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Episode Description
Father Jason Charron joins us to discuss the assassination attempt of former President Donald Trump, and how Catholics can come together to unify during such a moment of division. Father Charron gave a benediction at the former president’s rally and asked people to pray for President Trump’s safety just minutes before the shooting. He shares how the clarity that comes with the Gospel is needed for our leaders in our tumultuous political landscape now more than ever.
With the great showing of Angelus News at the Catholic Media Association Awards, we talk with Pablo Kay about the work of Catholic journalism and its role in spreading the light of the gospel, particularly with the Eucharistic Pilgrimage and Congress convening now in Indianapolis. Angelus News garnered 22 accolades at the recent awards event for outstanding contributions to Catholic journalism.
Father Roger Landry also brings us an inspiring homily to prepare our hearts for this Sunday’s Gospel.
Bios
Father Jason Charron has been a priest in the Ukrainian Catholic Church since 2008, and serves as Pastor of the Holy Trinity Ukrainian Church in Carnegie, PA as well as Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Wheeling, WV. He earned his Masters of Theology from the University of Ottawa and his Bachelor of Sacred Theology from St. Paul University. He also holds a B.A. in Philosophy and Religious Studies from Wadhams Hall Seminary, NY. He has worked in education for more than ten years, and is known for his pro-life advocacy, which includes current efforts to build a pro-life shrine in Pittsburgh. Father Charron lives with his wife and seven children in Carnegie, Pennsylvania.
Pablo Kay is editor-in-chief at Angelus News, a multi-platform news outlet for the largest Catholic archdiocese in the US, and serves as a board member for the Catholic Media Association. He graduated Magna Cum Laude from Manhattan College with a Bachelor of Arts in Communication. Before joining Angelus News, he coordinated weeknight news coverage for NBC San Diego and worked for KNBC TV covering breaking news in the greater Los Angeles area. His mission at Angelus is to provide the best in Catholic news and analysis of events and trends shaping the Catholic Church and the world.
Father Roger Landry is a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, Massachusetts. He writes for numerous publications, speaks on radio and TV, and is the author of the book, Plan of Life: Habits to Help You Grow Closer to God. A graduate of Harvard and the Pontifical North American College in Rome, he served as Attaché to the Holy See’s Permanent Observer Mission to the UN in New York. Father Landry just completed his historic journey along the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this month, the longest pilgrimage undertaken in the history of the Catholic Church.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 274 Transcript
| Grazie | Hello friends, and welcome to Conversations with Consequences. We are the radio show and podcast of the Catholic Association where we aim to change the culture one conversation at a time. You can listen to conversations with consequences on the EWTN Global Catholic Radio Network. We are also on Sirius XM Channel 130. Of course, our radio show is always a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association, Dawgs podcasts, or directly to wherever you listen to your podcasts. Thank you for joining us again this week on Conversations. And thank you for being our loyal listeners. It's wonderful to know that people keep coming back to listen because these conversations are having consequences, good consequences for for yourselves and all your families and all your wonderful apostolic work that you do out there in the world with the people who are close to you and not so close and sometimes far away. So thank you for being with us today. I've invited Pablo Kay. He's the editor in chief at Angelus News. He's been on the show before. He is my editor at Angelus News. And Angelus News is the magazine of the largest dioceses in the United States, which is that of Los Angeles. Los Angeles has this huge, bustling archdiocese where they speak like 60 different languages at their masses. And Angelus is a wonderful publication that I am always so happy to write for. And I do a lot of political writing where I have to be very dry and factual, and I do some cultural things that are that are sort of complicated, complicated topics that that are hard sometimes to delve into and then for Angelus, I get to write about my family. I get to write about my faith, my relationships. And recently, I even wrote a poem, and I've never written a poem before. Not really. And Pablo was kind enough to publish it. And I received a prize for poetry from the Catholic the Catholic Media Association, which had their award ceremony a couple of weeks ago. And we're going to talk to Pablo about this, because at Angelus, like every year, they received many awards. Welcome to the show, Pablo. |
| Pablo Kay | Thank you, Grace. It's great to be with you. |
| Grazie | Pablo, you and I have been working together for several years now, and it's been a a fabulous partnership for my end. I hope also from your end. But it's wonderful being a part of the Angela's project. I talk about it a lot on the show because it's one of the the happiest parts of my of my professional life is my association with Angela. You're a big part of that, obviously, being the editor. Why? Tell me to all your writers feel the same way? |
| Pablo Kay | That's a good question. And not all of them have radio shows that have me on to tell me that. But I'd like to think so. |
| Grazie | Well, I'll tell you why I feel that way, because Angela's is a place where there's real truth and honesty in the pages of Angela's and real heart as well. I think that in general, in media, there are very few places that one can be. Truly, I don't want to say be oneself, But. But. But that's I guess that's the trade phrase for it. One can be truly one can show all of one's depths, even one's spiritual depths, which I think most of us keep under wraps most of the time, whatever our whatever our professional associations are or whatever we do professionally, we keep to keep that. We tend to keep that part of ourselves under wraps. And at Angela's, that's not necessary. So that's what makes me feel wonderful about Angela. |
| Pablo Kay | Well, thank you. I think that one of the most important parts is of Christianity, of our faith is being real, Right? Is in Christianity, contrary to I think some people may live. It is not to put on put on some kind of show or some kind of facade of goodness or a way of acting around other people or writing in a certain way and not another. I think, you know, there's a certain honesty and sincerity that I see as necessary in my prayer life, but it's also necessary in how we communicate, right? And and to see, you know, where is that? The God calls us, as he call us, when we're when we're doing really great and we've accomplished things and we know the experience of every regression, or we see that God calls us in our sin, in our misery and our failures. So I, I find I've always found in my six years of this magazine that kind of sincerity, that kind of openness, refreshing. And I think that's I think our readers, I hope our readers also find it. And to be refreshing. |
| Grazie | I want to use another another horrible, trite modern term, which is safe space. And I hate I hate that term the way it's used out there. But there's something very safe about about our faith in the sense of what you were saying. Right. Like we're not people who people who who find themselves Christian. And in a Christian, in Christian circles, in Catholic circles, there's a safety there because there is there is a sense that's very deep in our bones that all of us are all of us are dysfunctional inside. All of us are are weak. All of us have feelings. And yet there's this this mercy that covers everything and that. And we're able to be honest, know with each other without having to put on airs. As you just said, there's no we don't have to put on airs with each other. We we know that we are just sons and daughters of God trying to make our way back home. |
| Pablo Kay | Right. And also, I think that reminds me of the poem you just read, right, that they've got that the second place award from the Catholic Media Association last month. Right. This elegy to a child lost for abortion, which one of the things that struck me was it it it channeled King David. Right. And King David was a savior in the Bible, in a sense, one of the most terrible sinners we find in the Bible. But yet the unjust man who who came to understand and accept the consequences of his of this is that that's refreshing. That is real. That is so I think that's that speaks speaks volumes. I think also the award you received for this and as well as the second place award you also received for your column, which I was afraid you weren't going to mention in this interview, but you deserve all the credit for. It speaks to, I think there's a there's a hunger or thirst or whatever you want to call it for for real this. And I think sometimes in Catholic media, we either get drawn into the some of the partizan political divisions or or into some of the abstract theological debates or, you know, liturgical preferences or things that that really after a while can risk becoming really silly when when the the battle we'll face as Christians, as Catholics is much more serious. |
| Grazie | And also also we're all fighting the identical battle, right? I mean, we can we can allow ourselves to fall into factions and and into our own little private our private preferences. Right. Our little preferential groups. But the fact the truth is we're all fighting the same battle and we should all be comrades in arms in that sense. And I think that that's something that Angela does. Angela, I mean, it's it's the the magazine of the of the Archdiocese of L.A., which obviously is a very diverse place with lots of different points of view, even within the Catholic community. And yet Angela is able to, I think, stay in that that that common that common faith that we all share, even with the tendencies that we have not to fall apart into little sections within within Catholicism. |
| Pablo Kay | that's exactly it. I mean, really, as the editor, I do my best and I know my editorial team does shares the same goal is to is to make a publication in a a news platform for everybody in a sense that that everybody in this and in our archdiocese and also beyond our readership is has really become more national now that everybody there's something for everybody and everybody has been here in L.A. is is runs a very wide spectrum. We are, as you say, we're a very diverse community of faith. We're the biggest archdiocese in the country, really, a diocese built by immigrants and not so more recent immigrants really, you know, just in the last hundred years for the most part. So I really think that's that's what it is to be Catholic, right, to be universal. And the Anglo Church, the church, that's the church, this mission to to to reach everybody. |
| Grazie | So tell me about some of the other writers that write for Angela as well. And you don't have to tell me tell our listeners about some of the wonderful writers that's that graced the pages of adolescence. |
| Pablo Kay | Well, I do have to give, I guess, the first ones that come to mind would be the other two columnists that you share a space with Heather King and and Greg Erlandson, who who, like you have been writing Angels for years and have become mainstays and were also honored for their regular columns, the CMA Awards and then, of course, we have exclusive Vatican coverage from from the team at Crux, led by John Allen, who was also honored and included in this year's Catholic Media Association Awards. Another one of the interesting contributors that that I was happy to see got some credit was was at least year in ethnic who who wrote a couple of really interesting essays that were that were awarded one of them was a reflection after the death of Pope Emeritus Benedict 16th on what she called the Benedict 16th generation, which I would say I feel I also belong to. Right. We were the generation that grew up going to the World Youth Days with him in in Cologne, Germany, in Sydney, Australia, in in Madrid. And it was really, really a beautiful reflection on what it meant, what Benedict meant to her. You know, there's the old saying that people used to go to see the crowds, used to go see John Paul the second, but they went to listen for Benedict the 16th. And and that certainly rang true for me as somebody who who went to all three of those World Youth Days and and also made a pilgrimage to New York in Washington when he visited the states and in 2008. And how really this humble scholar who who didn't you know, in many ways wasn't expected to do much as pope. He was elected also like Pope Francis in his late seventies. But how this man's example, his deepness, his I would say even his spirit, you know, touched our lives. And we're seeing the fruits now. You can see, at least in the United States, the kind of spike in vocations to the priesthood that that many credit to his to his outreach, to his pontificate. |
| Grazie | Is really, I feel, been Pope Benedict. He he had an answer to a question that was bugging the entire West, which was the question of relativism. And he had and he had formulated that answer before his papacy. And I think that I'm maybe I'm putting words into other people's heads, but this is what I this is what I experience about Pope Benedict that I feel was so important that there was this yawning problem that we had. Right. That which was the problem of relativism and the dictatorship of relativism that it has, as he called it. And we were experiencing that and not really understanding it for what it was. That's how I that's how I. |
| Pablo Kay | Know I, I think that's exactly right. We we needed my generation especially needed a rational answer to postmodernism. |
| Grazie | And exactly. |
| Pablo Kay | The secular culture that that and I'm reading a book about the nineties right now by by this guy named Chuck Klosterman. And he said the thing about the nineties was nobody really cared about anything. We were the internet wasn't fully developed. So whether something was true or false, well, you didn't really have Google to look it up. And but then the 2000s came around and all of a sudden we're confronted with, you know, aggressive ideologies, the dawn of the you know, national security apparatus responding to Islamic terrorism and other threats, climate change, all these things. And really, I think the timing in a sense, was providential for this kind of pope. So anyways, at least had a beautiful reflection on that. She also did a really deep but amusing but also very serious reflection on this crowd wise. |
| Grazie | Yes, that was phenomenal. |
| Pablo Kay | Yes. Which I won't I won't go into I can consider myself an expert in that field, but I was happy to see it. I was happy to see and honored. And in these words. |
| Grazie | Yes. And okay. But you were honored to Pablo as editor. And this is not the first and this is not the first time. |
| Pablo Kay | Well, I got honorable mention the editor of the year, and that's that's more than I deserve. So I'll take it. |
| Grazie | Okay. But I think it was I believe it was the fourth year of in the row, was it not? |
| Pablo Kay | It might have been. I don't know. I've to look it up. |
| Grazie | And also something else in honor, dedication to serving audiences in two languages. And I think that's very, very admirable. I mean, I'm a Hispanic, so I think that's very admirable, but it's wonderful that Angelus is also in Spanish. |
| Pablo Kay | Thank you. Thank you. |
| Grazie | Especially the church is so Hispanic, right? I keep going everywhere I go. I've been traveling a lot recently for different reasons, but every time I always go to mass every day, no matter where I am and it doesn't matter where I am, I find myself surrounded by Hispanics because that's who is going to church and in many cases across the United States. And many of them don't speak English. And it would be it would be a shame of the church, didn't make didn't throw her arms and the American church didn't throw her arms around her Hispanic sons and daughters right in the United States. But but the church is doing that. And and I think Angela is I know Angela is is a part of that. |
| Pablo Kay | Well, thank you. I think we can always do a better job. And I think one thing that has really stuck out to me in the last few months, going to a few different conferences and meetings and talking is we can't treat the church, can't treat the Latino community as a monolith. Right. And i'm seeing that right. The spanish speaking audiences in L.A. Can can differ vastly from the one in in miami, of course. Or in or in Laredo, Texas, or in Detroit, michigan. Right. They come from different countries, different levels of formation and education and literacy interests. So I think I think that's something I'd like to see in the church leadership here in the United States. I think they should take that in mind a bit more seriously. |
| Grazie | How do you. Okay. So do you see the church? Do you see the church in moving in that direction? I know that you're you're not just an editor. You're you're you're very involved in in and in the church writ large and in other ways. Do you see the church moving in that positive direction? |
| Pablo Kay | I'm not sure. Here in the United States, I think after a while, you know, there is a temptation, I think, to start just start using the same expressions and even the same ideas over and over again. But but where are they going? I asked myself that, and I don't have an answer. But, you know, we talk a lot about walking together and, you know, listening and all that's well and good. And a lot of it is inspired by the really pastoral approach that the Pope Francis encourages to evangelization. But here in the United States and I think everywhere. Right. We have to start with the good news. And the good news is in something abstract, right? The good news goes back to the fact that the that I'm a lousy sinner and and Christ has thought of me and has called me and has forgiven me and has given open me a way for to for me to come back to him. And we all God has called us all. I think in those circumstances, whether we're immigrants, whether you know, whether we've been here for forever, whether we're poor or whether we're rich. So I think, you know, when it comes to this is the language that everyone understands, that everyone can understand, whether you're Latino, whether you're. |
| Grazie | Well, you're back to your back to a universal that you Right. The universality of the church's message. There's only one message, no matter where, no matter who's listening, whose ears are listening, it's always the same message as you say. |
| Pablo Kay | Exactly. |
| Grazie | And do you think I know that from I know that tomorrow or tonight, I'm not sure when. But you're heading to the Eucharistic, the National Eucharistic Congress. That's going to be one big message for everybody who has collected there from all over the United States. What what are you looking forward to in the in the Eucharistic Congress? And what do you think is the main message? |
| Pablo Kay | I'm looking forward to see to see God alive, which is the Eucharist. Right. God, God takes our takes, takes our nature right and and becomes one with us. And what happens when that happens? Right? What are the consequences? That's what I'm really looking forward to in this revival. Because in this Congress. Right. Because as we said before, there's a hunger. There's there's a need for for God, for meaning in our lives. And this is what we're talking about Pope Benedict before. This is what he understood. And so I'm really just looking forward to listening to people to hearing their stories, especially the ones who have been on pilgrimage the last couple of months, the ones who have come from far away, the ones who have endured difficulties. No, I'm looking forward tomorrow to see a friend from rural Indiana who has been, you know, is in the seventies dealing with a lot of health issues. And just a few days ago, I found out there was a one open space. They saw a woman who canceled from health issues on a bus at a parish 30 miles away. And so he's he's driving down there on Thursday. He has no idea what the schedule or the itinerary is and if it weren't for me. But he's going and and I know that, you know, pilgrimage is important. Pilgrimage, even if it's just one day. But the act of going on pilgrimage, I think is essential. I've experienced it this year. And thankfully, you know, throughout my life, I need to get out of my my comfort, out of my I need to move and I need to move to to meet Jesus Christ. So I'm a witness that wonderful things happen when you do that. Right. I remember a homily a couple of years ago. I was in Brooklyn at a mass with Bishop Nicholas de la Torre since retired, and he was saying that, you know, back in the in the Middle Ages, Christians really had had two fundamental ways of encountering God. One of them was through art. Right? In a time when most people didn't know how to read the word of God, wasn't really available. And through pilgrimages and things were serious pilgrimages, whether you went to Santiago, Spain or to the Holy Land, it was a once in a lifetime thing. And you left. You left and you didn't know if you were coming back. |
| Grazie | And you'd be gone for months and months, for months. |
| Pablo Kay | And you would sell you would sell all of your possessions if you had to and to to make your way. It was like an eschatological act almost. And so I didn't have to do that this year. But but, you know, it does show the the seriousness and also the beauty of what it means to be a pilgrim. Right. That every pilgrimage is a reminder that we're pilgrims on this earth. We're not going to be here for long. This isn't our our destination. We're just passing through. |
| Grazie | And. |
| Pablo Kay | We're not sure. |
| Grazie | Whether or not needs to be. We're not supposed to be comfortable on the way to our goal. Right. I think there's a lot of comfort seeking in all of our lives. And going on pilgrimage reminds you that Exactly that the life, the pilgrimage of our lives is arduous. It's supposed to be arduous. |
| Pablo Kay | Exactly. Exactly. And and that and, you know, in the other thing about pilgrimages is that they they never go as planned. Things happen. Surprises happen. Detours, a bus breaks down your, you know, you sprain your ankle. You know, the bus doesn't show up. I don't know. Yeah, that's always been my experience in pilgrimages. But those are all the opportunities we get to see God appear to see that God, that God is the one guiding us that is moving us, that He appears when there seems to be no solution, that he's the one that's that's getting us to our destination. |
| Grazie | Yeah. And he's and he's in the material of our daily lives. The little obstacles, the annoyances, the unpleasant boss, the ride, everything that that happens to us. God is there, God is in the happening. And that's how. Absolutely that's the pilgrimage. Even the parts that even the parts that that that are completely go against are beautiful plans. We wake up every morning with such a wonderful plan and don't we probably. |
| Pablo Kay | Do as Yeah no one can beat my plans. |
| Grazie | Come on. And then God decides, then God sends us, sends us little obstacles so that we can grow as we climb over them. Pablo, we are. Our time is up. I, I want to thank you for being such a wonderful editor at Angelus News, and I want to recommend it to all our listeners. It's it's online. Give us the online address with your. |
| Pablo Kay | Angelus News.com and you can also. |
| Grazie | And. |
| Pablo Kay | You can also there sign up for our our free Daily News Now newsletter which actually won first place the best newsletter always forward. |
| Grazie | that's a great that's a great newsletter and it and it has and it gives you it gives you the things you need to know from a Catholic perspective, for sure. And so. |
| Pablo Kay | I encourage you all Angelus news dot com. |
| Grazie | And also the paper subscription it's a wonderful magazine I several I always leave a few copies around on my coffee table and everyone who comes to my house opens one and starts to read and it's a wonderful. |
| Pablo Kay | And you can subscribe there for 1995 a year it's we have a special offer going on right now. So take advantage of it and and if you're going to the well I don't know because the Congress may be passed, but we'll also have some some gift subscriptions available there like this. |
| Grazie | Wonderful. Pablo, thank you very much. And have a wonderful spiritual pilgrimage at the National Eucharistic Congress. |
| Pablo Kay | Thanks so much. Grazie. I really appreciate you having me on. |
| Grazie | Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christie. And joining us now for this next segment is Father Jason Charron. He's the Ukrainian Catholic pastor who gave the benediction ahead of President Trump's rally this past Saturday at which the assassination attempt happened and at which that very sad death of one of the rally attendees took place. We are happy to have Father Charron on to give us his insight, especially his spiritual insight, at this very difficult time in our nation's history when this kind of political violence is possible, things that we are not used to seeing and haven't seen in a very long time in our country. Welcome to the show, Father Jason. |
| Father Jason Charron | Glad to be here. Glory to God. |
| Grazie | Yes, and more glad, I'm sure, than ever after. After what I think everybody that was at the rally must have felt was a close call. And unfortunately, one of the rally attendees didn't make it. I'm very sad about the poor man. That must he must have died in your in your presence. I think, Father. |
| Father Jason Charron | No, I was I had moved away from there before Mr. Trump began speaking. And so I was not at the that exact spot where the man died. |
| Grazie | That must have been very shocking for everyone around him. Very sad, Father. You were put by God into a very a very important place, I think, in history. Right. And in a time in our country where division and and faction has has grown out of proportion, leading to something so ugly as an attempt was an attempted assassination and the death of of an innocent bystander. How do you feel that you were were replaced by God in that position? What part what part were you playing in this in this drama? |
| Father Jason Charron | Well, thank you for the question. I think the the part I was playing is simply being a conduit for, you know, for God's grace with your has, you know, elements in the picture. And my element was simply to be there and to say the words of invocation and ask God to send his his grace upon us. We have a foundation. And I thought that was why I was called to to be the one to give the opening benediction. And the foundation is the holy protection of the mother of God. It's devoted to promoting Mary's role as protectorates and unifier in our country. |
| Grazie | how wonderful. |
| Father Jason Charron | Yes. So that theme of protection. I didn't know it, but through the prayer that day and the work of the shrine that I'm trying to build, maybe that was, you know, God's God's God's will, that I'd be there that day, that I would remind people and Mr. Trump of the role that God plays in the affairs of men by protecting us from unseen evil forces that seek to destroy us. And not only us individually, but, you know, our nation as a whole. |
| Grazie | Can I read a part? Can I read a small section of your of your invocation that I found very moving? |
| Father Jason Charron | Yes. |
| Grazie | You said my prayer there was for the restoration of right relationships in our society, relationships at the individual level, at the familial level, at the societal level, such that our national our nation would be made great again in God's sight and our nation be made great again. I said that our world be made great again in God's sight. |
| Father Jason Charron | Amen. |
| Grazie | What this is these. These words that go straight to my heart. Because I am I mean, I'm a I'm a I'm a child of immigrants. I grew up mostly outside the United States, and I experienced the United States as a great nation. And I think many people in sadly, in the last few decades have have stopped thinking of our beautiful country in the in those ways, in that way. The shining city on the hill, which I get goosebumps when I say that phrase, and I feel that your invocation points us in that direction again. |
| Father Jason Charron | Yes. And unfortunately, it's taken the loss of a of a of a man, a man's life. And it's, you know, injured at least three people. But you know it at the same time. It took, you know, the loss of of Christ's life on on Good Friday to to really wake people up. And it only through tragedy can the, you know, the brutal exterior of of of men's hearts be broken open. And I think through the tragedy of the loss of that one man's life, that heroic man and the injury sustained by the two others and by Mr. Trump just may be the tragedy our nation needs for its its crusty, hardened heart to soften and to allow this nation to become a vehicle of of goodness in our world that is so overcome with with acrimony and and death and division, destruction. And I believe through the grace of God of this day, that our nation can be reborn as one nation under God. |
| Grazie | You mentioned the heroic action of the poor man who was killed. And I've read that he protected his daughters with his own body. And that is the kind of Christian self-sacrifice that should characterize everybody's life, correct? |
| Father Jason Charron | It absolutely is. And I tell people that they may not, you know, like President Trump, they may not want to be like President Trump. But on that day, we were all given an example at that Trump rally of a man that we all should aspire to be like. And that was that that brave, brave man who laid his life down for others, his his two daughters. |
| Grazie | I also noticed and I read that Mr. Trump, a couple of days later at the convention, he ripped up the speech that he was going to give, and he gave a speech, I think, focusing on the kinds of things that you and I are talking about. |
| Father Jason Charron | Yeah, you know, I I've been so busy. I didn't I didn't I didn't listen to the speech that he gave and but I just we need to see each other as as brothers and sisters and not as enemies. And that's that's the key thing here, is we're brothers and sisters. And unfortunately, it's taken the, you know, the loss of the life of this this young man, Cory Ratray, to to teach us that lesson. And I hope Mr. Trump can capitalize on the opportunity when he gives a speech tomorrow, Thursday, at the convention, to deliver a message of of forgiveness, of unity, of magnanimity and the role of God plays in in guiding our affairs. |
| Grazie | Father Jason, how do you think exactly that our lady can help us to to to make of our country what it what it what it promised to be since its inception. |
| Father Jason Charron | She can help us because prayer affects the one who prays. And if we are praying to Mary as protectors, we become as she was. And we acquire her attributes that of we become as a nation, as a society, more maternal. And that's what we need. Because right now, you know, the the uterus, the birth canal is a war zone. And that's not what our nation needs, is not what children need. They need a maternal nation, maternal society that is receptive to life. And the nation also, I think, needs this devotion to Mary as protectors because we're a land of vulnerable vulnerability of children who are vulnerable, and because life has become so cheapened, so disregarded that we all seek that protection. And that's the the title that has been neglected of Mary as as the protector of the Christian people. So that's how she can help us by instilling in in the hearts of this are the sons and daughters of this nation a sense of protection and maternal power? |
| Grazie | You know, I'm really glad that you draw that connection with with the the way that our country for some for so long has has had this abortion stain on it. Right. And that and that colors everything that it colors the way that that we that we treat each other. It elevates the level of violence and and and that and lack of dignity and the and the thought that if somebody if you disagree with somebody or if you think that they don't have the same political ideas as you, that you can pick up a rifle and shoot them. I mean, I think it comes straight it's very deeply tied to this lack of respect for life when when life is very vulnerable and very innocent inside the womb. Do you agree with you there? |
| Father Jason Charron | I do. I think, you know, all these people who want to stop wars, I commend them and all these people who want to stop assassination attempts, who want to stop school shootings, who want to stop, stop carjackings. All these people who want to stop violence are in the right vein, but they need to start in the womb. Violence in our society is simply the afterbirth of violence in the womb. We have cheapened human life from the very beginning. And children are growing up. This is now the third generation growing up, knowing that human life is dispensable at its most vulnerable phase, and therefore, to take a gun, to eliminate one's opponent is is is not a big is not a big stretch. So we need in fact, we must recoup that sense of the sacred and be born again as a nation of believers in God. The author of Life. |
| Grazie | I like very much how you connect also to Our Lady as Patrick Pro Protectors, because obviously that maternity of Our Lady was incapable of violating that that deep connection between her and her unborn child who happened to be the Lord. But every woman who carries a baby has that same divine connection with her child that our lady had with the Lord. Right. And to to be able to reconnect to that to that gorgeous maternity of our lady and somehow infuse it into into our culture that has been so degraded by abortion is something certainly to pray for. |
| Father Jason Charron | Yeah, well, please tell people holy protection shrine dot org and we're we're going to try and instill that that sense of love of motherly love and protection over the sons and daughters of this land. I have to go. |
| Grazie | Thank you so much, Father. It's very kind of you to join us, and I hope that our listeners will go to Holy Protection Shrine dot org and learn more about this wonderful project of yours. |
| Father Jason Charron | Thank you. God bless. |
| Grazie | Before Father Landry's homily this week, I just wanted to share the poem I wrote for Angelus. So I'm going to read this prose poem that I wrote to share with you. It's about the kind of it's about what I have learned from working with women and also men who have experienced the trauma of abortion. This is this prose poem and it goes like this. It's an old grief, a dirty drag, old bird that perches in a corner of my mind. It keeps quiet, mostly, though his silence is heavy, a brooding silence that I can almost touch. Once in a while, less often, thankfully, than before. He calls the guilt that only I can hear. I halt whatever I am doing and listen. I'm glad when the sound fades. I'm not complaining. There were years when the nasty beast sat on my shoulder, peering painfully at the doings of my life. I would feed him bits of myself, the bits that seemed to belong to him by rights. It was wrong of me to do this. I know it now, although I certainly knew it then. How did I read the word Mercy written on countless pages and in many languages? Hadn't I known since childhood of the forgiving flood that poured over the world? First on the torture rack of Golgotha above the city, and ever since ceaselessly repeating on sacrificial altars everywhere I went, seeking mercy us and sounded out the litany soothed by their insistent rhythms. I assented eerily and hopefully, I believe, help my unbelief in curtained tiny alcoves. I knelt, waiting for the bath of grace. It flowed through the pierced veils from dimly seen lips warm with the breath of men, ill taps over. But my dingy feathered tormentor waited just outside the sanctuary, crying, knowing my hope would wilt in the hot sun. What did he cry in his cracked, evil voice? But the simple truth the young girl gifted with a staunch faith, had grown up to disappoint. Her wings, failed her in her first awkward sally into a degraded world. She who should have flown sank instead. Nothing very strange here, you say. This is the self-same story of every human soul. Only one daughter of Eve walked with clean, pure feet on the earth. Only one woman had nothing to shake off her souls when she took wing. But that seedy crow in the corner speaks of the darkest things. There's something blacker in its wings than the anchor space. Gloomier than the moldy coat of a Dickensian undertaker. The prophet reviled King David. But what is it? To Myson, the theft of a poor man's only sheep. Davidson For beauty at least. And the life he took was only that of a comrade in arms. Not that of his own hidden child. My prophet Bird croaks, accusing of pointless, shallow sins born of enemy. There was no overpowering burst, no pulsing love that ravished me into wickedness. I sold a high birthright for a mess of porridge, sticky and insipid at that. I'm not alone. I know. Beside me, March, legions of men and women. I hear their own dark crows sometimes cawing in the space behind their eyes, in cocktail parties or earnestly and sadly on the internet. The world goes on its brutal way, saying that we hear that what we hear is nothing but the clanging chains of scrupulous city, the iron drag of dust to traditions. The world is wrong. We of the black birds know it. For years now, I've failed to chase my tormentor away from the shadowy places in which he lurks. But lately, I've had grace borne glimmers of an entirely different hope. I'm starting to think that I am meant to keep him close and that the splendid one has a plan for both of us. I'm beginning to believe. I really believe that he means to turn my dark profit into a glorious thing. A shining singer of songs of joy, not the messenger of doom, but the herald of my transformed self. Sorrowing, yes, but willing to think myself worthy of the promises of Christ. Willing to be bathed by him, made clean anew. Lord, help me. Let you. Let me. Let you. And now, Father Roger Landry offers us, as is customary, a short and inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday's gospel. |
| Fr. Landry | This is Father Roger Landry, and it's a joy for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation there is Lord Jesus wants to have with each of us this Sunday. And he's going to say to us, as he said to the first apostles, come away by yourselves, to a deserted place and rest a while. I'm recording this in Indianapolis, where I'm participating in the National Eucharistic Congress, the first in 83 years with a population of 924,000, buttressed by the 50,000 Catholics from across the United States who have come here for the Congress. Indianapolis is far from a deserted place, but the same Jesus summoned the apostles away from their work, their ordinary lives, their hangouts, and at least many of their friends. Has some of us here to be with him present for us in the Blessed Sacrament. In fact, Jesus regularly summons us to come to be with Him, to find a rest in and with him to refresh and remake us as he yokes ourselves to himself. He seeks to do this each Sunday. Indeed, each day at Mass. He seeks to do this in the heart tired conversation. Apart from the daily hustle and bustle we call prayer, and especially in the summit, a personal prayer, that Eucharistic adoration. So I'd urge you to enter the gospel scene this Sunday with these Eucharistic lenses. Jesus continues to actualize what He did in this Sunday's Gospel, trying us from the Eucharist to be with him, to be restored by him so that he can send us out to help others find in him what we do. So let's return to the scene After the hard work the Apostles missionary journeys. Jesus could see they were tired. As Saint Mark tells us, people were coming and going in such great numbers that they didn't have the opportunity even to eat. So Jesus brought them off with him in a boat to a deserted place. We know that the rhythm of human life involves not just work, but rest. Just as God in the Genesis account rested on the seventh day, so dressed as essential not just to recharge, but to refocus with God in the meaning of what we've done and are doing on the gift of our life and how we're going to invest it. Jesus took the apostles away not just to give the Apostles a break, but to review with them all that they had experienced on their apostolic journeys in a similar way. Jesus regularly seeks in different ways to draw us away from the daily grind, from the sometimes frenetic pace of human life, from television and gadget screens, so that he might similarly refresh us, helping us to review with the grace of his light what we have been experiencing the various aspects of our life. It's an opportunity for him to help us press the reset button on our existence, to strengthen us in whatever struggles we face, to move us to thank God the Father for his blessing, to help us to see things more clearly and to reprioritize according to what's truly important. Over the course of the last two months, as I've served as the chaplain of the Eastern or Seton Room to the national Eucharistic pilgrimage, which my young pilgrims and I had the privilege to carry Jews from New Haven, Connecticut, here to Indianapolis. We often had many different powerful events each day, huge masses, long Eucharistic processions, preaching several times a day or giving witness to crowds in schools, holy hours and long periods of adoration in churches. And even when we had to drive lengthy distances in our specially outfitted pilgrimage van, which was a mobile adoration chapel. The whole thing was rather exhausting, and some days we too found it difficult to have time even to eat. Over the course of our journey, we needed to slow down a few times, four days of recollection, to process things with the Lord Jesus, to appreciate what He had been doing in and through us. And to experience the revival he was seeking to give us and through us spark in the whole church. Jesus seeks to give us that renewal first each day in daily prayer. He wants us to come away with him to the state of the desert without distractions to converse with him. The sun is an opportunity for us to speak to Jesus honestly about how faithful and grateful we are in responding to that daily summons to reprioritize or resist it. Jesus also seeks to give us a new start. Every Christian Sabbath, every Sunday, in which out of love the church even makes this invitation a command. When the Lord gave the third commandment, He told us the reason why something that at first might seem like a non-sequitur. Remember that you were once slaves in the land of Egypt. This is why the Lord, your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day. If we're not keeping the Sabbath. In other words, we're becoming slaves again. Slaves to work or would work and help us to obtain slaves to the errands we try to get done on the weekends. Slaves to entertainment, to sports or other activities. Jesus wants us to come away with him on Sunday so that He can renew us and help us properly put God at the center of a weak time and life. He wants us filled with His love to use the Sabbath to love God back and to love those He has made our neighbors, most especially family members and friends. If we desire to remain spiritually fit and serene on the pilgrimage of life, how important it is for us truly to live Sunday as a day of the Lord. But the church has often used these words of Jesus. Come away by yourselves to a place in rest a while to highlight the importance of taking extended time away with the Lord for him to refresh, particularly with monthly days of recollection, an annual retreat a day recollection is at least a period of a few hours, but depending upon the circumstance and availability can extend to a half or full day. Consecutive prayer normally in the presence or around the Eucharistic Lord Jesus can be done at any time of the week. Some are able to dedicate one night a month. Others will convert time on a given Saturday or Sunday. Many priests whose night and weekend to the fullest parts of their pastoral schedules make time on a weekday afternoon. There are organized days recollection of retreat centers are by various ecclesiastical movements in parishes and shrines. But someone with self-discipline can also freely do one on one's own. A day recollection is a regularly scheduled time, normally once a month, to go more deeply with the Lord Jesus into our relationship with Him to review the larger trends of our life, to get His light for the various decisions we need to make, and to ask his help for the situations in our life that are weighing on us and to make resolutions to depend on him more. That's what my fellow pilgrims and I were doing every few weeks along our Eucharistic journey, an annual retreat as more extended time of prayer together, a new with the risen Lord in the Holy Eucharist in which we're able and God's presence in ordinarily with help of retreat director offering various meditations or one on one guidance to give God our full attention for a lengthier period of time. So that in addition to all the fruits of a day, I recollection we can review with him the previous year and receive his light and encouragement to make resolutions for the upcoming one. Traditionally, most retreats last about a week, which depending upon the format, can be 5 to 8 days. For those for whom that would be too difficult, it's possible to do one from Friday night through Sunday. For those with more time, and especially for those making or waiting big transitions, they can make a retreat of 30 days or even like Jesus 40. Retreats are normally done in retreat centers away from daily distractions, but they can also be done in parish churches as some new movements in the church are doing effectively. The key is to respond to the Lord's summons and make the time each month for a direct election in each year for a retreat. Many people are phobic of that much silent time alone with the Eucharistic lord. We say our lives are too complicated and busy. We nevertheless, however, find time miraculously each month for dinner engagements, our favorite television programs, or going to a child or grandchild's baseball games or plays. Somehow most of us also find time each year to spend various weekends, whole weeks or even longer for various forms of vacation. There's nothing wrong, of course, with any of those activities, but they show that we do have more time that we could respond to Jesus invitation than many of us admit. Retreats and days of recollection can therefore be a practical test of how we're genuinely prioritizing God, the things of God and the good of our soul. Even the busier busiest of us have some time, but we often spend it on less important things than God. We may have to arrange a babysitter for our kids, a caregiver for our elderly parents, a dog or a cat sitter for our pets. But if we're able to do it for other activities, we can do it too, for God. And it's so worth it. Several years ago, Pope Francis spoke about the fruits that come from recollections and retreats in the hope that more the faithful would take advantage. The person who goes away with the Lord in this way, he said, experiences the attraction, the fascination of God, and returns renewed, transfigured to ordinary life, to service, to daily relations, bearing within him the perfume of Christ. Holy Father added, The men and women of today need to encounter God. Retreats offer space and time for intense listening to His Word in silence and in prayer, and contribute to renewing one who participates in them in unconditional adherence to Christ, helping him to understand that prayer is the irreplaceable means of Union with Jesus crucified Summer, when most of us have some time off, is often a very good time to make an annual retreat. As we prepare for mass this Sunday, let's get ready to hear Jesus from Peter's boat. Say, come away by yourselves to a deserted place and rest a while, and to be prepared to respond generously and faithfully each day in daily prayer and daily mass. Impossible. Each week in a holy hour of Eucharistic adoration each Sunday by keeping holy the Sabbath and with Jesus help each month with a recollection in each year with a retreat. Those who take Jesus up on this personal invitation, like the Apostles, will never regret it. And Jesus renews that invitation this Sunday to us from the altar. God bless you. |
| Grazie | Thank you so much, Father Landry. To hear more of Father Landry's homily, please visit Catholic preaching income and to follow him on the Eucharistic pilgrimage route dedicated to Saint Elizabeth Seton, please visit Seton Pilgrimage School. And with that, relieve you for our prayers for a wonderful. Week for you and your families. |