Question of Faith
A weekly question of faith answered by Cleveland Catholics. Fr. Damian Ference, Vicar of Evangelization and Deacon Mike Hayes Director of Young Adult Ministry in the Diocese of Cleveland co-host with frequent guests from the Diocesan Office who join in the conversation. Sponsored by Briefcase Marketing--check them out at https://www.Briefcase.marketing
Question of Faith
Can You Get Teenagers to Stay Quiet and Stay Off Their Phone for 24 Hours?
Could you navigate a day without your phone in solitude to find your true purpose as a child of God? Join us as we dive into an engaging discussion with Mary Kate Glow, a dynamic theology teacher at Walsh Jesuit High School. Mary Kate reveals her innovative approach to guiding students on their spiritual journeys, inspired by an eye-opening retreat in Nashville. We kick things off with some light-hearted banter about recent power outages and tornadoes in Ohio, setting the stage for an episode teeming with faith, vocation, and transformation.
Our conversation takes a deep turn as we explore the significance of discerning one’s vocation and the transformative power of religious life. Mary Kate shares personal anecdotes about her own spiritual journey and the moments of clarity that shaped her path, the importance of baptismal vows and how they inform various vocations. Mary Kate discusses the senior vocational course she spearheads, which marries theological foundations with human anthropology and immersive prayer practices. The highlight? A 24-hour silent retreat designed to foster a deeper relationship with God, challenging students to discover their identity in Him without the distraction of modern technology.
Experience the profound revelations that Walsh Jesuit students encounter during their silent retreat. Initial skepticism gives way to gratitude, self-awareness, and a newfound appreciation for the simple joys in life. We explore how creating space for God through silence, fasting, and prayer can lead to significant spiritual growth. To wrap things up, we switch gears to the local softball league, capturing the exhilarating spirit of the upcoming playoffs. This episode is a blend of faith, personal growth, and heartwarming stories that you won't want to miss.
On today's Question of Faith. Can you get teenagers to stay quiet and stay off their phone for 24 hours? Hey there, everybody. This is Question of Faith. I am Deacon Mike Hayes. I am the Director of Young Adult Ministry here in the Diocese of Cleveland.
Speaker 2:And I'm Father Damian Ferencz, the Vicar for Evangelization.
Speaker 3:And I am Mary Kate Glow, teacher at Walsh Jesuit High School and parishioner at St Ray Fields over in Bay Village Ohio.
Speaker 1:Hey welcome aboard. Yeah, and star shortstop for the Strongsville Vikings. Right, yeah, it's our team In our softball league. There you go.
Speaker 2:And I heard in Bay Village your power was out for how many days? Five days.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, us too. When did yours come back? Sunday, saturday.
Speaker 3:Just about yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:So late at night, though, so the next day was all putting the fridge back together.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:It was on Sunday. You had power back.
Speaker 1:I didn't get it until Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 2:Oh, wow.
Speaker 1:And we had no hot water either.
Speaker 2:Oh man.
Speaker 1:You know, it's one thing when you don't have electricity you can I get by and everything else. My stove is electric, so we couldn't cook and but the no hot water was hard. I mean, I was like, yeah, a little pen, and seri like exodus 90, exactly. Yeah, exactly, that's right, yeah. And and even even the cold water wasn't great. It was like you know, I don't, I don't actually mind a cool shower, shall we say, but it just was not.
Speaker 1:The, the pressure wasn't even good, right so well no, it's okay, look first world problems you know, I can remember being in nicaragua where the you know water just trickled out of the faucet some days. So you know, and the poor are the ones who really get affected by these things. So, um, so we continue to pray for them, but we're glad that our long national nightmare is over. We we had a tornado here in Ohio, I heard we had four, yes, four touchdowns. Right, yeah, in different places.
Speaker 2:Yeah, parma was ripped up pretty bad. Seminary ran on generators for a few days. Some parishes had mass outside. But we're all here now. Mary Kate Lowe's in the house. Not only is she the softball queen on the what is the name of your team Vikings? Vikings with Maria Wankata, who's our marriage and family specialist, but she also joined us at the National Eucharistic Congress and was roomies and now like besties with Kayla Gill, our other friend on the floor, absolutely yeah, so welcome aboard.
Speaker 3:Yeah, more friend time, so welcome aboard. Yeah, more more friend time. So there you have it.
Speaker 2:So we brought you here because you are a theology teacher at Welsh Jesuit high school and just this past year you taught a new course for the first time which was an elective. It's a vocation course and part of what you did there was very challenging and part of what you did there was very challenging, especially to young people, and that is to make a postinia retreat.
Speaker 3:So would you tell us a little bit about the course and then why you decided to make the course was a result of my own life experiences and my journey with Christ, that you had that mid-20s crisis and you're wondering what is going on in the world and where I'm supposed to be, and I went off on a retreat to Nashville that just lit my heart on fire to where Christ needed and wanted me to be, and so it put me on this path of. Well, you know, you hear the word discernment and what is your vocation and we hear that word a lot within our church just vocation, and I think it usually measures up to somebody thinking about priesthood, religious life and sometimes hidden in the shadows, but should also always be included marriage and and all of this, and so it seems like an end game, right, like I gotta reach this and or find out or constantly explore, and I'm not quite there yet unless I have, you know, arrive, um, and it it was a wrestling match. You know you're, you're thinking about this and discerning all those things, and I took time off thinking that I was, you know, going to join a religious community, didn't date and did that, went down that road for quite some time. But in the midst of it, this is where Christ does his work, and it's quiet work at times, even in the misery of it, work at times even in the misery of it, and he just quieted me down and just really grounded me on this essence of something that was really attractive about religious life for me was seeing the nuns prostrate on the ground the same way that our men do, like that sacrificial giving of yourself, giving it all. That's just where my heart's been in a lot of what I do and so just kind of navigating that and finding that.
Speaker 3:And I remember being in prayer here in the cathedral. Actually I was, I was on a date with a guy this is now long after some of the workings of discernment pass by with religious life and I'm just thinking about how I'm in front of the tabernacle praying and being next to the floor where I know so many men have prostrated themselves, and just hearing in prayer that Mary Kate, like what that? Like all of life single life, married life, priesthood, religious it all looks like that Um, and so it just it brought me that peace and then it just uh, circled me back into my prayer, my baptismal vows, and those have really been, um, a highlight of my heart for the last few years and I think they're just these long forgotten but the most profound and essential vows of our Christianity, which then gets lived out in all those different capacities in which I know people have talked about in terms of like that bit, like that vocation. But the ultimate vocation is already set forth for us at baptism to, as we know, the heavenly state of our sainthood and holiness. And so just navigating those questions for myself, and also even hearing the rhetoric in our church it's not always so clearly talked about like that and people feel like they haven't going back to what I was originally thinking, like you're trying to find yourself but you're already found, and it's an essence of living out the uniqueness of what he's put forth for you and knowing that it's not going to be the same for everybody, even though within the church we have those categorical, like beautiful vocations in the sacramental way, and so it it.
Speaker 3:It comes slowly, right. Like you have these conversations. I'm talking, I'm in, I'm in the classroom every day with teenagers and these are the questions that are on their heart. They're worried about who am I? Who am I sell, who like? What am I doing in life? We're always asking about where are you going to college? What are you doing for?
Speaker 3:a career and all these kinds of things which my heart breaks for them, because I feel like they got to come up with some sort of script and then still be unsure about it. And my heart also broke twofold because it's beyond this, this right, it goes back to that baptismal um notion that I was, you know, uh, recalled earlier.
Speaker 3:so, yeah, I, I think for a while the course had its workings quietly in my life, um, and then, after the covid 2020, there's that spiritual yearning and longing that I really sensed, even for myself as a professional, to want to challenge myself and see what a vocations course could look like, because it is a part of the bishop's framework. Sure.
Speaker 2:But it's an elective right. It is an elective and they take it senior year. Is it seniors?
Speaker 1:Yeah. Tell us a little bit about the nuts and bolts of the course, like what actually happens.
Speaker 3:I would say it's a journey of is there a God out there? Who is this God? So, learning about having those theological foundations, because being made in the image and likeness of him allows us to understand ourselves. So, going, then, through human anthropology, so it's who is God, who am I and what does this all mean? And it's a culmination of getting in touch, not just with knowing, but then taking the time to be with and know. So the, for me, it's. I've tried to position it as a time where, like we're, we're partnering that with immense prayer throughout the course. So, even before I reached the end of where we're going with this podcast, with the Postinia retreat, because at Postinia you're asking teenagers to be on a retreat for 24 hours in silence, and every post-union takes on a different face. But I would say, traditionally, people would bring in scripture, bring in a Bible with them, a journal, an icon, a crucifix, bread and water, or just something simple, sustaining, and you really want to be off on your own.
Speaker 2:No phone.
Speaker 3:No phone.
Speaker 2:No, teddy bear.
Speaker 3:Some people want to bring their blankets still right, leave it at the altar. So, to work up to that moment, the students need to know that the God that they're going to want to separate you know themselves from the. You know you're separating yourself from the world to be with him, that he's here for your good. Who is he? And then what are the questions that are burning in my heart that I can bring to him in prayer? And so then a lot of it, and I think where so many students ask for guidance is teaching how to pray and drawing from that spiritual life and having the confidence to do that because you're going to be, you know, alone in this room, also knowing that I can be right down the hall if you need that guidance or help. So the course is set up to.
Speaker 3:I joke with the kids. I'm like it's really a course about you and God, because he's going to do the work as long as you provide the framework for that. And so I delve into their questions. You start off where every human starts off, like what do you think the purpose of life is? What do you want to do? We hear the word happiness a lot, so all those buzz things that we tend to hear in our culture. You draw from and then you just bring it back to like and why do you think there's notions like that on your heart? How do you think you're designed Like? What do you think God wants to do with that? So it can be really fun, because, I mean, what's a better class than a teenager wanting to talk about themselves and the questions that they have? So that's, I think, where the draw starts. And then the.
Speaker 3:I remember last year because it was. I give so much credit to the students that took that course in the fall. I know you're like huge guinea pigs because I remember on the first day I think they heard murmurings about this retreat I was doing and so they just went at it even before I got into the syllabus, and they're like what we're to have to just be in a room with bread and water and I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa, we're going to get there.
Speaker 3:But I think, like even the shock of that, like the shock factor, that's intriguing, yeah, like I think, for any of us, no matter where you're at spiritually, and then wanting to draw from the elements of the course and then bringing them to that moment.
Speaker 2:Talk a little bit about the help that you had in preparing young people to do this 24-hour deep dive into silence without their phones. So I know you brought in a sister, you brought in a priest, you brought in different people to help prepare their hearts for this. So who are those guest lecturers?
Speaker 3:their hearts for this. So who are those guest lecturers? It's numerous to name. I'm just so grateful for the community I have at Walsh Jesuit and all the adults who wanted to share their story of their faith journey and what prayer means to them and how God has directed them in ways of their life. I brought in the Mercedarian sisters to show their prayer life and what that looks like for the daily, even for a teenager, even though they're looking at sisters who are in habits which many of my students never even saw, a sister in their life.
Speaker 3:A dear friend, Father Pat Anderson, who has drawn me close to icons in my own spirituality. He came in, he made icons with the students and it was incredible. I think in the final papers that the students wrote, many of them remarked and even quoted Father Pat in some of how he talked about his own prayer life you know, having coffee with Mary, having her icon there while he's beginning his day. So it's really wonderful and the gifts that we have in and around in our own local community, the community I have at Walsh Jesuit here in the diocese, and I know for myself there's also people out there in our diocese who are still putting on post-dias for both adults and young adults, Because I went on my first post-dia due to a dear friend, Chrissy Fleming, who was a young adult leader in the diocese a number of years ago, and I think there's something cultivated here in this whole postinia experience that has been able to gain some ground in our area when I was a parish priest, I would choose 12 teens to make a postinia.
Speaker 2:These were the all-star teens who wanted to go deeper, and I used to take them up to the seminary. Six boys, six girls Christy Fleming was actually my youth group. She was the only one who did it twice. But a lot of times the parents would think there's no way my kid could keep her mouth or his mouth shut that long. But if you help prepare people and teach them how to pray, it can be a tremendous experience. So you had how many? 12 or 15 with you? 12. Good, perfect, biblical number, yeah. And then so they went into their rooms for 24 hours about approximately, and you prayed with them before. Did they have mass beforehand?
Speaker 3:It was a meal beforehand Meal beforehand.
Speaker 2:Then they went into their cell and then had 24 hours in silence and then came out and then you celebrated mass with them, right, and then after that, another meal, and then you unpacked what the experience was. So tell us a little bit about what the young people experienced and some of the comments that you heard, because it's hard for some people to turn their phone off for 10 minutes, let alone 24 hours, and then be in silence with no one else to talk to but God. So how did that go for them? Tell us a little bit about the feedback you received.
Speaker 3:Unexpectedly the first thing even as they were signing up, they wanted to put their phones down. So that can be a whole other podcast that I think.
Speaker 1:I found that on the Kairos retreats that we take the phones away and they're like, you know, it was really good being off the grid, you know, like just putting those things away and like just being here with each other.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so yeah, I hear you on that and beyond. Um, like most stories that we can share about the faith life, students would go in with expecting one thing and coming out with a surprise that that God has for them. Students that thought that they were looking forward to sleeping most of the time away, but then realizing, like just pouring their hearts out and journaling. I remember coming back and Father Damien was asking me about you know, like how did it turn out?
Speaker 2:I'm trying to recall like I remember a couple things you said. You said one student never really paid attention to the rain or the weather outside and creation. You said someone else became really grateful for his or her parents like gratitude. And then you also said someone paid attention to his or her own breath and heartbeat and so had never been quiet enough. I just remembered those things and think that's exactly where we need to take young people so they can encounter the Lord in silence and have their lives transformed by his presence within them.
Speaker 3:And I'm sorry I kind of passed your own question back off to you because my mind was slipping there.
Speaker 2:My memory is astute.
Speaker 3:Well, I'll owe you for that later. The thing for me, though and I think this is the beauty of any of the work that we do you, mike, or Father Damien, and like me in the classroom you just always hope it's God's work being done, and I think that's the beauty of the post-idney is that it's the silence of God's work, that it's nothing that I'm gonna say, it's nothing that somebody else is gonna do. It's really the solitude of something that, when they come out of the room and they're sharing an experience, you know that that's undeniable work of God, because there was nothing else shared other than the solitude.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so much of ministry is actually making space for God to do his work.
Speaker 2:So, Deacon Mike, you asked me to save this for the show, but normally before we start the show I usually do an Instagram post of the guest and you and just as a way to let people know we're recording today. But I mentioned to Deacon Mike and Ms Glow that I am not doing that because I am on an Instagram and alcohol fast. I'm doing a novena working up to the Feast of Our Lady on Thursday, but I do that not because Instagram is bad or alcohol is bad Like I enjoy drinking beer and I enjoy posting on social media but I do it to make more space in my heart for the Lord to work, and from time to time I think we all have to do that, whether it's 24 hours of silence or an eight-day retreat or 15 minutes in the morning. But just giving the Lord room to work and giving him space is really essential and what gets in the way right.
Speaker 1:Sometimes those things get in the way of us giving ourselves to God because I'm trying to keep this social media post up. You know, or you know, I'm choosing to do something else instead of doing morning prayer today, or whatever it might be.
Speaker 2:Also, as ministers, we often get asked to pray for people, and Jesus even said some of these demons only get driven out by prayer and fasting. So when you go on postinia, or when you pray or when you fast, to add an intention to it, to attach an attention to it, can actually be quite efficacious and keep you locked in, because you're not just doing it for you, but you're doing it for particular intentions and people who have asked you to pray for them.
Speaker 1:And I think we forget when we work with young people. Sometimes this sounds pejorative, and I don't mean it to be, but most of our work is remedial. People don't have the experiences, certainly, that you and I grew up with. You're a little younger than us.
Speaker 3:Millennial.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, but symbols were familiar to us because our parents gave them to us. I love what you were saying about Father Anderson's icons. You know, that makes it come alive with them, because those symbols aren't present to them all the time. Even though they are in our churches, they don't understand them. They walk in and say what's that and what's that and what's that. You're like oh wait, you don't know those things. Hold on, let me explain right. You know, hold on, let me explain right. And then you feel like you're explaining things, but sometimes you have to because they just don't have any experience of them.
Speaker 2:And for them to be able to work with the priest to write or make their own icon and then pray with that icon and then keep it or maybe gift it to someone who they were praying for on that particular post-synia. It's wonderful, and I think the other thing to take away from this is that it is possible, with proper preparation and formation and accompaniment, for young people to put their phones down and enter into silence and to develop a prayer life. But it's not going to happen. Just you should have a prayer life. They need to be shown. If you didn't have your own experience which is how you started you know your little witness here on the podcast you wouldn't be able to share, because you cannot share what you have not first received, and so I think the other thing that you mentioned to me was you have I don't know if you have a waiting list, but are you teaching more than one section of this course this year?
Speaker 3:It went from one to four, okay.
Speaker 2:Why? Because young people experience it and they went and told other people and that's the best way to minister, like peer-to-peer ministry works. Yes, Ms Glow is a great teacher and I've met some of your students are like hoorah, she can be stern at times but she's really fun. But it's the teens that had you in class and had this experience who go and tell other people. I mean, that's how the word got out about the resurrected Lord. People witnessed him and then they told other people. That's right. It's so key, and especially in this, now we are in the missionary phase of the Eucharistic revival, it's about getting out and letting people know the good news.
Speaker 1:Indeed, and so you're at Walsh Jesuit. Tell us a little bit about the chapel at Walsh Jesuit for those who have never been there.
Speaker 3:It's so unique.
Speaker 1:And you have two right you have a daily one and the.
Speaker 2:Wasn't the daily mass. You showed it to me. Once it's behind, don't you gather there for the daily mass?
Speaker 3:Oh, yeah, yeah, I know what you're referencing now. So where our tabernacle is within the chapel, it sits as a smaller chapel within the chapel. Ah, I got you so we call it the Adoration Chapel within the chapel of our North American martyrs.
Speaker 2:Being a.
Speaker 3:Jesuit institution. Those are our patrons, and so if anybody has been to Toledo St John's I have never been myself, but I hear that we're kind of twins of one another, our campuses so our chapel has this effect where the ceiling goes up like straight up through the roof and it shoots out and we have a cross on top, so we call it the crossing crown. It's really beautiful.
Speaker 2:It was built in 64. Is that right? Your school so similar? To St Colmcille it's also Tale de Chardin, and it's the title of a Flannery O'Connor story. Everything that Rises Must Converge. So, that's like written into the architecture of this thing. Ah, got it Okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it has this circular feel though, but drawing up altar right in center in our pews gather around it and everybody is welcome to gather with us. We have daily mass. We're so fortunate and I am so grateful for our Jesuits to come in every morning at 730. So students, teachers, parents, even friends of the community, walk in join us for mass.
Speaker 2:It's wonderful, but totally like a shout out to our friends Kate and Natalie. Do they ever come to morning mass, or should?
Speaker 3:they, they've been there.
Speaker 2:They've been there. Okay, maybe they'll come more often, even this year, their senior year. I met them this summer 7.30.
Speaker 3:Show some commitment when you're getting up that early, when school doesn't start until 8.15.
Speaker 1:Exactly, and hey, something that takes commitment has been our softball league all year, which you have been a part of, so it's time for this week's softball update. All right, what a final regular season week. Let's start with two make-up games. On Friday night, catching Flamingos knocked off Strongsville 16-13. Jimmy Ludwig, staking his claim for consideration for league MVP. He went three for three, five big RBIs, a grand slam and a seven-run fourth inning. Rutger Delm also had three hits on the day. A three-run blast for Ben Schaefer and a losing cause for the Vikings kept things close. But now Strongsville is behind the eight ball. They needed a win on Sunday and some help to have a path for the playoffs. We'll have more on that in just a bit. A wild one in the night cap. The Westside Whitecaps took a 9-4 lead into the sixth inning. Bobby Bull in a grand slam. Logan Feldkamp two RBIs, but Ite came roaring back with a five-run sixth inning. Matt Garvin and David Smith each with a double. Dan Wallace, with an additional RBI single, tied things up at nine. A double by Franco Alonso started the bottom of the sixth and then a ground out by Kevin Dougherty ended up with a wild throw going down the third baseline to score Alonso with the winning run. The Whitecaps still only one loss now. After this 10-9 win, let's head towards Sunday and the regular season action there started out with the Flamingos with an easy 7-1 win over the Parma Peacocks. Jimmy Ludwig and Ed Drabeck each with two RBIs. Now Parma needs some help to get into the playoffs, but stay tuned. The Whitecaps played the Chosen Ones in the second game and it was not for the faint of heart. A sixth-run third inning, capped by Logan Feldkamp's three-run homer, seemed to have things in hand for Westside. But then a sixth-run fifth inning, led by Johnny Reynolds' three-run home run, brought the Chosen Ones back from the dead. In the bottom of the sixth, chris Rinderle had a three-run walk-off triple that ended the game for the Cardiac kids 15-14,. The Whitecaps take the regular season crowns and they push Chosen Ones to the third seed in the playoffs. They lose a bye.
Speaker 1:The St Vitus Lions took on Big League Chew in the next game. They raced past them 6-5. Another cardiac game. A walk-off single by David Harvin kept Vitus' playoff hopes alive. Three hits and a losing cause for Matt Liberatore as well. The St Joe's Vikings knocked off Grapes of Wrath easily 13-2. They needed this one to stay alive. Phil Wancotta three RBIs, his wife Maria, another two RBIs and three hits on the day. Mary Kate Glow, luke Brandt, kristen Tubbs, all with two hits. A great team effort by the Vikings. We'll see if they make the playoffs momentarily.
Speaker 1:The final game had Itay knocking off the Blue Scapulars 19-10. David Smith five big RBIs. Andrew Kukla and Matt Garvin added four RBIs each. Kukla and Garvin also with home runs, and that Garvin a double away from hitting for the cycle in that game. But now the fun begins the playoffs. Westside Flamingos, chosen Ones and Big League Chew all clinch playoff spots. That's the seeding order as well. But five other teams finish at three and four.
Speaker 1:So we had a head-to-head tie-breaking format. Well into the night. Head-to-head games are the first tiebreaker. So here are the clear winners. The Peacocks, vitus and Ite all had two wins in that head-to-head matchup. Strongsville only had one and the Scaptors had three losses despite their two wins. So they get eliminated by league rule. So the Peacocks, vitus and Ite now have to face a tie-breaking head-to-head matchup there to see who can get the last two playoff spots.
Speaker 1:Well, it turns out the Peacocks are 2-0. They beat both Vitus and Ite, so they advance and clinch the fifth seed Now. Vitus and Ite did not play each other and we have opted to ask Vitus and Ite to play a one-game playoff this Sunday early on, before playoff Sunday actually starts. So we'll have a 6-7 game, if you would, at 11 o'clock at a new venue, meyer Park in Seven Hills, ohio. Vitus for Ite for the sixth seed of the playoffs and that follows a full game of softball. Big League Chew has the fourth seed. They'll take on the Parma Peacocks and their former star player, joe Vicario, who started his own team this year. We'll see if there's any revenge that happens there. The Chosen Ones will take on the winner of that early game between Vitus and Ite. Then the winners will advance to take on the Flamingos in the weight caps and the weight games and, of course, the championship happens at 630.
Speaker 1:So come on out to Seven Hills at Meyer Park. We're all day long. Veranova Health will have free food and drink. We thank them for their sponsorship along with Archangel Outfitters who will be selling their cool shirts and more on site. It'll be a great day. Pray for good weather. We'll have an all-star game update along with all the finals action next week. I'm Deacon Mike Hayes. This is your softball update? All right, playoffs this Sunday. Sorry, mk, you guys just fell a little short there. Wait, I thought if the one team lost and they won, they were in. No, it would go to five. Teams were tied for the last two playoff spots of three and four.
Speaker 2:But you lost to some of the teams that.
Speaker 1:Yes, so head-to-head head. Their record wasn't as good as three of the other teams.
Speaker 1:So two teams were eliminated in the first tie breaker by head to head and then the second one. Um, one team made it in because they had a better record than the other two teams did head to head. And then, finally, we just approached the last two teams and said look, your run differential is so close, which is the second tiebreaker. And I hate that tiebreaker, yeah, because sometimes you win games 20 to 3 and sometimes you win the game 6 to 5. Yeah, and the 6 to 5 game you probably fought so much harder. So we said would you guys come early on Sunday and just have a one game playoff and that'll be the last seed for the playoff. And they agreed to do that. So there you go.
Speaker 2:That's how we settled it. Are you sad? I mean this is a three-sport Hall of Famer for Magnificat. High School and a college Hall of Famer at Ashland, she has the most kills and spikes of all time. Is that right?
Speaker 3:Yeah, with the digs, kills and spikes of all time, is that right? Yeah, with the digs, digs, whatever those are we got the cool terms in volleyball?
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah, it's great, but you had a good year.
Speaker 2:Try again next year, and Maria and Phil must not be happy either. They're highly competitive, but it's good for your humility. So, anyway, we're going to talk about the scriptures now.
Speaker 1:Humility, humility.
Speaker 2:I need it too, believe me.
Speaker 3:To see your reaction in real time. Wow, there you go, dear friend.
Speaker 2:I was hoping In all seriousness
Speaker 1:it was great having you folks as part of the league this year. Hope you come back next year. Bread of Life discourse continues in our scriptures. This week in the Gospel of John, I found it interesting. Just last week they said that the Jewish people murmured about Jesus. This week the Jewish people are quarreling about Jesus, so it's sort of gotten deeper. Before they were just talking about it. Now there's divisions. Now one side thinks one thing, one side thinks the other, and they're quarreling about this. And so you know, is there a difference between our murmurs and our quarrels? How does that work?
Speaker 2:I think murmur is an onomatopoeia, because it's murmur murmur, murmur murmur. That's right, yeah, Just a sound. I'm sticking with the theme I had last week and I've been riffing on this for a couple weeks, like I want to live forever. Who doesn't Like no one wants, when they die, to be just out and kaput. No life after this. We have a desire for eternal life, and that desire is the desire that God wants to meet with his very flesh. So I love the Eucharist for that reason and many others.
Speaker 1:MK, let's turn it out to you.
Speaker 3:How many weeks are we going on with John 6?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's six total, so this is four or five.
Speaker 3:I think there's a reason for that and so just sitting with that as a church, I think is important in and of itself that six Sundays are dedicated to what Christ is saying here, and as a part of what I have always noticed in this part of John's gospel is count out how many times flesh is mentioned, or flesh and blood, and I think in the dedication of the time that the church is giving us to reflect on this, we can find ourselves with the apostles and with the Jews toiling and thinking and bringing it to prayer and reviving something in our own lives spiritually.
Speaker 1:Yeah, perfect, great. So that'll be Bread of Life. Discourse Continues readings Assumption coming up on Thursday. So I get to Mass on Thursday, yeah, and if you, want come down to Little Italy at Holy Rosary. Bishop.
Speaker 2:Molesik has the Mass. Someone you may or may not know is preaching the homily and it may or may not be good. We'll see what happens.
Speaker 3:Well, if God doesn't?
Speaker 2:I'm dusting off my really special cassock for that day because we're going to go process in the streets and Bishop's wearing his cassock, so I'm going to wear mine.
Speaker 3:Special cassock.
Speaker 2:Well, it's got the fascia. Oh, yeah, yeah yeah, I got you Because I have one that I use for teaching. That's old and kind of ratty, but this is like my classy one.
Speaker 3:So I might even get a haircut for Thursday, since you're in Little Italy, are you?
Speaker 2:bringing out any of the gear that you wore in Rome? No, because that's academic gear.
Speaker 1:It's not liturgical gear. It's not liturgical gear.
Speaker 2:When I defended my dissertation I had a wreath of laurel leaves I wore on my head, but that's long faded and withered.
Speaker 3:But not your PhD. That's right, or your?
Speaker 1:book. Exactly, MK. Thanks for joining us. It's great having you.
Speaker 3:It's great, thank you.
Speaker 1:And we'll have this and a whole lot more next time here on Question of Faith.
