
their functionaries and dutiesand they fall out of love.
So the renewal of religious life, helping communities to heal,
(39:21):
helping them to grow, helpingfamilies to talk about vocations
again for young women, even ifthey maybe haven't seen sisters,
that's like at the baseline ofwhat Friends of the Bridegroom
is trying to do.
But through that it's also toheal the priesthood, so that
priests can be men in love withthe church and can be unafraid
of asking for help and can seean icon of the bride, an icon of
(39:43):
Mary.
So through serving religiousand consecrated women they can
understand better what it meansto serve the parish and the
church in a spousal mode whichhelps them want to be good
fathers because they're in lovewith the bride.
So it's a high leveltheoretical and theological
endeavor.
But I believe it's a renewalthat we've not seen and I think
it's tied to JP2's theology thebody.
(40:05):
It's tied to our biology andour theology and our eschatology
especially.
And if we don't take that tomind, all the best models of
renewal and all the bestprograms and the videos and the
books.
They're going to take us so far, but there's still going to be
strategies that are absentrobust theology and especially
like a horizon-oriented desireto bring heaven here and help us
(40:31):
, in the midst of the earth,long for the heaven that is
there.
Speaker 2 (40:34):
Amen, amen.
Thank you so much for beinghere, father, and telling us
about the.
I don't think I've heard itspoken how crucial it is that a
priest be in love, a priest onfire, a priest in love.
You exemplify that.
You point us in that direction.
(40:55):
I think it's Friday.
Is it Friday?
You're giving a talk, an impactsession here.
Could you give us just a quickdirection?
I think it's Friday.
Is it Friday?
You're giving a talk, an impactsession here.
Could you give us just a quickpreview?
I think it's 3.30, january 3rd,2.55, room 2.55,.
If people want to check it out,you tell us a little bit about
that talk.
Speaker 3 (41:10):
Yeah, I'm going to speak on the father because I'm
learning about the fathers, I'mtrying to be a good father and
I'm going to speak.
Bishop Muggenberg, this morningin the homily, talked about
this too, but about the factthat we listen to a lot of
voices today, the voice of theworld, the voice of the enemy,
and it's hard to hear the firstvoice, which is the voice of our
father speaking over us in thewomb, in the womb of our mothers
(41:32):
, in the womb of the church, inbaptism, and telling us what's
actually true.
And because we fail to noticethat's there as a foundation.
We listen to lots of othervoices, the voices of our peers,
our friends, even our lovedones, our enemies, and we let
those voices define us and wetake our identity from the world
, which is a confusing voice,and in that trap we're not free.
(41:53):
Jesus says the truth will setyou free.
When we don't have the truth,we're not free.
If we're not living accordingto the truth, we're bound.
So it's about the truth of theFather and what it means to come
out of the bondage of untruthand really let the Father speak
over.
So I'm going to lead a guidedmeditation into just receiving
the voice of the Father andreally try to guide a prayer
experience so that in real timewe can welcome that voice and
(42:15):
the beautiful gift of a fatherwho's been trying to speak to us
from the beginning of ourexistence.
But we've let that voice becrowded out by the distractions
and the agitations of the worldand the enemy.
Speaker 2 (42:26):
Amen.
So that's Friday, January 3rd,3.30 pm, room 255.
I hope folks will check it out.
Where can people connect withyou online?
And also the Friends of theBridegroom.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Yes, our website renewreligiousorg.
Speaker 2 (42:41):
Renewreligiousorg.
Speaker 3 (42:42):
That's where Friends of the Bridegroom is, where
we're inviting lay people andpriests, ancestors, to connect
and just do something about theneed to renew the church through
the renewal of religious lifein their communities, in their
parishes, in their families, intheir diocese.
And then I'm on Instagram, I'mon Facebook, I'm on Twitter at
Father John Burns.
I would say I'm like a passiveuser of social media.
I'm there but I don't do toomuch active posting.
(43:05):
But, yeah, find us atRenewReligiousorg, especially
Sounds great Sounds great.
Speaker 2 (43:09):
Father, thanks so much for being here.
It's been a joy and an honor.
Speaker 3 (43:12):
Yeah, ryan, everybody , it's great to be with you.
Thanks so much, blessings andjoy.
Speaker 1 (43:23):
Awesome to be with you.
Thanks so much Blessings andjoy.
Awesome Thanks, father.
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