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Episode Description
As we round out Advent and head into the Christmas octave, the Oscar nominated movie director and animator Tim Reckart joins us to share what tops his holiday movie list, including his own hit, The Star. This full length animated film features a star-studded cast in a Nativity story retold through the animals. He also offers teasers on his projects coming in the new year!
We also speak with newly minted Monsignor Roger Landry, who received the honorific title from Pope Francis this week. He reflects on his tenure serving as Catholic chaplain at Columbia and what he is most excited about with his new post as National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. He also looks back on his time walking the entire Seton Route in the National Eucharistic Pilgrimage earlier this year, which coincided with his 25th anniversary as a priest.
Bios
Tim Reckart is an Oscar-nominated writer, director, and animator, best known for directing The Star in 2017, and the Oscar-nominated short film, Head Over Heels in 2012. Before directing, he was heavily involved in film animation, serving as lead animator in the Charlie Kaufman film, Anomalisa, which also earned an Oscar nomination. He worked as animator for Amazon’s multiple Emmy award winning series for preschool children, Tumble Leaf, and in 2015 he was named one of Variety’s “10 Animators to Watch.” Reckart earned his Masters Degree in directing animation from the National Film & Television School of the United Kingdom, and his Bachelor’s Degree in History and Literature from Harvard University, where he graduated magna cum laude. He lives in Los Angeles with his wife and three children.
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 traversed the full 1500-mile Eucharist Pilgrimage this past summer and joined the historic Eucharistic Congress in Indianapolis, an event which coincided with his 25th year in the priesthood. He was recently given the title of Monsignor, by Pope Francis.
The following transcript is machine generated.
Episode 296 Transcript
| Ashley | 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 also a podcast. Go to the Catholic Association Board or directly to wherever you listen to your podcasts. Welcome to the show Conversations with Consequences. I'm your host, Ashley McGuire, and I'm joined today by my wonderful colleague Betsy Fentress. And we also have a very exciting guest on today. And it's perfect timing because we find ourselves here in this final stretch of Advent looking ahead to Christmas and who isn't hungry for content entertainment that uplifts and inspires us as we gather with our families. And one person who takes this very seriously is Tim Record. He is a Catholic father of three who is also an Oscar nominated writer, director and animator, and he's currently the chief creative officer of Sycamore Studios. And some of you, in fact, most of you are probably familiar with his most famous work, which is the Christmas classic, The Star, which is an animated Christmas movie that came out in 2017. It's an annual tradition in my house. I've probably seen it more than two dozen times. And who doesn't love the star? And so we're so blessed to have with us today Tim record. Tim, welcome to the show. |
| Tim Reckart | Thank you. Thanks for having me on. I'm excited for this conversation because I am feeling the Christmas spirit. Yeah. So let's dive in. |
| Ashley | So, Tim, there's so many different ways to be in the entertainment industry. And for someone like me who's out in DC and is mostly in politics, it's it's kind of a foreign world. But you have found yourself primarily in animated content that that really caters to children. Tell us how you wound up in that sphere. |
| Tim Reckart | I always wanted to make movies. Never really thought much about animation, but I discovered as an undergrad that, I mean, I took an animation class kind of on a lark just to see what it would be like. And I found that I really liked it, and I was achieving good results in my animation, and everyone else in the class was miserable and achieving pretty bad results. And so I was like, I have like some kind of weird advantage in this space. So maybe this is like a weird subset of the film industry where I could have like an accelerated, you know, just career trajectory. So then I went to grad school to study animation specifically. And then so that's like how I found myself doing it. It was a bit of a surprise, but the why I'm sticking around and why I love it so much is that there is a certain mode that the viewer, when you're I feel like when you watch an animated movie, you take on this attitude of openness and innocence and just being ready to kind of receive the story. And there's just something that where you get to meet people on much more friendly ground than with a lot of live action film where people are coming skeptical and just sort of like, yeah, impress me. Like with an animated film, there's just there's this feeling of I'm here to just delight you. And I hope that's what you came to see the movie for. And that's usually the attitude people come with the movie. So so I think it kind of invites the filmmakers and the people watching the films to just have a little bit more fun and be ready to go. Okay, so this is the movie about other little characters living inside your head, or this is a movie about the toys in your room that come to life. Just go with it, because we've got a really fun story to tell you. If you can kind of go this far with us, you know? So I like I like having that relationship with the audience. |
| Betsy | Speaking of the people that you got to meet, there is a star studded cast of voices in that movie, from Oprah Winfrey to Kris Kristofferson and to Mariah Carey. I mean, how in the world Patricia Heaton, how did you get all of those people together for this? It's Walden Films were that's the company, right, that you were. |
| Tim Reckart | Yeah, we had it was a co-production with Walden co-production Sony Pictures. Animation was really kind of the Cornerstone Company doing it and and it's the Sony Pictures Animation is now very well known for the into the Spider-Verse like animated Spider-Man movies, but those hadn't come out yet. So prior to that they kind of their best known properties were cloudy with a chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania. And so just a kind of very comedy flavored studio, which is a lot of fun, obviously, with this one, we wanted to do something that was certainly had like a comedic spin on it, but we wanted to see if we could deliver something that was very deep and meaningful as well, something that kind of rose to the rose to the occasion of the Nativity story. The casting, funny thing is that in animation, casting is one of the easiest nuts to crack because the job of doing an animated voice is, I think, probably the easiest job any actor has ever had. You know, I mean, it's a lot like what we're doing right now. You show up in front of a mike, you can be wearing your pajamas. I notice that none of us are, but you could be right. No one would ever know. And you don't have to memorize any lines. The script is on a music stand right in front of you, and you just kind of run the lines a few at a time and, you know, you get to play around. You get to train on a different voice train. You know, it's just a lot of fun, low pressure. And and so it turns out that that asking someone to be in an animated film is very different from asking them to like, come, come to Romania with us for three weeks while we shoot this, you know, a piece of the horror film or, you know, whatever it is, it's like that's a much bigger ask. So, so with with a lot of these people, it was just, you know, a connection that someone happened to have. So like Oprah and Tyler Perry were both, I think, personal friends of my executive producer, D-Von Franklin. He literally sent a text and was like, we're doing this. You know, we'd love to have you in. Would you like to? And they were like, Yeah, let's do it. Another thing that's funny is like, okay, so Ving Rhames is in the movie. He's the voice of Thaddeus, the scary of the two bad dogs. The scary one, right? Great voice. He's got this just low, low basso profundo and he actually does the voice also of the of the Arby's commercials. We got the meats you know so that's the get together and Wing's whole thing is that like as a live action actor he tends to play like scary gangster guys. He's just a physically large guy. And so he kind of has this imposing, intimidating presence as a result. I don't know how old his children are or maybe nieces and nephews, but I know he mentioned they were young people in his life that you could never actually go see the movies that he's in. And so this kind of thing can be an opportunity a lot of times for actors to be in a movie that like my kids could actually watch, right? So, yeah, a lot of reasons people come to the movie. |
| Ashley | Well, it's been one of my kids favorite for as long as I mean, since the movie came out. And so I have a well, two part question one and for our listeners, the it's the story told. It's the Nativity story. If you haven't seen the movie told through the point of view of the animals, it really actually made me reflect on the fact that the animals are an important part of the nativity. Like why would God choose to come into the world surrounded by animals? And so first question is, you know, what made you come up with this idea? Was this something that you had been thinking about since you were a kid? And then secondly, I think everybody's got their favorite animal, minus Dave. I love Dave the bird. So do you have a favorite animal in the star? |
| Tim Reckart | Great question. I think. Okay, Let me answer the second question first, because I have sort of a funny way of answering it, which is that I've eaten almost every animal in the star because I actually did have donkey in in Italy one time. And I've yet to have camel or mouse, but I think I've hit all the other bases. I had a horse carpaccio in Canada which I don't know what they're doing up there, but they do serve that. So anyway, my, I could give you my favorite from that standpoint, which would probably be Edith the Cow, but I know that's not the question you're asking. Yeah, I think yeah. Which one do I love? I think I have to say, Felix, the funny camel, which is Tracy Morgan, is just so. He's so quotable. And so much of what's in the movie is just him adlibbing. It was like, That's great. And that was. That was not what we wrote. But, you know, and the funny thing was, when we designed the character of that character, we thought, okay, this is the goofy camel. He'll be funny. He's funny. So he's got a big smile and the character designs. And then when we recorded Tracy, Tracy, like, almost never smiles. He's always, like, angry with this, like, stiff upper lip and, like, suspicious and paranoid. And it was like, my gosh, that's that's actually Felix. Forget the big smile. He's got to be like, always with this kind of constant, irritated expression on his face. guys, I'm dying. But, you know, so it's really cool to see how his performance has totally shaped the character and I find him so watchable in the movie. But so then as far as like where the movie came from, it's kind of a funny one. Like a lot of times the movies that you see are pitched by the director or the writer or something to the studio. This case was not like that. This actually was a script that had been written in 1997. I think right after the movie Babe came out, if you remember Babe, The Talking Pig, and you know, we. |
| Betsy | Love that movie. |
| Tim Reckart | And it's a great movie, and the Henson Company developed that. That's right. So there's Walden, Sony Pictures Animation and then the Henson Company, as well as a third company on the project. And really the movie originated with them and they developed the star originally as a live action film that where they would be using kind of the Babe technology to make the animals. That plus, you know, some great Henson puppeteering and everything to make the animals talk and do it that way. The movie just kind of never got off the ground in it. It just sat on the shelf for almost 20 years. I mean, you know, the crazy thing is I was like ten years old ish when that script was first written. And then here I was, you know, in the teens finally directing this thing. And so we kind of had to redevelop it for animation. Some of that just, you know, some of the audience tastes and the way that children's and family entertainment has evolved really in the time since Pixar. Because when you think about 1997, the only Pixar movie that really could come out was Toy Story. We hadn't like realized what family entertainment could be at that time. So we tried to redevelop it, to make it more sophisticated and really speak to both kids and parents and make it satisfying for everybody. But but and so so I came in as someone that they knew was Catholic and they knew I was Christian. They wanted to have a filmmaker on it who would be able to tell the story authentically, like from a place of belief. And and I came in. Yeah, just kind of like insisting, like, if we're going to do this, I really want it to I don't want to do a faith based movie. I never got into filmmaking to do a faith based movie, and I hate that term because it makes it feel like the movie's based on faith. But the movie's got to be story and character based and maybe the audience's interest might be faith based, but if we're going to give them something satisfying, it's going to have to be a good story with appealing characters who go on a journey and change, you know, all the others. It's like the same application of craft, but at the same time, when you do have a sacred subject, there is a real opportunity to dig deep. And I will say, you didn't ask me this actually, but you touched on something I'd love to talk about, which is the this really afforded me a rare opportunity to like, spend a year during a development just like diving deep into what are what really are the themes of the Christmas story. Because, you know, in the story Jesus writ large, this is chapter one. Like you don't in some ways you don't really get the payoff. Again, if the birth of Jesus feels grand, then you're kind of betraying the subject matter, because the whole point is that it wasn't grand, it was very humble. And, you know, one of the things that that also occurred to me actually was like, this is not just Jesus. Like Jesus could have been born literally in the gutter or in the sewers or in a pile of dirt. It's not it's not just like I think we tend to think of like he's born in a stable. It's the lowest thing. It's not it's not the lowest thing, actually, but it's a very specific thing. And what it is, is it's surrounded by animal life. And, you know, the manger, of course, is not my observation. I think the fathers of the church are pointing out that he's born in the place where the animals eat from is like this is he's going to be the bread of life. And they lay them in the manger and manger is from manger and French to eat. Right. So but but yeah what the other kind of insight that I had thinking about this and by the way this movie, we were developing it right after Pope Francis published Laudato Si, his encyclical letter about, you know, man's relationship to nature. And so I was taking a lot of notes from that and trying to figure out, like, what do we learn about man's relationship to animals through this movie? And there are a lot of little bits in there. Like, for instance, Bo does not have a name until Mary names him and I like. There's something there about Adam and Eve and, you know, like we can treat animals as machines that we don't need, you know, we don't have to name a donkey if it's just going around in circles. But once you decide to have a relationship with this animal, you kind of ennoble it and bring it a little bit more into a human sort of place. We're like, Now Bo has a name because someone decided to love him. And another thing was that be the we tend to do like in the Christmas pageant that the last innkeeper says, I've got no religion. But you know, what I do have is I've got a stable back here and you can come stay there, which is totally fine. I mean, maybe probably the way it happened, but it's not from from the standpoint of making this movie where it was about the animals. That's not in the Bible. So it could equally have been. And what we the choice we decided to make was, is this is the animals inviting Mary and Joseph into their space. And so we have that moment where the three stable animals are kind of like sweeping the floor and making it nice as nice as it can be because it's their space. And so really the it's the animals who get the privilege in the Christmas story of hosting their creator, the Beautiful Thing and the other the other thing that kind of blew my mind is and maybe this I wonder if I'll be able to phrase this in a way that that captures what blew my mind about this Jesus Christ is the Creator. You know, God is a creator of everything. God created us human beings. And we tend to think, okay, so therefore, God, to show his love to us, became one of us. Fine. Yes, he did. But God also created chickens and rats and camels. And and he didn't come to them as a chicken or an animal or a rat. And yes, they didn't they didn't experience the fall, so maybe they didn't need it. But what's interesting to me is that God loves all his creation. He called all his creation good, but he chooses to come touch that creation physically with human hands, which I think kind of feels like an elevation of the stewardship that we are given in the Book of Genesis. It's like, yes, take care of these things. But now that role has just been upgraded because it's not just like be a steward and take care of the garden. It's like God himself touched chickens and animals and sheep and goats with human hands. So when we touch animals, when we interact with animals, we're really standing in the stead of God, their creator, you know, who came as one of us to to to love them as well. Doesn't love them the same way he loves us. But I still think, you know, anytime Jesus caressed a cat or something like that, that was that was God, you know, loving his creation. And I think it kind of ennobles the calling that we as as human beings have to love animals and plants, too. |
| Betsy | That is really helpful in understanding sort of how you got into this. I wanted to just follow up a little bit about what you said about not wanting to do a faith based movie. And, you know, Flannery O'Connor writes about this in her book, Mystery and Manners. And anybody who's in the creative arts is am I a Catholic artist or am I an artist who's Catholic? So you ended up with another kind of blockbuster thing that you did, which was the Hello APS commercial for the Super Bowl. So are you getting a name for yourself a little bit as somebody who's not afraid to tackle this subject matter? And what's it like to be a Christian in Hollywood? |
| Tim Reckart | Yeah, so, so Betsy, what you're talking about for the audience in case they hadn't seen it, is that this past Super Bowl Super Bowl of 2024, I directed the Hello commercial with Mark Wahlberg and Jonathan Rooney making an appearance and where it was, you know, sort of them praying in a church that was really fun and amazing, really came at a moment when I was you know, I've been working on building this studio. Any time you're kind of in the early stages of building a company, there's also kind of a cash flow issue because you're not making money from the company you're starting. So I have, you know, for work and got a cold email from hello on day seven of that. No, I've been led to like a really needed sort of infusion of cash and a really fun job as well. But and I bring that up to say that in a way, the career that I have is not the career that I would have designed for myself when I was 22 years old, I thought I would be making, I don't know, just regular old secular movies. And I have it's not it's not in a way, for lack of trying, but the doors that God has chosen to open for me have been these things and it looking back on my career, it you know, I sort of I think looking ahead from that perspective that the 22 year old I assumed that being Catholic would be a drag on my career advancement. |
| Fr. Landry | Right. |
| Tim Reckart | But the way it's turned out, it seems like the things that have worked out best have been because of my faith. So that's the star and that's the Halo commercial and, you know, wonderful opportunities like that. I was on a project totally secular at Netflix for two and a half years that unfortunately ended up getting canceled, you know, and that was, I thought, my moment to break out of like being in the faith based box, but it didn't get made. So, you know, I guess I find myself here, I think because God has decided to put his signature on my career and make sure that I know that it's not something I built on my own, that this was a gift that he gave me. And to and, you know, that's important for me to know so that I I'm always aware that you know, I'm the servant with the talents and eventually the master is going to come back and and ask me to give them hand them over to him. And I need to be ready to do that. |
| Ashley | So tell me I have a question that's kind of a play on that. But more asking you to put on your dad hat, your Catholic dad hat. And, you know, as parents today, trying to navigate the entertainment industry is tricky and, you know, unfortunately, things that used to be kind of, you know, safe spaces, if you will, for entertainment for kids or not. And, you know, I find myself having to do all kinds of scrutinizing and research before I can even let my kid watch the latest sequel of, you know, you name it. So I don't know. What are your thoughts on on how the industry has involved evolved regarding children and how do you you know, what are some of your favorites, your recommendations, your series is your movies that you know, you think are great for your kids or, you know, your answer may be what many people are doing, which is saying, we got rid of our TV, you know, and you hear like Steve Jobs didn't even let his kids have phones. So how do you navigate all that as a Catholic dad? |
| Tim Reckart | Yeah, it's a great question and very much on my mind. And and that's really a big reason that my partner and I started Sycamore Studios was that we felt like there is a real need for some kind of trustworthy alternative and therefore also a real market opportunity as well. So Sycamore Studios, I mean, the way that we've put our we're not a faith based company, but the way that we put the type of entertainment we want to make available to parents is that we want to make entertainment so good. You don't want to leave the room but so good that you can, you know, because a lot of times it feels like you can't. A lot of times it's like you got to kind of be like sort of in kind of an athletic position, ready to pounce on the TV as soon as something, you know, goes across that you don't you don't want your kids to, you know, be seeing. And yeah, so our goal with Sycamore Studios is is to make trustworthy content, trustworthy entertainment for free that family can love. And not just not just stuff you can trust because it's innocuous and safe, but stuff that truly elevates and and inspires and redefines families from a standpoint of like, you know, having a positive vision of positive life. I just mean like having an actual belief in, like, what it means to be human and and what a good life looks like and what it means to grow up into a virtuous man or woman. So which is to say that we want to offer things that actually help parents parent because that's what we want as fathers. So now that being said, I know it makes me sad when I hear that parents because I know parents who have to just like decided, screw it, we're out of the movie and TV business. And first of all, I don't think it makes sense because everything that not to like sound like an old man. I think about when I was your age, but everything we grew up on, which I think we feel pretty okay about, maybe we shouldn't, I don't know, but at least I do that stuff still available. So, you know, my my kids love all the old nineties Disney movies and. And why not? You know, it's I got into my career. I found my vocation because I loved watching movies as a kid. And so, you know, where even even in my own household, I think my wife would be fine like not really doing screen time. But I instituted a policy of Saturday morning cartoons. It's not a TV block anymore, but we just that Saturday morning is designated like screen time and the kids can choose which movie they and of course, I'm curating the selection, but they can choose which you know, not not to like, say, the quiet part of line but which of my favorite movies they get to watch. You know. So I think we don't need to be afraid certainly of that. But then also like it's just it's like the wrong version of the Benedict option. It's just it's the retreat. It's like, why should we be retreating? We should be fixing this. We should be playing offense, not not continually drawing the line back and and just playing a policy of victory through defense, which will never happen. I think we need to not only be engaged as consumers, but also like be engaged enough that our demand moves the needle for those producing content. And truth be told, it's happening already. Like you're seeing a company like Disney, which I would say probably is like the protagonist of this kind of shift that you were describing. Actually, like a lot of those Disney movies started to have just content that parents were like, Is this really for kids? This is what you want my kids to be watching? We're starting to see and I literally just read a headline an hour ago about an example like this where Disney is deciding like you know, some of this stuff. We're going to leave it to the parents to decide and we're going to leave it out of our out of our entertainment, which is good. That's you know, that that is what I think. That's what the demand that's what parental demand can do. It can actually kind of change the landscape of the offering. And yeah, so it I, I would encourage parents to not give up hope at at worst just rely on your favorite movies and at best like yeah get really engaged because I think there is an opportunity in the years ahead if we're engaged to to push the marketplace in our direction. |
| Betsy | So what's in the pipeline for you? I'm also I wanted to also make a shout out that you were involved with Tumblr, which I love watching with my grandkids. |
| Tim Reckart | Yeah, Tumbleweeds, actually, to your question, actually, Tumblr is a good preschool show that I think I can wholeheartedly endorse. It's a preschool show, stop motion. I love stop motion. And I was an animator on that show. And it is like as opposed to something like Cocomelon, which is like cutting every second and a half and just as many people have said is like crack cocaine for children, I believe has this gentle, just more kind of ambling, relaxed kind of tone to it. And it's very pastoral. It almost almost all of it is set outdoors in this kind of interesting sort of dilapidated landscape where anyway, it's a great little show. So yeah, tumbleweeds is great. We love Bluey, but I'm not saying anything new there. Everyone knows Bluey is awesome. And me, my partner, my business partner, Christian, my wife, Hannah, all of us, you know, my sister, we we adults watch that show and it tears a tear comes to our eyes. So it's yeah, that's a great show if people are watching. Bluey come on, get on, get on the bandwagon already. What was your question, Betsy? |
| Betsy | What's down the pipeline for you? Sycamore Studios. |
| Tim Reckart | Right. So Sycamore, our our main focus is on theatrical features. So we see, you know, a lot of people are kind of proclaiming the death of the theater, but we think the theater is a really great arena for competition. You know, it's one way to put it is like, hey, we're entering a space that has been dominated for the last hundred years by Disney. And we as a startup at some level can't compete with their marketing budget and their muscle, but they can't program every 52 weekends of the year. And that infrastructure is still there every weekend and it needs content, it needs inventory. And so to us, this is a great arena for us to like enter and and find find a way to define ourselves in the mind of our audience. So so are the theatrical features that we're starting with. We've got our first one is a Dr. Doolittle feature. Again, it's not a faith based property, but we believe Dr. Doolittle is a great place. It's a great character, you know, sort of it's a definite childhood wish fulfillment to be able to talk to animals. Already we're capturing something really beautiful there, but it's also just, you know, telling a story of Dr. Doolittle, his relationship to animals. It's a great place to start having a conversation about. In our case, it's about loyalty, virtue and friendship, you know, integrity, doing things not just because people are watching, but because it's the right thing to do. So, yeah, Dr. Doolittle is our first movie or second movie that we've announced is based on a really cool graphic novel called Z of a Space Girl. It's written by a graduate of Christendom college. He opens the first book with the G.K. Chesterton quotes. We're very much in kind of Catholic imagination world with these books, but it's nice way to put it. It's like Star Wars. If Jim Henson made Star Wars in the 1980s. So it's got a real sense of humor and a wackiness to it. Really fun world. We've got a third movie that we're closed on deal terms, but we have not yet announced it. But it's again based on a really huge graphic novel that we love. And it's going to be a really fun project. So you can see the movies we're doing. They're not on a sacred subject, but we think that they really give us a really kind of solid material to work with to build something that is that that totally aligns and supports the types of things that parents are looking for. |
| Ashley | Well, Tim, we sadly are out of time. I could talk about this for hours and we're so grateful for your time with us today. And for all that you're doing. You're so right that we're not called to retreat. Recall, to engage and entertainment is such a big part of our culture and we can't abandon it. So thank you for everything that you're doing. And I've added tumbleweeds to my list. I call it the list of approved shows. So I'm taking your word for it. So thank you, Tim. Thank you, Betsy. Thank you both for joining us today. |
| Tim Reckart | This is great. |
| Ashley | Thanks. Welcome back to Conversations with Consequences on your hostess, Ashley McGuire, alongside I had my teacher colleague Betsy Fentress, and we were thrilled to have our resident chaplain with us, Monsignor Roger Landry, recently. Given that very much deserved honor. And he is known as the only perpetual pilgrim priest to walk an entire leg of the national Eucharistic pilgrimage, something we love to talk about today and is also just ending his post as chaplain at Columbia University. We take a new position as director of the Pontifical Mission Society. Welcome to the show, Monsignor. It's been a busy year. |
| Fr. Landry | Great to be with you, Ashleigh. Great to be with you, Betsy. Strange get used to that new, quote, identity, unquote, with the evocative monsignor rather than father. But you're the first person to use it on a radio program, so we'll always have that in common. |
| Ashley | Well, it's an honor to be the first person to call you that on air. So, Father. Excuse me, Monsignor. I'm going to have to get used to it. Can you tell us about the pontifical mission societies for our listeners who don't know anything about that, what is this organization and what will your role be there? |
| Fr. Landry | The Pontifical Mission Societies help the mission of the church across the globe to proclaim the gospel to every creature, to the ends of the earth. And so it the it's a combination of four societies. One is very well known to most Catholics, called the society the propagation of the faith, which my predecessor, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, headed for over 16 years. The second is the Missionary Childhood Association, which gives young kids the opportunity to help other children in missionary territories in lots of ways to grow in faith, but also sometimes to just get enough food to survive. The third is the society of Saint Peter the Apostle, which helps to fund seminaries and seminarians in missionary areas so that they're able to have the raw basics that they're going to need in order one day to become priests. And of course, many of those in missionary lands come to serve us in the United States now. And so it's very much in our national and Catholic self interest here to be able to help seminarians everywhere. And, you know, the annual stipend that allows a seminarian to thrive is $700 American a year. And so that's nothing compared to what is what the cost is to educate seminarians in the states. And then last is called the missionary Union was originally called the Missionary Union of Priests and Religious. This is a means by which first all those who can tell both the missions and other territories, like by money or by traveling to the missions read cloistered religious like Saint Torres, the co patroness of the missions are able to participate in the missions work as well as today. It helps Catechists lay religious ed instructors all over the world by their prayers and other types of support to be able to pass on the faith. So all four of these are the pontifical mission societies. Almost every country that's not a missionary country has a national office, and I have now become the national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the USA. We are the biggest office internationally, and so we do a lot of work in 1150 missionary territories all across the globe. And so it's an honor to succeed Archbishop Sheen. It's an honor to be given this responsibility to try to spread a missionary spirituality among American Catholics, as well as to try to catalyze the generosity of Americans to help us spread the faith so that people all across the globe can find in Jesus the same treasure we know he is. |
| Betsy | So, Father, will you be on the road most of the time? Will you be? Where will you be? You'll be working out of Will you be in Rome a lot or in missionary countries? What's your schedule going to be like? |
| Fr. Landry | So I have two offices. One's in New York City, which is the traditional office, and other is where the majority of our full time employees is, which is Saint Petersburg, Florida. So I'll be traveling back and forth when I'm in the states to those areas, but I will be on the road a lot. So I'll be traveling to the various diocese in the States to preach and teach and meet with the bishops and the local directors in each diocese of the more difficult mission society that I'll have to travel internationally to make sure that the contributions that American Catholics are given are being put to the service that we expect. So I look forward to spending a lot of time in Africa and Asia, in Latin America, and we do a little bit of work in the Middle East and Eastern Europe through other organizations. But, you know, the advantage to be on the road so much is I don't have to pay taxes in Manhattan, even though that's where my residence will be, because I'll not even come close to being in there six months in a day. |
| Ashley | Well, Monsignor, you're no stranger to traveling long distances. And we know this because you and I spoke and several articles were written about your journeying this summer on the Eucharistic pilgrimage. And my understanding was that you were the only one or one of the only ones to walk an entire route. You walked the Seton route and you've had several months now to reflect on that journey. Can you tell us, looking back, what are some of the things that still really stand out to you about that experience? |
| Fr. Landry | Well, there were 30 laypeople, young, young adult laypeople who made the entire journey on one of the routes. But I was the only priest who was able to do all 65 days. Part of that is not just because I'm stronger and more fit than my brother, but because I'm a university chaplain. I actually somewhat have the summers off where they were taking a week or two off from their particular assignments, whereas I basically work without a day off for nine months and I was able to use all of that accrued time to be able to accompany Jesus for several hours a day, a couple of inches from my nose, from New Haven and my case all the way to Indianapolis. That big sort of lessons of this was first, the Lord continues to walk among his people. There's a problem for which we have a national go to revival because many of us actually treat Jesus if he's in it in the Eucharist rather than him. And to be able to spend that much time on a 65 day extended spiritual exercises and physical exercise with Jesus not only drove that point home to me, but advertised that point to everybody, that we wouldn't be taking a piece of bread across the country, but we would be traversing our land with the Lord. The second great lesson was the response of people to the Lord Jesus. We knew when we signed up for this that we were going to give witness to Jesus real presence. Well, we weren't all that ready for, believe it or not, was just the throngs of people who would come on out with so much faith and tears in their eyes and so much gratitude to us and to the U.S. bishops for making this possible. And these are people with the Blessed Sacrament in their churches who are just so grateful that we were doing something with lavish love to say this really is Jesus. He is real in the same Jesus who used to walk along the paths of Galilee, Judea and Samaria, the cities of Jerusalem and Jericho walks along the states and the cities and even small towns in the United States. And so their lavish love for Jesus and their unbelievable gratitude, I'll never forget it. I'll tell you one quick story. We had an 18 mile pilgrimage one day in central Pennsylvania. We were a little late on one of the routes because of the pace that was being set. And we were supposed to have a half hour in a church before we would move on from there to a place where the bishop of the diocese was going to meet us so we couldn't be late for the bishop. The church was packed waiting for us in the middle of a Tuesday afternoon. They had sort of put out all types of water and snacks for those who had been making the journey from the previous church. And I walked up to the priest because we arrived 20 minutes late and I said, So sorry, Father, that we're only going to have 10 minutes here. He with tears in his eyes, he was in his seventies with tears in his eyes. He said, Sorry, this is like the greatest day of my priesthood. And this was a church with perpetual Eucharistic adoration was just so happy that the national youth because you pilgrimage would be coming to his church where he had worked so hard to promote Eucharistic love. And this was the exclamation point on decades of loving labor. And so we saw that we were the recipient of it and hence after the pilgrimage, with some books and articles and other means, we're just trying to give witness to the gratitude of the church toward Jesus, in the hope that that gratitude will be ever in sections. |
| Betsy | That's a really beautiful story. So if I'm not mistaken, you had a very small procession compared to going all the way from New York to Indiana on Columbia University campus, and that was the first Eucharistic procession that had ever been on the campus. Is that correct, Father? |
| Fr. Landry | No, that's not true. So that but like ever since I got here, we we've had a Eucharistic procession. So this was the fifth Eucharistic procession that I have had on Columbia's campus. And when I came here, there was at least one before because one of the students before I had arrived was praying that we would be able to have another our Eucharistic procession. So I don't know so much about the one that predated me, but I have tried very much to make Jesus visible on campus. And one of the most important ways to do it is let him be seen as we processed through the campus to the interdenominational interdenominational chapel on campus where we have an hour of Eucharistic adoration. We preach about Saint Paul and the Eucharist because it's dedicated to Saint Paul. And then we come around the campus and students are so blown away by having Jesus Christ walk the same paths that they take to get to class or to get to their dorm room. And so that's been one of my real highlights here at Columbia. Have there. |
| Betsy | Been a lot of conversions since you've been. |
| Fr. Landry | There? Thanks? BE To God, yes. Every semester I do a full dossier because Columbia students are smart enough really to follow the more intense study and practice. Normally we've averaged 12 to 15 a semester this last semester, which just over the course of the weekend I was able to receive 21 into the church. And so, wow, God's really much at work here. And the community itself helps people feel very, very welcome and they want to be part of it and they're kind of knocking on the door looking to see how fast they can join us at the altar. |
| Ashley | Well, you you've been the chaplain, the Columbia, during a particularly tumultuous time. And I mean, I wasn't alive during the seventies when I know there was a lot of upheaval on college campuses. But certainly in my lifetime, it's been the most tumultuous period on college campuses. And what I'm talking about is I don't know what you call it, the riots, the protests post October seven, the massacre in Israel. How did you navigate that from both a a spirit or a physical and safety perspective, but also a a spiritual a spiritual point of view, being somebody shepherding young people who are kind of caught up in this very tumultuous times. |
| Fr. Landry | There was a lot of confusion for students right after the October 7th, and then October 12th was the first of the major protests here in Columbia. And so the following weekend, which was October 15th, the students were saying, you're going to preach about it. And I said, No, I'm not going to preach about it. I always preach about Jesus, but I will speak about it at the end of the mass or the end of mass. I said, listen, Columbia is a great university, but it's not going to change the Middle East in the 76 year intractable, intractable political and diplomatic dispute. So let's not be arrogant about it, but people are suffering for us as Catholics. How are we supposed to respond? I said first, we don't protest. Protestants protest literally. B.R. four thing. And so what are we for? First, we're for everybody. So we've got to be for the Jews who feel very, very harassed here on campus and unsaved. We've got to reach out to them and let them know Catholics have their backs. There are Muslims here on campus who likewise are feeling squeezed on out, especially there are a couple of students from Gaza. There are more from Palestine. They have to know that we have their backs. Similarly, if we want to help out those in Gaza and many do, please recognize that ain't going to happen by grass stains on your pants on the quad at Columbia. It's going to happen by Nicholas. As we camp out before Jesus in Prayer and the Blessed Sacrament. So I invite you to come here. And they did. And then finally, because I was ecclesiastical Assistant National Chaplain to aid to the Church in Need USA, which was helping out the Church of the Holy Family in northern Gaza, I said, if anybody really wants to make a difference in Gaza, contribute through this arm of the church, that's been difficult. Charity and we'll make sure your money gets to food and education for children whose lives are being totally upended because of the response going after the terrorists of Hamas in Gaza. And so I was really proud of how Columbia Catholic students responded to that. And what I saw was in contrast to the weakness of the leadership, they were getting on campus, to have a clear trumpet being sounded by the Catholic Church was a was what enabled them to march in the church militant to make a difference here on campus. And so I am very grateful to God that I was able to be here during that time because I saw some of the best of Catholics here at Columbia today. And I continue to pray that we'll all see the fruits of that training course that boot camp in years to come, as the Catholics who are here take up their positions in the church and in society. |
| Ashley | Whether you you mentioned that you just received more people into the church and, you know, you've been in close contact with with young people for many years. And I think people are a little bit confused about the state of Catholic youth. You know, you you read the news stories that say church attendance is declining. Adherence to church teaching is not happening. But then you see something like the Eucharistic Pilgrimage and that concluding conference, which looked like it was literally about to set the world on fire, you know, what is your take on on what's happening with young people spiritually today as someone who's been so close contact with them? |
| Fr. Landry | I think John Paul, the second used to always use expression lights and shadows. And I think we see both. The macro picture is the phenomenon of the nuns, the known. Yes, those who are clicking the box, none of the above. When they were asked what their religion is, we have to face that straight on. There are a lot of children growing up where they've never heard the name Jesus. Have no idea what the Blessed Trinity is. And I encounter those students here. I encounter them in droves after a student takes his or her life, and then others are looking for some way to respond. And then counseling and psychological services isn't going to be able to help them at the level of their enormous human need. But then the other side of it, the lights are those who do take the faith seriously Today among young people take it way more serious than the average faithful of When I was at Harvard 30 years ago. They have a much higher percentage of come on a daily mass regular confession. They love Eucharistic adoration. They want to invite others to join us as Catholics because they recognize that so many of their peers are lost. And so while the macro trend is more people are growing up without God in their life at all, those who are growing up in home schooled families, those who are converting on college campuses, you name it, are really coming in with a hunger to be fed everything that the church is able to feed them. And so they're not they're not hostile at all to the church's teachings. They want to know what the church's teachings is, because all they're getting is political correctness everywhere else and wokeism and so that the church stands for something that might be unpopular isn't a reason to leave the church. It's a magnet today among those who really have a hunger. And so that's what I've seen. Those are my big memories. And though they will inspire me the rest of my priestly life. |
| Ashley | Well, Monsignor Landry, God bless you all that you're doing to bring young people into the church to shepherd them during tumultuous times. And now as you move forward into this new critical role of shepherding the church's resources to those who are most in need, and and we thank you especially for your wonderful homily that we're so blessed to to share as a part of our program. So thank you. And please make sure to find out more of his work at Catholic preaching. Deacon, Monsignor Landry, thank you so much. |
| Fr. Landry | Great to be with you. Ashley Great to be with you, Betsy. |
| Betsy | Thanks, Monsignor. |
| Ashley | And now Father Roger Landry offers us a thought provoking homily to prepare us for this Sunday's gospel. |
| Fr. Landry | This is Monsignor Roger Landry, and it's a privilege to be back with you at the end of the program as we together try to enter into the consequential conversation God wants to have with each of us this Sunday as we begin our approximate preparation for Christmas and the fourth Sunday of Advent each year, the church always has a focus on the Blessed Virgin Mary. The church does this not merely because Mary is an obviously unforgettable role in the birth and life of Jesus the real reason is because the Blessed Mother is the model of how we should be living. Our Advent Mary is, as we say, the personification of advent. God, the Father, through her immaculate conception, prepared her from the first moment of her life to be a worthy mother of a son like a faithful daughter of Israel. She had prayed throughout her youth for the coming of the Messiah. When she was a young girl, she discovered that she was part of God's answer to that prayer, but in a way that far would have exceeded any Hebrew maidens prayers. Not only would the Messiah be her son, but her son would also be God. Her yes to the Archangel Gabriel launched the immediate preparation for the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Each year on the fourth Sunday of Advent, we explicitly follow the footsteps of Mary that she traced that first advent. In doing so, we're doing more than traversing the physiological and historical events that preceded the Lord's birth. We're entering into Mary's response of faith, which is a guide for us along our own pilgrimage of faith and so with the Lord, let us climb within Mary's womb, so to speak, and listen to the beat of her contemplative heart, which was treasuring within the greatest of all mysteries, so that our Christmas this Wednesday may be as fruitful as that first Christmas. Today we travel with Mary to Ein Kerem, the birthplace of Saint John the Baptist during the Annunciation, after the Archangel Gabriel told Mary that the power of the most high would overshadow her and she would conceive in her womb a son whom she would call Jesus. Gabriel had told her as well that her cousin Elizabeth, had also conceived a son in her old age. Soon as the Archangel Gabriel departed from Nazareth, Mary, too, made plans to leave. Although she was still a young teenager, she went with haste to care for her elderly kins woman who was pregnant for the first time. We know today that if a woman is pregnant in her forties, there are many health risks. It's possible that Elizabeth was considerably older than that. And we know that ancient Middle Eastern health care would have been nothing to brag about. Without question, Elizabeth would have needed some assistance, but the angel didn't command Mary to go to help her. He didn't even suggest that it would be a good thing for her to go. He just stated the fact that Elizabeth was pregnant. That was enough for Mary to spring into action. Mary's love sport and her the desire to help out Mary's example of care for those in need is a care is an example for us all. I am. Karen was located four and a half miles outside of Jerusalem, which was 60 miles from Nazareth. For Mary to get there first, she would have had to have walked 40 miles downhill into the plains of Jericho. Then very steeply uphill for about 20 miles to the holy city of Jerusalem before crossing the holy city and descending to Zacharias house. None of that apparently scared her. We don't know if she traveled alone. In the typical caravan of pilgrims. There's no evidence that Saint Joseph accompanied her or that her parents saints. John came in and did well. We don't know with whom she traveled. We do know that she journeyed with incredible faith during our trek. There was no way she could have known humanly she was pregnant. Jesus would still have been the tiniest embryo in her womb, probably eight or 16 cells according to his human nature. By the time she left, well before an infant had legs to kick, she would only have known she was pregnant by faith, in Gabriel's words. Doubtless along that journey, she was meditating on what the angel had said to her and how all the prophecies of the Old Testament were being fulfilled in her in going dying. Karam Mary became the first missionary, the first bearer of the good news that would change all of human history. Forming Jesus to be the itinerant preacher would become even before he had developed the tiniest effet, Mary was able to bring incredible joy to Elizabeth and to the fetal John the Baptist because she was bringing Christ in. Mary was able to burst Joy in her famous hymn appraised the Magnificat during the scene for precisely the same reason. This brings us to the first, the three lessons we can learn in the fourth Sunday of Advent to bring joy to others. This Christmas we have to bring them Christ Jesus, the greatest gift that we can ever give to someone we love. This is something all of us need to remember, especially at Christmas. We can by all kinds of clothes and toys for kids. But if we aren't trying to give them the Lord Jesus, then we're really giving them little more than Monopoly money. We can send out a thousand cards and but if we're not praying for those, we write that they come to the Lord more deeply. If we're not trying to help them in, converges with meager words, then to a large degree, what we're sending them is not much better than junk mail unless we try to bring Christ to them. We're not really giving them anything of lasting value. Mary didn't bring Elizabeth ancient Hebrew pregnancy textbooks. She wasn't bringing John the Baptist, a cute little circumcision outfit. She was bringing Jesus in hands. She was bringing them everything. As we prepare for mass this Sunday, Mary wants to bring us Christ in the same way she brought him dying, Karen. She wants us to learn from her example and to inspire us to bring our son to others with great haste and joy. This week, as we prepare for Christmas, we all know people who need Jesus in their life, who need his mercy, who hunger for his love and presence, perhaps without even being conscious of it. But many of us can behave like spiritual Ebenezer Scrooges, selfishly keeping our relationship with Jesus to ourselves and not sharing the greatest gift we've ever received with anyone. Mary's example shows us the way to live. Advent Well and explicitly challenges and calls us to bring Jesus to our relatives and to those we know we're in need as well as to support the church's missionary work, which tries to bring Jesus to every creature even to the ends of the earth. We see in the Gospel this Sunday that as soon as Elizabeth heard the sound of Mary's greeting, John the Baptist leaped in her womb. Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she burst out saying, Blessed are you among women and blessed is the fruit of your room. And why is this happen to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me and blessed as she you believe that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord. So Holy Spirit inspired Elizabeth to bless Mary among all women because of two things the blessed fruit of her womb and her faith that the Lord's words to her would be fulfilled. In other words, she was blessed because of her embryonic savior and son and because of her faith in him. That's the second lesson we can grasp when this Advent pilgrimage with Mary saw the greatest blessings in this world are Jesus and our faith in Him. These are the gifts we should be longing for this Christmas, because these are the ones that will make us truly happy. Even if we were to receive for Christmas the entire inventory of multiple Amazon warehouses that would not be as valuable to us is the gift of God and the gift of increased faith in Him. It's important for us to grasp how much God wants to be able to praise and bless us for our firm faith that all that he has promised us will be fulfilled. Mary cried out to him of praise later in the scene. All generations will call me blessed, and that prophecy came true. We still call her Blessed today for the same reasons because the Lord, the Blessed of her womb, is with her and because of her faith, which is the model for every disciple. As we prepare for Christmas, the Lord is calling us to make these our the Father who gave us the gift of his son, that first Nativity wants to give us that son a new this Christmas to be God with us, Emmanuel. But He wants us to ask for him in faith and to respond to him in faith by making the time to be with God in prayer, by saying, Let it be done to me according to your Word, and by allowing the Lord's words to be fulfilled in us, in all the decisions we make, the last lesson we are called to emulate. From that first advent Mary lived is what she did at the end of the season. As soon as Elizabeth filled with the Holy Spirit, blessed are Mary's contemplative heart exploded in prayer. My soul magnifies the Lord in my spirit, rejoice in God, my Savior. Mary's response to the blessing of God's love and coming into this world, into her heart and into her womb was not just faith, but prayer, which is properly called faith in action. If God doesn't just exist but is really God with us, then I responded, Faith should be prayer to be with God. The Advent Preface. Every priest in the world prays this Sunday, stressing the irreplaceable importance of prayer and preparation for Christmas. It is by his gift that already we rejoice at the mystery of his Nativity. So that he may find us watchful in prayer and exultant in his praise. That's what we see in Mary. Mary's heart was filled with this wonder and praise her so magnified the Lord and her Spirit rejoice in God. Our soul and spirit are called to do the same. God wants to help us magnify Him to receive in his love and thank him for all his blessing. Only the soul that doesn't magnify itself can magnify the Lord. And that can only happen when we center our life on God, not on ourself, on our material possessions or anything or anyone else. If we were to ask Mary, our mother, for the best way to prepare for the celebration of her son's birth at Christmas, she would doubtless say that the most important thing of all is going to her son in prayer, the same Holy Spirit to overshadow shadowed Mary in Nazareth. Will this Sunday overshadow the altar? The same Jesus who Mary carried in utero to our cousin Elizabeth will come to us in Holy Communion through Mary's intercession. May we what she did after the Annunciation and bring that Jesus out to others who so need Him this Christmas so that He, through us, can make them and us leap again. God bless you. Happy Advent and a blessed Christmas. |
| Ashley | Thank you, Father Roger Landry. Make sure to catch all of his great work at Catholic Preaching Icon or you can follow his writings at the National Catholic Register. Go to NC, register dotcom, and until next time, we wish you all the very best and you go with happiness. |