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Episode Description
Cookbook author and writer Betsy Fentress joins to discuss hospitality and friendship, exploring how the art of cooking and the craft of conversation prepares the way for the rich experiences of Christ-filled camaraderie. Offering advice on hosting and cooking, she presents our own “attempts at sanctified eating as a mirror of Christ’s Eucharistic gift”.
We also discuss the art of evangelization on college campuses with FOCUS missionary Anthony Cirillo. FOCUS’ mission is to share the gospel of Jesus Christ on college and university campuses and is active on more than 200 campuses across the United States, with a growing international presence abroad.
Father Roger Landry also joins with an inspiring homily to prepare us for this Sunday’s Gospel.
Bios
Betsy Fentress is a professional writer and editor, and co-author of three specialty cookbooks. Betsy earned her Bachelor’s Degree from the University of Missouri School of Journalism and studied in the graduate English program at Louisiana State University. She is a council member of the Archdiocese of St. Louis Annual Catholic Appeal, and has served as a mentor for the Hatchery Program at the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University. Betsy also tutors after-school programs in University City, Missouri, where she resides with her husband Sam. They share six grown children. She and her husband enjoy dabbling in art collecting.
Anthony Cirillo serves on the Philanthropy Engagement team for FOCUS, a missional organization that reaches out to middle school and high school aged students to help them find biblically based answers to the big questions of life and form relationships with Jesus Christ through the Catholic Church. He is the senior recruitment manager at the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, and previously served as Team Director for FOCUS Catholic. He earned his Bachelor’s in Psychology from Xavier University. Mr. Cirillo lives with his wife and family in Cincinnati.
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 recently completed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this summer during his 25th year in the priesthood, and recently became the National Director of the Pontifical Missions Societies in the US.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 282 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 Saturday mornings at 7 a.m. Eastern, or catch the encore at 5 p.m.. 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 podcast. TIME Your host is Dr. Gracie Christie today. Helping me as co-host is Ashley McGuire. Welcome, Ashley. Gracie So good to have you on. And we have a wonderful guest, a personal friend of mine whose acquaintance I'm deepening in a beautiful way because she gave a speech at the fall conference of the Nicholas Center for Ethics and Culture in 2019 that I wasn't at. But I received I received the the text of it, and we just had to have her on because it was it was absolutely wonderful. And I thought that our our listeners really like it. And her name is Betsy Fentress. She is a writer at large and a and author of two cookbooks, I believe. And you're you're correct me, Betsy, if I'm wrong, but we welcome you to the show. Her name is Betsy Fentress. Welcome to the show. |
| Betsy Fentress | Thank you so much. Actually, three cookbooks. |
| Grazie | okay. Well, tell give us the names of your cookbooks. |
| Betsy Fentress | The Bryant family Vineyard cookbook and a book devoted to pecans and a book devoted to almonds. Their history, recipes, culture on almonds and on pecans. |
| Grazie | wonderful. Betsy, I have to confess, I'm no cook. |
| Betsy Fentress | And that's okay. We're going to talk about that today. |
| Grazie | I'm no cook, but we are going to talk about friendship and hospitality around the table. And you gave a beautiful talk, as I mentioned, called the Supper Discourses for Table as a nexus of friendship. And so tell us your thoughts that I know that you've been gestating them for a long time as a cook, as a as a as as a hostess of many wonderful dinners and occasions for fellowship around the table. And tell us your thoughts about the supper discourses. |
| Betsy Fentress | Well, I come on the 10th of 11 children. And so the the table was really the center of my family life growing up. And even though I was six when my first oldest sister went to college, that was really the way I got to be close to each of those siblings who were much older than I was because they inevitably came home for Christmas or Easter or Thanksgiving. And I my job was always to set the table as a kid, which I still love to do. And when my my mother Ray, and we all got together, I realized that I really wanted that didn't necessarily have tremendous monetary value. Not that, you know, there was some of the things like that, but I really wanted the table because it represented to me what family life is all about. |
| Grazie | But connect that for us, Betsy, as you're doing your talk to to the supper, the Last Supper, the supper discourse is. |
| Betsy Fentress | Well, I had a study Bible and the the phrase supper discourses really jumped out at me. I had never heard it before. And so I started reading about that. And for as many times as I heard the Gospel of John over the years, I didn't really connect to chapters 14 to 17 or just really the the heart of the message that Christ wants to leave with the apostles. I mean, not only is it the Last Supper where he institutes the Eucharist, but he just talks to the apostles as friends and he says, I call you friends. I know. And that just really, really jumped out at me. And I thought, this is this is what I like to do. And my mother died. I wanted to thank a lot of women who have been really great to me in that very short period of time. But when she got sick and and when she died of lung cancer. And so the only thing I could really think of to do is have a dinner party and it was just really, really magical to gather all these people who had helped me around my table. And so since that time, I have done something somewhat similar when I'm at the age where my my friends parents, you know, are dying and right after they die, I call and say, I want to have you over. And a lot of times people stay away from people who have experienced death. I think, well, we they need time to heal. They need time to be alone. And and there are people like that. But what I have found is that people love it. And I usually gather some other people that they know. And what I did recently was I had everybody go around the table and tell a funny story about their mother. So it sort of allows the person who's grieving to not shove that aside, but to really engage the memory of their their parent in in the in the fun and respectful way. But it sort of breaks the ice. |
| Ashley | Betsy, you I resonated or your your story about the table resonated with me in a not sentimental of a way my own sort of table story, but just the kind of irreplaceable nature of a of a dining room table in a family home. I recently, a couple of years ago, bought our first house with my family and we were moving from an apartment. So we had very little furniture. And the house that we bought had this beautiful pine table that I could tell was handmade, and I became obsessed with wanting to buy the table because it was as if the table was made for the room. And interestingly, the home, the prior owners of the home, he was a chef. And and so I just I kind of it was almost like the table had an energy like so many wonderful meals were served around that table. And as a mom of five kids, I just knew that that was like the most important thing that I had to lock in was to have this table because it was going to be the place where, you know, so many of our memories were served and we just did a renovation. And I insisted that they do the renovation around the table because it's just such a central part of a home in a family. In your in your speech at Notre Dame, you tell a story that really embodies the what I took away as the thesis of your piece about the way that the meal transformed like brings us you know, from the low into the into the divine. But you tell a fun story. Can you recount it for our listeners about when one of your children I think, came home from college with some friends and how how a simple meal converted the energy of everything. |
| Betsy Fentress | Sure. Our oldest daughter was on Fulbright, didn't really know a lot of people, but had befriended two musicians and they had nowhere to go. And so it's about 6 hours from here. And so she came home, had a ride, but they asked her if they could come on the Greyhound redeye. So they showed up at like 11:00 in the morning and they hadn't really had any sleep. They actually hadn't had any food. So I ran to the store when I found this out and and made a big grazing board for for lunch. And so then we had to repeat the same thing at dinner. And so in the course of the conversation, we were course talking about music, and I was talking about how when I grew up there were just a couple of radio stations. Everybody knew the same songs and life is different now. And and so somehow National Public Radio came up and the and the Prairie Home Companion, and so Ben, who is a violinist, said, yeah, you know, he's a nice guy. And I said, Who's a nice guy? And he said, Well, Garrison Keillor. And I said, Well, how do you know him? And he said, Well, actually I was on the show and I said, Why were you doing so well? I'm I'm the Wisconsin state fiddle champion. So I, I pulled my husband into the kitchen and I said, You need to go down to the carriage house and you need to borrow a violin. And he looked at me like I was crazy. And there was a guy down the street who who used to repair the very high end cellos and violins, you know, and people would come, That's a symphony here about things often. And so I called and he said, yes, he would lend one. My husband went on. And so when Sam, my husband walked back in to the dining room, I said, Then you will play for your supper. And the whole evening ended in our living room. And his buddy Mike, we had a guitar, he played guitar and we just had this impromptu, delightful concert where you and I are both professional musicians now. But, you know, that wouldn't have happened if we all hadn't been sitting around eating and and talking. |
| Grazie | So you're talking about something that's a very beautiful virtue, which is the virtue of hospitality, Right? |
| Betsy Fentress | Betsy told us. |
| Grazie | Tell us how you feel about that virtue. What does hospitality do, especially when it's centered around the table and eating, eating together? What does that all mean? |
| Betsy Fentress | Well, in the tone that you referred to, it sort of came together because I was just wanting to explore sort of the philosophical underpinnings of friendship. And of course, Aristotle is is sort of the the premier on that and writer. And he talks about three levels of friendship, utility, pleasure and virtue. And that really resonated with the different types of meals that you can have with people. And for him, the highest level of friendship is the virtuous one, which means that you will the good of another. And so I started thinking about that and how feeling somebody at your table and opening up your home and you know it can happen in a restaurant absolutely is a way to really love someone to nourish their their body initially. And Mother Theresa used to talk a lot about that is before you can really talk to anybody about God or what you first have to feed them, you have to meet their basic needs. And even though probably the people listening here don't have those basic needs, not that there's a lot of lonely people out there who it's around the table that you can sometimes make them feel loved. |
| Ashley | Betsy, you're alluding to what was going to be my next question, which is we live in this sort of weird paradox where our culture is food obsessed. I mean, just everything is about food. I feel like whenever I read a travel magazine, it's just about food, food, food, meal. Camille To meal to meal and, you know, to to a degree where it's I feel like it's become gluttonous. And yet we also have this crisis of loneliness. Where did we where did things go astray such that food has become so seemingly disconnected from the, you know, the serving, the higher purpose of connecting people? |
| Betsy Fentress | It's a really great question. And I thought about it a lot because in the course of my first cookbook, which was for a very high end winery, I got to eat in some of the best restaurants in the United States, and I really loved it. But part of the problem was that at the end of the day, sometimes all the discussion revolved around the dishes and that is not really. And my my coauthor was not like that at all. She had all the same vision that I did about food. And as a matter of fact, the purpose of that cookbook was to help the Bowery Mission in New York City. So I think that people photographing their meals has a lot to do with it, and I really kind of recoil from that. I don't do it myself, but it's it's a great question. I don't think I have a single answer to it, but I just think, you know, food has become a real consumer culture kind of thing to do. I saw an article in the Financial Times of London a couple of days ago, and it's on scruffy hospitality, and it was coined by an Anglican minister and it was about encouraging people to not be obsessed with perfection, because then you'll never have people over. And I really think that that's the hospitality that I want to encourage. Your house might not be perfect to, you know, you may have to order in food even sometimes, but we have a loneliness epidemic. And I think delivering food to your door maybe during the pandemic was a good idea, but I don't really think it's a very good idea as a long term practice. |
| Grazie | I really I so sympathize with you. I have a friend. She and her husband give the most amazing dinners. They're both extremely delicate cooks and very careful with the details. And it's like going to a restaurant, but it takes them like six months to to get that going and to plan it. And they put so much effort into it and it's so consuming. And I'm always telling them, invite us over and we'll order pizza because what we want to do is be with you and have that moment that you describe so beautifully in your in your speech where you're you've been invited. Right? You're you're receiving hospitality. You feel loved, You your stomach is full. You've had the pizza was neither here nor there. It's just it was it was delicious because it's Papa John's or whatever you like. And then you have that magical moment where you are amongst friends. And I think that that must be what heaven is like. And you alluded to this in your piece, that that moment where everything feels joyful and you know that you're loved and that you're loving the people across the table from you and that what you say matters. And they're listening with their with the ears of their hearts. Right. And you're listening to them that same way. And that isn't that heaven? That must be what heaven is like. And I think that for for in the supper discourses, it was that time after dinner, right when he had Jesus had fed his disciples, his apostles, and he then spoke to them and there and there and the ears of their hearts were opened. |
| Betsy Fentress | But yes, the really, really good point, and I wholeheartedly agree with you, there's a lot of people that are nervous to entertain other people because they might not have the, you know, the right place settings or they don't think that's a very good cook. And I, I never care. I don't ever judge what somebody serves me. I love getting out of my house. I love being somewhere new. And I think that but listening is a really important part of the conversation. And I do try as a hostess, if I see the point sells or someone person is dominating, maybe not necessarily, but I, I do intervene and I bring the table back to an all table discussion. I ask questions or or I do kind of like what you said we're doing right now. Tell me about this thing or you told me the story the other day. Can you tell it again in front of these people? And you people love to be asked about themselves and and feel heard and listened to. And I think that's as much what the table is about, about as anything else. |
| Ashley | Following up on that, you know, what would you say to our a lot of our listeners are women and you know, I think women have a special gift for hospitality. And, you know, I feel like nine times out of ten, if there's going to be a gathering in a home, it's it's initiated by women and we typically I know there's exceptions to the norm. In fact, in my husband's family, a lot of a lot of the families, the men are the ones that cook. But, you know, for listeners who are maybe wanting to do more hosting but feel a little bit intimidated, especially, again, going back to this idea that our culture is kind of gone a little overboard on food and everything's just, you know, I don't know, sort of lopsided in the direction of over complications with food. What would be some kind of basic tips you would give to people who are wanting to do more hosting for what you found has contributed to an overall successful get together? |
| Betsy Fentress | I would say. COOK Would you love not would you think other people want and tell them ahead of time? And if they have any kind of, you know, issues with wheat or, you know, allergies and don't apologize, I think that's really important. Just don't explain. Just have them over and say this is this is what I'm doing. And, you know, I, I don't make appetizers very often. I just don't I have cheese and crackers and nuts and Trader Joe's and just make it easy on yourself. I've started serving gelato because sometimes you just don't feel like cooking dessert. I don't eat as much dessert because my kids are all they've all flown the coop. And I would just say, dial it down, down, down and think I gave this a version of this talk to a group of seminarians, because I really think that hospitality is the way to bring a lot of people back into the church. And so we talked about there's a book called The Art of Gathering that I pulled some excerpts from it, and it's like, what is think about? What's the purpose of your gathering? Is is it to connect women who maybe have a special needs child that don't know each other? Is it to connect to men who are both like art? Is it to connect to couples that actually, you know, are from the Midwest and you live on the East Coast, just maybe have a little teeny tiny, you know, T Lo's to your to your gathering and and then think about that through the evening like, well, I didn't get her to talk to him yet. Let's sit next to each other or let's go into the living room and have an after dinner drink or, you know, chocolate or whatever, and and make sure that some of the goals that you had, you can kind of sneak in there before the evening ends. |
| Ashley | I love that. And I was going to ask you as a follow up, you know, you have this show where you say a table laid for dinner sets the stage for this, a foretaste of eternity. And I, I love the idea that hospitality is a way to bring people back into the church. Can you connect or explain a little bit more this connection that you draw throughout your your speech about the connection between Earth and the heavenly meal and how the meal on Earth points us to the eternal? |
| Betsy Fentress | Well, you know, we talk that we do. There is a phrase, you know, the heavenly banquet that we all talk about, you know, sharing all day. And I think it's really just that Eucharist means Thanksgiving and that the first purpose of being around the table with friends is to be thankful for them. And that the mass is really the perfect expression of that. I also just wanted to say a little bit about putting people together that that might not ever get together on their own. And my brother in law owned a very famous restaurant in San Francisco and had a lot of politicians that went to it. And so he knew I think he knew every mayor. And there were some mayors that really I mean, they were bitter enemies. So one time he had them over, multiple mayors over. And my sister said that they got along famously and, you know, in print and in public, they they would just never have gotten together. And and they turned to him at the end and they said he was the only person who could pull this off. And I think that that we live in a world of media that we really have a lot of animus toward people on paper. And when you meet someone in the flesh and you you share something with them, I think that that that can fall away and that really Babette's feast, that's what that meal is about. They're bickering terribly and gossiping about each other before the meal begins. And at the end of the meal, they they're just forgiving each other. And I think that's a really important part of hospitality. |
| Grazie | I'm glad you brought up about this because you go into it in detail in your in your speech. That's one of my favorite books and movies. And it's a kind of thing that you watch or you read, and then you have to reflect on it and maybe do it again, right. Because it's about a perfect feast and and the transformative aspects of it. Tell us, you mentioned in your in your in your speech that the transformative power of food and how that's different from the Eucharist, but also somewhat the same. Can you explain that? |
| Betsy Fentress | Well, I mean, you know, like I said on that, we're trying to nourish our bodies in the dinner party, like literally. And so in that way, it is different than the Eucharist. The Eucharist, you know, you're not going to although there have been some saints who seem to survive solely on the Eucharist, which is wonderful and miraculous. But, you know, we're talking about nourishing people with with food that, you know, manner I mean, everlasting life giving food and it's I just don't really know how you explain that to somebody who doesn't believe in the real presence. But if you do and you you think about your table and you light like the candles and you you set it. And if you go to mass and you watch what happens, you know, at the consecration and then before the consecration and how it's a you know, it's all laid out perfectly and it's done the same way every time. And and I think ritual is just a really important should be important part of our lives. |
| Ashley | Betsy, we're almost out of time, but I have a lightning round question for you. What is your favorite restaurant that you've eaten at? And I'm sure you've eaten at some of the best. |
| Betsy Fentress | Probably probably Gramercy Tavern in New York. |
| Ashley | One of my favorite meals was there, too. |
| Grazie | Well, I'm feeling very envious. I have never been. I have to get myself over there. |
| Betsy Fentress | Are the restaurateur is from Saint Louis and, you know, so I have sort of an affection for his his restaurants in New York. But I just think that he wrote a book called Setting the Table, and it it's a book about training all of the people who work for him to understand what hospitality means. |
| Grazie | You know, I'd say I'm so inspired, I don't know that I'm going to learn to cook because I'm older now, and that's probably the ship has sailed. But I do feel very strongly that in our in our life, the only thing we really ought to be worried about all day long is making it to heaven and bringing as many people as we can out there with us. Right. And it seems to me the way that you explain the hospitality of the table, the that time, that magical time after our stomachs are full and friendship flows and mercy and forgiveness gathers amongst the people who got together and were received into someone's home. That's just so inspiring as as a source of real apostolate, right? Like real reception of other people's souls and and saying, well, you know, we're all in this together and and let's get there together. Like, why we're not on this road alone. Right. |
| Betsy Fentress | But I'll tell you one other quick story. I have a very good priest friend who had a bunch of kids who came to his parish on Sunday nights for for catechism. You know, they didn't go to his school, so he fired up the grill and he started making hotdogs on Sunday nights and giving them a hotdog as they left and started talking to the families. And the next fall, he had 40 new kids in his school. |
| Grazie | that reminds me of that reminds me of the college of my children who've gone to college. The first thing they do is they start going to the spaghetti dinners they have at the Newman Centers because they're desperate for good food. |
| Betsy Fentress | But, you know, that's hospitality, you know, on the fly. But it was I'm going to feed you and I'm going to tell you why. You know, we really want you here and we want you to be part of our not only our parents community, but our school community. And they felt invited and loved, accepted the invitation. And that's what I think hospitality is. |
| Grazie | Well, thank you so much, Betsy. I think we're all taking a lot away from this food as love, hospitality, as grace. And and always, always the friendship that brings us together around around the table. So thank you, Betsy. |
| Betsy Fentress | Thank you for having me. And I hope the three of us can share a meal around a table soon. |
| Grazie | Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host is Dr. Gracie Christie, and we're delighted to have with us a focus missionary, Anthony Cirillo. She's at the University of Cincinnati working with some wonderful Catholic students there. Welcome to the show, Anthony. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Thanks for having me, Dr.. |
| Grazie | Maybe a lot of our listeners know what focus is, but maybe some don't. So can you explain to us what focuses? |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, absolutely. So Focus stands for the Fellowship of Catholic University Students, and I'm a full time Catholic missionary to college students, and I serve on one campus at the University of Cincinnati. And we actually serve over 160 campuses around the US and a few in Europe. |
| Grazie | So 160, a little. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Bit more than. |
| Grazie | That. Now you say your mission, do you wear a robe or do you look like everyone else? |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, I just wear rags. You know, I look very much like everybody else. I'm actually married. I have three children. I'm 28 years old. I'm just a layperson fully on mission for these students. I'm a little bit older for our missionaries at this point because I've been doing this for four, seven years. But it's very huge blessing and it's been an amazing way that the Lord used me and worked in my life as well. |
| Grazie | So this is a tremendous commitment for a young married man with three children. |
| Anthony Cirillo | It sure is, Yeah. But we eased our way in. I started off not married and got married my time as a missionary, and we started our family on mission. And it's not what I would have sketched out, but boy, the Lord has provided and he's really used our vocation as well and leverage that in the mission on campus. So better than I could have ever imagined. |
| Grazie | Wow. You know your life that the way that you're living it must be such a testament to the students that you evangelize. |
| Anthony Cirillo | I certainly hope so. My wife as well. It's a joy, you know, to be able to to bring in college students into our home. They get to see me, you know, to see the bread and butter things that we do. Our we mentor students, we lead Bible studies. We meet students where they're on campus. When I have Bible study, you know, it's so often over at my home, in my living room, usually, you know, one of them for the past couple of years is right after I put my kids to bed, I kind of roll out and roll out to put my kids to bed and come downstairs. And usually there's a group of guys there on a Thursday night ready to read the Bible and pray together. |
| Grazie | What kind of hunger do you feel on campus amongst young people for God? |
| Anthony Cirillo | I think there's a hunger for for something true, for something that matters. I think there is. I think everyone has that hunger for God in some way, but we try to fill it in many other ways, especially into the college campus. You know, there's just, you know, many different stereotypes, you know, things that we try to fill that that God sized hole with, you know, we're hungry for for that living water. The Jesus talks about in John chapter four. But a lot of the students, you know, might be filling it with something else, whether that's alcohol, drugs, sex or even just like an addiction to success. But it is I think it is all pointing to wanting something more, wanting something that that's going to persist forever, that's going to matter. Desire for for intimate relationships. And you see that the desire for intimacy can get skewed, can draw people to do things that are not good or twisted. |
| Grazie | What about a desire for things that are wholesome and pure in a world that doesn't doesn't give us, doesn't reflect that back to us? |
| Anthony Cirillo | I think that is a desire deep down what I've found on campus with many people we'll talk about, say, relationships, because when you see those words, I think about like dating relationships, for instance. And I think there is the desire for for young people to have this. Yeah, that is wholesome, pure, true love. In pursuit of that, they might be settling for less, whether that's a hookup culture that's settling for, you know, that boyfriend or girlfriend, that they just think, you know, maybe they'll just change or I can change them. And, you know, they think all these different concessions. But I think deep down there is that a desire for something good, true beautiful, which is comes from our Creator, from God. And I think, you know, from my vocation searing as a married missionary, not that we are by no means a perfect family. No, but to show the students a little bit of our vocation, whether it's inviting them over for dinner or later tonight, I have people over to pray the rosary. We used to like a rosary, like a meditation on Tuesday nights. Now they get to, you know, come into our messy house, which we try to clean up. But, you know, with three small children, we don't maybe don't get everything picked up. We invite them into that. And, you know, my wife will pray the rosary with us and so they can kind of see, wow, this is a these are, you know, some 28 year olds who have kids and are praying the rosary with college students and sharing life with college students so we can kind of show them. I think sometimes like it is possible to be in a faithful marriage with children. That can be stressful, it can be hard, but it's really, really beautiful. |
| Grazie | So that's a great testament, a great witness that you give to young people to invite them into your home and see a young marriage and a young united marriage, a marriage united around God. And when so many young people, as we know, come from broken homes, they've never had that model to aspire to. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, certainly. I mean, we've we've just seen it. And even just other missionaries, you know, we've had at a time a couple of years ago, and she became my teammate right after we got married. And I remember she asked my wife at a dinner early in the year, you know, we've been married only a few months, She said. She's like, How are you guys married? And I'm over here in this. And I was like, like I know I married up. I felt like, that really stung. And and what actually the back story to that was, was she had come from a, you know, a tough, tough home environment where where there was the marriage ended, you know, there was a divorce. And so she wasn't asking how did this guy get married, this gorgeous, amazing woman so much as it was, How are you actually living this vocation? I don't think possible. And I do remember thanks be to God, you know, two years later. And this is a teammate who, you know, we spent a lot of time with together. She was there when our oldest was born, just in the hospital back in those pre-COVID days where you could have a bunch of people. But I remember my teammate, you know, at the end of her time, and we were a team together for two years. She remarked that, you know, now that she saw that location as possible and the location of marriage is possible and attractive and now I think she only got married. Yeah, but she's engaged and it's just like, wow. Like, we got to play a little bit of a role there that the Lord used us. We didn't we didn't sketch it out like, we're going to make sure we invest in her and she'll have this, you know, conversion or something necessarily, but we're just going to love her and invite her into our home life. And then the Lord did the heavy lifting. So that was awesome. |
| Grazie | I remember being a college student and I remember being very lonely sometimes, and my own children who've gone to college or are in college now talk about their loneliness. How big a factor do you think loneliness is in college students lives? |
| Anthony Cirillo | I think it's huge. I mean, especially even before COVID, you know, even before this, the social isolation, I think there's like something in the air that they're breathing that's like, if I don't live a certain way, if I'm not going out with everybody, if I'm at my from in my room alone on a Friday night, that is the worst thing ever. And I think there's kind of can be this illusion that in order to have friends in college, you have to partake in certain activities, will say that's drugs, alcohol, going out, you know, and I think like a joy in part of my job is is showing the student like hey there's is connecting people I love connect is showing that student is man got anything to do Friday night like I guess I have no other choice but to either sit in my room and twiddling my thumbs or go hit the bars with my fake ID and say, Actually, you know what? We actually are trying to create something different over here that's attractive and it doesn't just have drug sex and alcohol. You know, that's been that's been another just joy where it's like you can live fully alive without these substances. And yeah, for students who are of age, let's talk about how we can have a drink and not get drunk and what does sobriety actually mean or what does chastity actually mean? Like, we can really lean into those conversations. But yeah, totally. The college campus can be this place where everybody is. I'm surrounded by people, but I feel so alone. And there can be many different reasons to that. |
| Grazie | And many college campuses have Catholic student centers. Newman Centers, yeah. Do you work with them or is this a completely separate thing or do you inhabit separate areas of sort of that campus Catholic life? |
| Anthony Cirillo | The way that we work with with focus is we always want to partner with that campus ministry on the ground. We don't want to create a separate thing we want to add and like supplement what they have going on and just make it better. We want to like broaden their reach. Hopefully, you know, we are we're going to create events that are like going to rival the Newman Center's events, but we might we also want to bring people to the Newman Center and bring them to Mass and maybe we also want to, like, make some of those events better sometimes. Maybe there's like a suggestion a missionary can say, Hey, like we thought about doing this, maybe this could help us reach more people on campus. So we very much want to come in and respect and honor what's been going on at the Newman Center and then say, how can we help? How can we add here? Never want to become like a competitor. |
| Grazie | If you're just joining us, we're talking with Anthony Cirillo. He's a focused missionary at the University of Cincinnati. Anthony, recently, over 175 students from the Archdiocese of Cincinnati attended sick. I know that Father Mike Schmitz, who was a guest with us, recently, gave an amazing message. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yes, Thanks be to God. Like you said, we actually have three campuses with focus in the archdiocese here and through some planning and some creative planning in collaboration with the archdiocese, we were able to kind of do a remote seek 21 where C 21 this year was anyone could go around the globe because it was virtual. But we said we want to create that conference experience as best we can in the safest way we can. We want to create that in Cincinnati for our students. And by the grace of God, we had 175 students from from Cincinnati coming together, from mass to watch different keynotes to stream them for us. You know, and in particular our campus at the University of Cincinnati, we actually had an opening night at a local brewery, a Catholic owned brewery down the street. And we just partnered with them, were like, Can we stream this? And then have our people come here named Humble Monk Brewery. So for Cincinnati, check out Humble Monks. Really, really good. So yeah, we made the best of it. And it was it was a lot to pull together, but it was extremely enjoyable. And students who would not have maybe traveled with us to Saint Louis to go to like a normal Sikh in the past year, they were like, Well, I can stay in Cincinnati, I can pay to go to this, and then I'm going to go to this brewery one night for the keynotes. You know, we're watching Sister Miriam and Bishop Baron is, you know, they're being streamed up on the wall of this brewery and we are hanging out, having pizza and you know, people are having beers. |
| Grazie | How much fun? |
| Anthony Cirillo | It was a lot of fun. Yeah. We're just grateful that, you know, we had so much support from our local supporters and from from the bishop and from our chaplains, too, to pull something off that was really special. One of the other highlights of it is we had an adoration night. So usually seek at these conferences. They're usually every year and they're usually in one location and then everyone from around the country gathers together. You have these masses with 10,000 college students or 20,000 college students at mass together in one spot. And we'll also have these adoration nights where it's, you know, adoration and then confession being offered. And usually, you know, you're in a huge conference center and thousands of people are in adoration together in front of our Lord. We couldn't quite do that. But we had we actually had it downtown here at the cathedral, we're able to rally, you know, local priests and say, hey, we got, you know, hopefully 200 students coming in. We'd love for everyone to be able to go to confession that night. So we were with our chaplains. We rallied, you know, like 15 priests. And then, you know, all these students could go to confession. And some of them some of them went for the first time. Some of them went to adoration for the first time. And I was like, what a gift. You know, these sacraments are in our face. And it's, you know, I get to introduce students to these sacraments. I get to help them, you know, find the Lord in these ways. It's a joy. |
| Grazie | People who are that age go to college. There's like sponges. They're at the age where you are ready to change and grow and become how wonderful that they have people like you helping them to grow and change and become more like Christ. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, I hope so. Yeah, I hope that's that's all that we want these. |
| Grazie | Days of cancel culture and ideological division and political division. Have you felt that that things got a little dicey on the ground at the University of Cincinnati, or do you always feel that you're operating in a in a welcoming space? |
| Anthony Cirillo | That's a great question. I think with COVID, some of those like places where we would face outright opposition at a public university, just like students aren't really there right now. So whether that's like a here we have online classes and you know, a lot of people aren't just walking around outside, even though it's a gorgeous day, it's just not as much like foot traffic on campus. And that would be where we sometimes would run into those, you know, more like aggressors, like atheists or things like that. I'd say here, you know, students overall are really open to talking, really open to conversation. A lot of people were raised Catholic, So I think that's a great opportunity. We talk about like the new evangelization. It's really that evangelization of areas that had been evangelize when John Paul talks about that. So yeah, so people are really open. Yeah, we haven't actually faced like a ton of like aggressive opposition. However, there is like a lot of just people just don't care, you know, it's just, yeah, whatever. You know, I'll do that later. You know, I think relativism is still just so rampant. It's like, that's great. That's your truth. Yeah. No, this is my truth. And, and, you know, it's sometimes just don't even want to really talk about that. It's just kind of a lazy like, Yeah, you know, you get your opinion. I got mine. Leave me alone. You know? So some things I wish I, I just say I wish we had more of the people that are like, Hey, I'm going to plant my feet in the ground and I'm going to push against you and to say, Hey, you're absolutely wrong. And I'd rather have that discussion than the like, like, whatever you believe that. I believe that. |
| Grazie | So I think I agree. Right. Because it's in the discussion and the dialog that that you can open minds. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, exactly. Exactly. |
| Grazie | And hearts, of course. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah. You know the Lord, you just let the Lord come into that and just through friendship and charity, hopefully that's a powerful witness. And, and then yeah, if you, if you had that opportunity to like logically try to walk through a few things with people, that's great. But usually takes it takes a while. It's not one conversation, as I'm sure you. |
| Grazie | Know, Anthony, of people who are listening who maybe have a kid in college, how do they find out more about focus? How can they point people towards you? And also before before we get off, I want to hear about how you're funded and how we can help you. |
| Anthony Cirillo | sure. Yeah. Thanks. So, yeah, if you want to learn more about focus, I would just go to WW w dot focus dot org f o. See you asked org. And you can learn a lot about the campuses we serve. There's a tab that says find a campus and you can just basically search by state for a campus that we serve at. If you are searching and you don't see that campus that maybe your child or grandchild's going to, there's another resource called the digital campus, which is like we have missionaries in Denver and across the country that will invest in students digitally, just reach out to them and mentor them from a distance. |
| Grazie | that's great. |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yeah, it's it's amazing. I mean, we've yeah, there's been so many opportunities to just try to innovate. And I think COVID has just pushed the envelope on innovating in that digital space. Very true. Yeah. And I'd say too, like if you also see a campus, you don't see your campus on there, start praying that, you know, we get to that campus or, you know, if you have a connection to the campus or a connection somewhere like ask the question, Hey, like I heard about this thing, focus like, why doesn't this university have it? Like maybe knock on a door and ask the question? Yeah, but that's been that's how I'm here at Cincinnati. It is a whole other story show. |
| Grazie | And how can how can people donate to this great cause because I'm assuming I'm assuming this is kept alive on donations and people being generous all across the country. |
| Anthony Cirillo | 100%. I mean, we we I would say I don't just like I thrive on support research. We don't only survive, we want to thrive on the support. And that's that's really what that looks like for every missionary is a team of dozens of individuals and families who are praying for that missionary and financially giving to support the whole budget of that missionary, the salary and then all the stuff that they need to buy on campus or everything is everything. So the way that you can support a missionary is you could also just go to give like focus dot org. You could just say find a missionary and then if you know a missionary or you can look up me for instance, just Anthony Cirillo, CAIR Well, we have all of our support pages and you can make like a special gift or like a monthly gift to fuel our mission. If you even have a campus near you, say, you know, you have that a child or grandchild that's going to campus, you know, nearby and you want to support that team, you can look up that campus. And there's even a way to give to a particular like team through our website focused on org. So that's pray for us and then like give and then spread the word because so many people don't know that we're on 160 campuses. They don't know that we have over 800 missionaries serving on those campuses, that it's really in some some areas of the country. Focus is one of the best kept secrets of the church. I'm a little biased, you know, being a on campus missionary. |
| Grazie | But I'm 100% sure that you're doing tremendous work and exactly where you need to be, which is with the with the youth, the future of our country, the future of our faith. How wonderful that people like you are available for them. And I and I urge my listeners, go to focus. Lori and donate, find Anthony Cirillo or one of his brother missionaries or sister missionaries. So you have you have women, too, right? |
| Anthony Cirillo | Yes, men and women. Yet each team is about two men and two women. |
| Grazie | wonderful. So please go to focus dot org and help these wonderful young people up. Thank you, Anthony for joining us. |
| Anthony Cirillo | You very much, Dr.. |
| Grazie | 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 Yolanda. It's a privilege for me to be with you as we enter into the consequential conversation, the risen Lord Jesus, one step with each of us this Sunday, when we will eavesdrop and participate in perhaps the most pivotal dialog in the Gospel. When Jesus asks his disciples, Who are the people say that I am, and who do you say that I am? Response to that first question The poll of what other people were saying. The disciples were eager to respond. They informed Jesus that the people were numbering Him among the greatest Jewish heroes of all time, like the prophets Elijah and Jeremiah, and more recently John the Baptist. But Jesus wasn't going to stop at that preliminary question first because it wasn't enough to rest on what the survey said, rely on what others believed, despite the exalted circles into which people were placing Jesus. Second, because the assessments weren't true, Jesus was far greater than Elijah, Jeremiah and John, who was greater than Abraham, Moses, David and Solomon. Two third, because Jesus didn't want those with him merely to remain fans or admirers of him numbering among the great celebrities of Jewish history, because that would not set them on the path in which he had come into the world to lead them. And so we asked the second question Who do you say that I am all but one of the disciples remained mute. It was easy to communicate with the survey said, but to put oneself on the line to make a personal public confession required courage and conviction. Paul has been amazed that Nathaniel, a.k.a Bartholomew didn't say anything since the first time he met Jesus. He cried out that Jesus was the Son of God and the King of Israel. For some reason now we lack the hotspot to say it again. Likewise, many of the apostles by this point, we're trying to jockey to be the greatest in the Messianic administration. They fully expected Jesus to inaugurate, but none had the courage to speak up. SIMON Peter, however, put out into the deep God the father had led him to recognize that Jesus was indeed far greater than what the others were saying. And he had the guts to be the first to say it. You were the Christ. He declared Christ. The Greek word for Messiah communicated that Jesus was the long awaited one foretold by the Prophet Saint Matthew's of the scene. He recalls. Peter's also confessing Jews to be more than the Messiah, the very own Son of God. To make such an admission was to bring it to the foreground, a whole series of expectation. The Messiah was expected to be the one who would bring back the Kingdom of David, who had kicked out all foreign powers and return Israel to international prominent. But lest they to that confusion, Jesus, as soon as Peter enunciated his true identity, began to teach them what type of Messiah he would be, how he would inaugurate his kingdom and how they were to share in and announce it. And it blew their mind. Rather than uniting the Jews to defeat and expel the Romans, rather than leading the 12 tribes to triumph, he would instead suffer greatly be rejected by the chief priest, the scribes and the elders, and be killed. Jesus told them all of this. Saint Mark tells us openly, so that they would know what clearly to get a sense of their shock. It would be like someone who had just won a presidential election in his victory speech saying that rather than lead his opponents and country to greatness, he would instead be seized by the members of his party in collaboration with the opposition parties and various foreign powers, be humiliated, tortured, and finally hung from a national monument. That's how shocking what Jesus was saying was. But Peter, emboldened by his previous affirmation and obviously desiring not only be to to be the principal adviser of the Messiah, but bodyguard took Jesus side and began to rebuke him. God forbid, anything like this should happen to you, he said, according to, say, Matthew's eyewitness account, he couldn't fathom that a messiah would be rejected, killed rather than conquer. It was totally incompatible with Jewish messianic expectations for the long awaited one to suffer in this way. But Jesus wanted to help him and all the apostles recognize that Yes, He was the Messiah, but his kingdom in liberation he was bringing were different from what they were expecting. He tells Peter, not get away from me, but get behind me just wasn't ridding himself of Peter, but he was pointing out what Peter had been trying to do lead the Lord rather than follow the Lord. To tell Him to get behind him was to make him a disciple rather than a roadblock. He also told them the reason why he was behaving like an obstacle. You're thinking not as God does, but as human beings do. Peter was seeing only with human eyes from human political hopes rather than with the eyes of faith. He said. God seeks to give Peter at first saw with the crowds, didn't that Jesus wasn't just one of the prophets of all, but rather the Messiah. But Jesus was helping him see the type of Messiah he really was, rather than just Peter imagined would be so that Peter and all the others would be able to confess Jesus in far greater depth, just continued the consequential conversation by calling all the apostles together and saying that not only would he suffer, but if we sought to remain with him, we must suffer too. It's a challenging message. We shouldn't watered down whoever wishes to come after me, Jesus said. Whoever wants to share in my kingdom and reign with me must deny himself take up his cross and follow me, as if that is not challenging enough. Jesus at forever wishes to save his life or lose it. But whoever loses his life for my sake and that of the gospel will save it. Do you use the analogy given before Jesus was saying that anyone who wanted to support him would have to say no to worldly ambitions, pick up his own noose and follow him to the public hanging. Let's bring the conversation around. Jesus asked each of us individually and constantly What he asked is for his followers. Who do you say that I am? It's not enough for us to rest on what others have said. On with the Catechism teaches on what the doctors of the church, the Pope, the bishops, our parents, grandparents and godparents have said, Well, that's helpful, but it's not sufficient. We must all make a consequential admission to state clearly and personally who Jesus is that could form our life to that truth. How would we answer that question if it were asked to us today? The great philosopher and apologist Peter craved recently wrote the question Jesus is apostles the same question. He asks us, Who do you say that I am? Am I just a holy messenger, just a prophet like John the Baptist or Elijah? Where am I? You're Mr. Fix it. You're Superman, your superhero? Or am I your obedient servant to all your foolish and fallen desire for my Mr. Nice Guy, a super social worker, a mr. Political Correctness C.S. Lewis famously said that Jesus is either a lunatic, a liar, or Lord a lunatic who crazily believed he was God and carnage a liar who knew he wasn't but claimed to be, or truly Son of God, divine the Savior, the King of the universe, and worthy to be obeyed. Who do we say Jesus is? If we confess him to be who He really is? Then that means, as Jesus himself describes in the Gospel, getting behind him, thinking as he thinks, denying ourselves, picking up our own cross daily and following him. It's obvious that this is very demanding because just as at Peter's time, these commands go against worldly ways rather than affirming ourselves, Jesus calls us today ourselves, rather than fleeing from suffering, He tells us to seize our cross and die out of love for God and others rather than doing our own thing. He tells us to follow him rather than seeking to save life by our own wit, he tells us that the only way to save it is to lose it in loving service of God and others, perhaps even to the point of death. We live in a self affirming age, and Jesus calls us to self-denial so that we might have self-mastery and be capable of self gift. We live in a hedonistic age that's addicted to pleasure and phobic about pain, which is caused us to take up or seize rather than just reluctantly accept the cross the instrument in which we will die to ourselves so that he in turn may live. Then he calls us to follow him as he gives his life for other salvation. As he washes people's feet and as he calls us to love others as he has loved us. First he asks, Who do you say that I am? And then reminds us, I was hungry and you gave me food. I was 13. You gave me drink The stranger and he gave me welcome naked. He gave me clothing and you gave me comfort in prison and you visited me to confess. Jesus is therefore something we do not with our lips, but with our life as we choose to have among ourselves the same attitude Jesus did. Who is Saint Paul? Reminds us, though he was in the form of God, emptied himself, taking the form of a slave and humbling himself, becoming obedient to death, even death on a cross. The fathers of the Second Vatican Council stressed this when they said Christ fully reveals man to himself and makes a supreme call and clear in indicated that we are to follow him on that path of cruciform Self-Giving love man cannot find himself. They except in the unselfish gift of himself to others. We must lose ourselves to gain life who must die to ourselves and allow God to raise from the dead and selfishly sacrifice for others. This is Christianity. This is the Gospel. We have a chance to respond to that question. Who do you say that I am at every mass and response to Jesus real presence for the altar. The LAMB of God who takes away the sins of the world, asks us, Who do you say that I am? We have the privilege to proclaim our faith in him, echoing the words of the centurion with wonder that despite our unworthiness of the Messiah, the Son of God desires to come under our roof. So we prepare to make our confession on Sunday in communion with the old church. But as asked Jesus for the grace to model our life in the mystery of His passion, death and resurrection, give witness to him by the faithful, courageous way we together with him, lose our life to give it out of love for him and others. God bless you. |
| Grazie | To check out more from Father Roger Landry, make sure to read all of his writings at the National Catholic Register at NC Register dot com. We hope to have you back next week. And until then, you go with our prayers. |