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 Sickness Be a Gift?
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Father Damian and Deacon Mike explore the paradoxical blessing that illness and suffering can bring to our spiritual lives through personal stories of vulnerability and transformation.
• Deacon Mike shares his recent experience with influenza A and how forced rest allowed him to reevaluate his priorities
• The physical dependency that comes with illness reminds us of our ultimate reliance on God
• Flannery O'Connor's story illustrates how her terminal illness focused her creative work and deepened her faith
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Theology of the Body CLE
St. John Cantius Parish
Matt Fradd's pod on Overthinking with John Eldredge
• Suffering can transform us into more compassionate ministers by giving us firsthand experience of pain
• Both hosts reflect on "second conversion" experiences triggered by painful life events
• The importance of integrating intellectual faith with emotional experience
• Leonard Cohen's wisdom: "There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in"
Visit Cathedral of St. John in Cleveland for daily confessions Monday through Friday at 6:30 AM, with Mass at 7:15 AM, and additional confessions from 11:30 AM to 12:30 PM with Mass at noon. Starting May 28th, join us for Wednesday Evenings Live featuring Vespers and live music.
Readings for the Third Sunday of Lent
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On today's Question of Faith can sickness be a gift? Hey everybody, this is Question of Faith. I am Deacon Mike Hayes. I am the Young Adult Ministry Director here in the Diocese of Cleveland.
Speaker 2:And I am Father Damian Ferencz, the Vicar for Evangelization and, as of April 1st, the new Parochial Vicar at the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist.
Speaker 1:Woohoo, breaking news now.
Speaker 2:Breaking news, baby. Yeah, so it'll be officially announced on April 1st, but I received my letter of appointment yesterday, on the Feast of St Joseph, which is pretty cool. So, if you're not aware, I served the diocese as the secretary for parish life and special ministries for three years and there is currently a merging of two secretariats the office of catechetics and secretary for parish life and special ministries. The director of catechetical ministry is going to oversee both departments and may eventually take on a new name. I don't know if that's going to happen or not, but in the meantime, because I was relieved of that duty, I'm going to be a parish priest for the first time since 2007.
Speaker 2:I'm super excited. I'll remain vicar for evangelization, so I still live in downtown at the cathedral, still have my office on the fifth floor, but I also get to do stuff that I think I'm pretty good at Preaching, teaching, hearing confessions, funerals, hospital calls, weddings the stuff that most priests, when they go to the seminary, they think that's what they're going to be doing. So special ministry is cool but, like the parish is where it's at. So I'm super excited to be back.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's awesome yeah. So speaking, of being back you are back, but you were out for a while because you were sick, so tell us about it. Sick isn't the word I mean now. I don't generally get sick, like I'm pretty healthy. I, you know, I take pretty good care of myself. I try to maintain distance from people who are sick. I'm, you know, I'm a slight hypochondriac, right, but I don't know where I picked this thing up. But something's been going around and I ended up getting influenza A.
Speaker 2:Sounds dreadful. That's going around because Father Don Oleksik had it too, just before you did, so we'll blame him. Yeah, it's going around because Father Don Oleksik had it too, just before you did. We'll blame him.
Speaker 1:It's interesting because I haven't even been near him, so I can't even blame him. But yeah, no, it just kind of knocked me down for the count I had been like coughing up a lung.
Speaker 2:Was it all respiratory? Yeah, totally.
Speaker 1:Fever. No, no, chills, oh terrible, but only slight. Like you know, I'm never cold you know, and so I'm sitting in my apartment. I'm like man, it's kind of chilly in here, you know like what's going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And Marion's like you're never cold, you must be sick. And I was like, yeah, I'm feeling something coming on, and then so it started like as a nasally kind of thing and I thought I'd knock that out. Usually, when I get something like that, I can knock it out in a couple of days with you know over-the-counter stuff, you know. So I did that and then I seemed to be okay. I actually took a couple of days off of work because I knew something was coming on and then which I never do- yeah, you are very faithful, reliable.
Speaker 2:I don't remember you ever being sick and I've known you now for four years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this is the first time, I think, I've been sick, since I've been here More than a day or something, yeah the first time I ever took any significant time off.
Speaker 1:that wasn't vacation, right, right, other than the death of my mother. Right, that's about it. Um, but man like I, I went to, uh, the right of election downtown. I went to ocia, I went to, I came to to work the next day on monday. Yeah, I went to ocia on monday night. And I woke up on tuesday and I and you and I were together and I was like, oh man, I'm not feeling too good. And I told dr knight when he was here, I was like, oh man, I'm not feeling too good. And I told Dr Knight, when he was here, I was like keep your distance from me, man, I don't know what's going on. And after the podcast, I went upstairs to edit it. I finished editing it, I'm walking down the hall and I had forgotten something up in the studio, yeah, and I stood by the elevator and I coughed uncontrollably for like 30 seconds, to the point that Francine Castatini comes down the hall and was like are you okay?
Speaker 1:And I was like no, I am not, and so I just went home. I had finished editing, I called Greg and said look, I'm just going to go home, and that was the last time I was here until today.
Speaker 2:I was here until today. Well, oftentimes sickness is the absolute worst and and you have to rest and we're both pretty active guys and that can be hard to do and then let someone else take care of you and all that. Um, the question of this podcast is can can sickness be a gift? Can it be a blessing and not just a curse? And what are your thoughts on that? Is it too early to say, or were there any graces that came because of your sickness?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there is, I mean, I think, that number one. It gives you the chance to kind of slow down. I've been burned the candle at both ends, you know, as I like to say, me and my five jobs. You know there's a lot going on and this kind of gave me the opportunity to kind of sit back a little bit and say, okay, what am I really doing here? You know, am I working too hard? Am I doing too much? Let me slow down and organize my life a little bit. You know, I'm caring for my sister who's going into nursing, and so I got some stuff done for her while I was home that I probably couldn't do at any high level if I'm working at the same time. Got a parish retreat coming up right.
Speaker 1:So it gave me an opportunity to kind of think about that a little bit, but at the same time it also gave me the opportunity not to think about things you know, to say, okay, I've got some time just to rest, right, and I think I really needed to do that, because it's just, you know, the only thing you could really do to knock this out is really sleep. Yeah, I mean it was like I slept every night off at 11. Great yeah, it was really good.
Speaker 2:Your body needs it. I know that most of the time when I get sick it's because I push myself too hard. I wear down my immune system and my body. This is my body's way and my soul's way of saying slow down, boy, and rest. And then maybe it's three days where I'm just laying on the couch or laying in bed.
Speaker 2:And I remember last time I watched I think that's when I started watching Ted Lasso- and I watched Greta Gerwig's Little Women, but I would never watch TV during the day or in the afternoon or lay on the couch. But if we push ourselves too hard, our bodies and our souls have a way of correcting that, and sometimes it is by getting sick. So it could be a great grace that the Lord enters in in that way and says hey, now think about this. And I can say this I've gotten better about taking breaks and not feeling guilty. So I pray in the morning, I work out in the afternoon. I think you know that about me. But the other thing that I've been doing if I have talks in the evening and during Lent I have a ton of them and I think you're are you doing a parish mission now or something?
Speaker 1:I got parish retreat at the end of the month.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and even tonight I'm starting the book study on the bishop's pastoral letter. So I'm going to be out for two and a half hours this evening. So in the afternoon we have a little balcony over at the Rectory Cathedral and if the sun's out I'll go out there and just read for a half hour or 45 minutes. And that's not me being lazy or taking off work, I'm actually feeding my mind, feeding my heart, and that's good stuff for me to do. And something about being an American particularly in this part of the country where we define ourselves often by our hard work that can get us in trouble too, because we don't take proper rest and then we wind up getting sick.
Speaker 1:Was that different for you when you studied abroad?
Speaker 2:I had a very strict writing schedule that I kept to and because it worked, I didn't feel the guilt about it. It was actually Flannery O'Connor's writing schedule, so she wrote every day. She went to Mass in the morning and then wrote from 9 to noon and that was it. And if that's all you do with maybe a five-minute coffee break for three hours, that was it. And if you, if that's all you do with maybe a five minute coffee break for three hours, that's exhausting. That's a lot of work. And then the rest of the day I could read and walk and I didn't feel bad about it.
Speaker 2:Now there were some guys that I lived with that they're like you should work an eight hour day. I'm like not if you're a writer, if you put in three solid hours, that's enough. That's like being a football player you played a football game and you only do that once a week or a baseball player you don't have to work an eight hours. You don't write for eight hours a day. I don't know anyone who can do that. So I think because I had that discipline built in, it worked and because I wrote my dissertation in a pretty quick amount of time, I didn't feel bad about it.
Speaker 2:But sometimes maybe it's in my heart or in my head but, or some little jab comments that you'll hear from time to time, like, oh, you're just kind of laying out and reading a book, yeah, it's called leisure and it's healthy. It's healthy, so I think. And then I think if people in positions that we have do that, then we can model for other people. Oh, I can do that too then. And then you don't pass on the workaholism, because the leisure is really important. But I think it's something to constantly work at. And, as Aristotle would say, usually we lean to one extreme or another. Either we're workaholics or we're lazy by nature. So you have to push yourself to the other extreme to find that middle ground. So if you're always working, you got to push yourself to rest, and if you're sedentary and just like phlegmatic and like to sit around, you have to push yourself to work, and then both will find that that, that golden mean in the middle there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so, you know, our question for today was you know, can sickness be a gift? You know, it's a shame that sometimes we have to get sick in order to slow things down, instead of doing this on a regular basis. You know, yeah, my mom was sick most of her life.
Speaker 2:Mine too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think one of the gifts that I got from her was saying you know, hey, look, life is precious. You know, like there are things I can't do anymore, you know, because I'm just crippled up, you know, with rheumatoid arthritis. You know, like there are things I can't do anymore, you know, because I'm just crippled up, you know, with rheumatoid arthritis. You know she couldn't move some days and but for her it was like an opportunity to sit and to pray.
Speaker 1:Number one it was a big part of her life and you know, but number two, it was also like an opportunity for her to kind of reflect back on the things that she had done and on the gift that she was to so many people, and I think that was a great comfort to her. I don't think she would have thought about it if she wasn't laid up as much as she was.
Speaker 2:Being sick, too, makes you dependent on others, and particularly dependent upon God for help, because we human beings, in our fallen nature, want to be so self-sufficient. I want to take care of myself. I don't want anyone to take care of me. I'm strong, I'm healthy, well, okay. But eventually you won't be, or someone in your life won't be, and then you'll have to deal with that. And so this is why there's something I mean we even call it sin sickness sometimes that again, flannery O'Connor says that sin can be a good thing because it can lead people back to God. It's like, oh, I did that, but I realized, oh, I hit rock bottom, I've got to come back, like the prodigal son. Speaking of O'Connor, I'm heading to Georgia this weekend because she'll be turning 100 years old, if she was alive today. So there's some celebrations in Savannah on Friday and Saturday, and then I'm heading to Milledgeville the next few days, where she lived for the last 14 years of her life. In fact, after she finished her MFA at Iowa, her hope was to live in New York City with all the other writers and that was the great writing community and never have to go back to Georgia, except maybe on a holiday to visit her mom and what happened was she was diagnosed with lupus when she was 25 years old. That was the same disease that killed her dad, and so, because of the medications, she had to be on crutches and she needed fresh air. So she had to move back with her mother to a 500 acre farm four miles outside of the city of Milledgeville, on a working dairy farm. But that's where she wrote every day and she was sick and she knew that she was dying. She knew she didn't have a lot of time and I think it was because of that that she was so focused in her craft. She didn't waste any time. She wrote every day from nine to noon, including Sundays, because she was dying of lupus. But that brought out greatness in her, and sometimes that can be our story too. Because of sickness, because of hurts, because of pains, because of a fall in life, we can wind up allowing God in our lives in a way there because we had nowhere else to turn.
Speaker 2:I like to talk about it Like when I first had my first adult conversion. Like came to Christ because he would just wooed me my senior year of high school and I wanted I mean there was. I loved baseball. I love my friends, I love you know, hanging out and art and all that. But when I found Christ, not just as a friend but best friend, savior, my life changed. I'm like I'm going to give it to him. If that means seminary, boom go. And it was a really easy decision.
Speaker 2:But then what I talk about as my second conversion was the year before, like so, 2001,. 9-11 happened Two months later. My mom died A couple months after that, boston abuse scandal, couple months after that, cleveland abuse scandal breaks. And then that was the summer before I was going to be ordained a deacon and that was terrible and I thought marriage would be a better option at this point, because why would anyone want to be a priest? And all these things were going on in my heart and that was the point in my life where I had, for the first time, to completely rely upon God in my brokenness, and it worked. But I don't know if I would have been there had it not been for the sickness, the pain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, Like when I was 25, so for many years I had a college roommate named Dave. Right, Dave was a stand-up comic, was the funniest person I think I've ever met in my entire life. And all of that comedy came from pain, because he was dying. You know, he died when he was 25. And I could remember, like you know, our senior year. He got pretty sick, ended up in the hospital, had to put a defibrillator in because his heart just wasn't beaten, right, you know? And he very nearly died our senior year and I think it kind of woke a lot of us up as we were heading out of college. You know, we're like you know, what are we going to do with the rest of our lives? You know, and time can be limited, None of us are promised tomorrow. And at the same time, like it all forced us in some way to take our friendship with him a lot more serious. So when he did die three years later, you know we didn't waste any time with him.
Speaker 1:We were always with that guy, you know and I think it was a really big wake-up call for me in many ways, and it was kind of the beginning, too, of like me thinking about ministry just in general. You know it's like, okay, you know I've got this career in radio and it's going okay. You know it's not going great but it's going all right. And you know, at the end of the day and this is not to denigrate anybody in the media, but at the end of the day I was like, yeah, we did a good show today. Okay, what else you got? Yeah?
Speaker 2:yeah, it's like the deep, an infinite mystery and not just things that can be measured here. I felt the same way. I loved baseball, but then I thought there's more to life than baseball. As an 18-year-old I mean it sounds cheesy, but it wasn't my only way I defined myself. But as a baseball player I'm like this isn't satisfying me. I like it a lot, but no, there's more.
Speaker 1:There's more, even as a baseball announcer. For me it was like yeah, okay, and people would come to the minor league games I did for a while and they were like, hey, you guys do a good job at these games. You're like, okay, yeah, great thanks.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just not enough. It's not enough. If it's just it's not enough, you know it's not enough. If it's not god, it's never enough. It could be a relationship, it could be money, it could be a job, it could be a promotion and whatever. And it lasts for a little while and then you're like gosh, there's more.
Speaker 1:My heart longs, my heart longs and uh, yeah, my friends even noticed that the that I cared more about the players as people than I did about the game. It's about broadcasting the game on its own. They said, wow, you really took some time with the high school students, that maybe you were doing PA announcement, for you really have taken an interest in them in some way. And I was like, yeah, that's true, I think you're right.
Speaker 1:Dumb me right You're never thinking in the background of what could really be happening here you know, and so you actually think about what's going on and I found you know, like doing retreats and things like that in my parish were bringing me a lot more life than producing radio was.
Speaker 2:Yeah the more. And yet here we are.
Speaker 1:It all comes back full circle regardless.
Speaker 2:Well, and here we are, on the first day of spring. Kayla Gill told me that this morning.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:But also in our Lenten season, which is the church's way to remind us that we can't have eternal springtime here. Life is dying and it is rising, and we keep ourselves from certain things, Like we pray more intensely during Lent. We fast not because food is bad or, you know, Instagram is bad or whatever you've given up is bad, but because there's a greater good and it makes us long for that, you know. And then the almsgiving too, like okay, I have these things but I can't keep. Anything Like love is meant to be given away. And so the church allows us to be reminded. We're made for more, and when we intentionally keep ourselves, when we do fasting, we much, much more greatly enjoy the feasting. Yeah, sure, yeah, it's like the rhythm of life. I was thinking too. I'm giving these book studies, starting tonight at the browsing bookstore and cafe down in the Galleria.
Speaker 1:Down in the Galleria, yeah.
Speaker 2:And there's a section in the bishop's new pastoral letter where he says this. He says have you ever noticed that the times in our lives when we grow the most, when we learn the most, when we become more of who God made us to be, are almost always preceded by some difficult time, some pain, sorrow, suffering, heartache or loss? And then he says that through those Good Friday experiences and trust that the Lord will raise us from the dead, as he raised Jesus on Easter Sunday, we are able to experience the power of his resurrection in our own lives. And ain't that the truth? Like if you go on a Kairos retreat or a tech retreat or the Believe Land retreat Christ Renews His Parish Cursillo, christ Renews His Parish Curcio. Even like 12-step program, where someone's giving a lead. Most of the time they'll take you through a moment in their life that was difficult, painful, where they felt like dying. And it's in that dying and there really is a death to something old that something new emerges. And even in the sickness business it's like you're in the sickness, you long for health, and then when you get the health, you're like oh, I'm so glad I'm not sick anymore. But in some ways and Colbert said this in that famous interview about his stand-up and it was in the GQ interview before that. And I know that because I had to pay $500 to GQ to use that in my first book. But he says it's like he calls it loving the bomb.
Speaker 2:When you get to a point in your life where you can say I am grateful that that happened. Oh, I hated it, but I'm so grateful that that happened because it allowed me to do this and I know for myself. My mom died a year before I was ordained. It was the first person I was ever with when she died. I was around death a lot that year because she was dying for 53 weeks. She went through eight different roommates at the cancer home run by the Dominicans, but I was around death and sickness, suffering so much that that was a great gift as a priest, because I've never been afraid to go to an emergency room, hospice, visit someone in their home, and that was a gift given to me by my mom. Do I wish that didn't happen?
Speaker 2:In some ways, yes, but I'm also so grateful it happened because it gave me the depth that I have for understanding other people in sickness and death, and family members too, like if you've never experienced that yourself and you're up there given some homily, you're going to sound like that redheaded priest at the beginning of Grand Torino who says life is bittersweet. It's bitter in the death and sweet in the resurrection. But he'd never suffered. He knew it all in a book. But when he goes through the accompaniment with Mr Kowalski what's his name? Dalski? What's his name? Dirty Harry, what's his name?
Speaker 2:Clint Eastwood Clint Eastwood's character in that film by the end of it, when he has to bury him, he actually knows from the inside what this is like and he's able to minister to him and his family so well and so beautifully. So that's the gift, it seems to me, that's the blessing that can come from sickness or from suffering that our catholic faith offers. And I think so many people, when it comes to sickness and suffering, don't know what to do with it, and a lot of times I think that's why people may leave the church. It's like god must hate me, he must be ignoring me, and we don't have enough people walking with others through those difficult times. And that's the church of accompaniment and the church of listening that Pope Francis is talking about. It's not like a soft church, like we're wimpy. It's actually that we are entering into the heart of true suffering in other human beings. That gives meaning.
Speaker 1:We don't have enough people who could cry with other people. That's the thing. And whether that suffering is physical or economic, even I've walked with a lot of poor people in Central America and certainly in Mexico, and seeing that kind of suffering too, I think changes you and it allows you to say, okay, am I willing to kind of accompany these people along the way? Or what is it that is pushing me away from that?
Speaker 1:You know those are the things that I need to get rid of in my life. Those are the things that I need to kind of take a look at and say, okay, why am I not willing to walk with this person? You know, what am I so afraid of? And it takes a lot to kind of, you know, push that aside and then just say, okay, let me enter into this now.
Speaker 2:We've talked about this before and I just watched the interview on Pints with Aquinas, with Matt Fradd and John Eldridge, who wrote Wild at Heart, and there's a clip on there where they talk about how we Catholic Christians, particularly men, can grasp to church teaching, which is true, without getting into the heart of things.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's right.
Speaker 2:And so it becomes an intellectual exercise that I know the right teachings here but but I use those teachings somehow to keep someone else, or even myself, distant from my own heart and what's going on there. And Eldridge has this great line where he says the mind is meant to help the heart, not protect it from. I forget his exact line. I'll show you the clip where you can share, but it's a really beautiful way of integrating the head and the heart. And even someone like Matt Fradd, who oftentimes admits I can get he's pretty acerbic guy at times but he talks about in his own life when he was a young father he'd make his kids do the night prayer with him and he was very strict and then he read something by some saint who said no, the end of the night prayers is supposed to be a hearth and just let the kids play and goof around, but you're praying, it just should be a warm place where they can feel loved.
Speaker 2:And I thought that's pretty cool and I think that's a lot of what's going on here. It's the opening, it's the radical opening of the human heart. That's not opposed to church teaching. It's the opening, it's the radical opening of the human heart that's not opposed to church teaching. It's actually an embodiment of it. When you're doing it right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but you can live up in your head all day long. I mean, you know, it's the thing that drives me crazy all the time. And so I'm like, okay, if I have to hear of one more person who said I came to the church through intellectual, you know, an intellectual study, mostly a philosophy or something along those lines. But then when I continue to hear them talk there's no meat on the bones. You know, it's like they haven't experienced that in some way. They can go the other way too, right, you know someone who only has experience and never puts it into church teaching.
Speaker 2:Right and becomes all subjective and feeling.
Speaker 1:Yeah right, it's the uniting it's the both end, it's the both, and that's the right the underlining principle of our podcast is the both and yeah, exactly so. Anyway, I'm glad I'm feeling a little bit better.
Speaker 2:I'm still coughing a little bit, as you could probably hear yeah, and I hope your sickness was a gift and blessing and it was maybe one that you continue to uh discover as you, and that's the other thing about.
Speaker 1:I blessed my wife with the sickness too, because now she has it.
Speaker 2:But about suffering and sickness. Rarely, rarely can you appreciate it or be grateful for it when you're in the middle of it. Yeah, that's right. It's only after you've come out on the other side that you can look back and say, oh, like I was thinking about the transfiguration. It was a gospel last week. So Jesus takes the guys up the hill, shows them himself and his glory, and they're like ah, you know, they don't. We talked about it last week. But after he rose from the dead and then ascended to the father, they're probably thinking oh, that's what he was trying to show us there. And it's in looking back on things and exploring our memory and reflecting on it that we actually come to deeper knowledge of things. So sometimes it's going back on our experiences and seeing oh, god was at work there. I felt like he hung me out to dry and abandoned me, when in fact he was there and, as cheesy as it sounds, it's that footprint's poem.
Speaker 2:And this is why Luke Brown, who runs, what is it called Sacred Heart Counseling? He says that's why you find it at all the thrift stores and garage sales, because people are like, ah, that's actually not reality. But in fact it kind of summarizes Christian faith pretty well, as cheesy as it may seem as a magnet.
Speaker 1:My takeoff on that is that there's one set of footprints where he carried you, but then there are these two huge lines in the sand. That's where he dragged me that.
Speaker 2:but then there are these two huge lines in the sand. That's where he dragged me. That's funny.
Speaker 1:Not willing to go. And he said come on, you're coming anyway, yeah. But yeah, it's funny, the transfiguration stuff that you were saying. I had a similar take, but sort of opposite in some ways, is that during the good times we fail to think about, you know, the suffering moments in our lives. Sometimes we think, oh, everything's just fine, and that's Peter. At this transfiguration he immediately runs right in and says this is the greatest thing ever.
Speaker 1:Let's never leave and he's like not even listening to what Elijah and Moses are saying to Jesus, saying no, no Jerusalem, we have to go to Jerusalem now and you have to die. And he just doesn't want to even hear it Well, that's very much connected.
Speaker 2:I'm just thinking this as you say it to when Jesus predicts his path.
Speaker 2:Well, he says you are the son of God. Okay, you didn't get this from yourself. And then the next thing he says and I'll never let this happen to you. And then he says get behind me, satan, because Jesus knows that he has to suffer in order to save us. And Peter does not want to go through that suffering. And it's only when Peter betrays Jesus, not once, but twice, three times, and he hits rock bottom, that he becomes totally dependent on God's mercy, that his heart is open enough to actually receive what God has been planning for him all along, which is most of our stories anyway. Right, it's when you realize I am completely dependent upon God, and it's usually through great suffering and sickness and pain that that happens.
Speaker 2:It's Leonard Cohen Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There's a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in. So, yeah, if you can find your cracks, your brokenness, your fractures, praise God, because that's where he wants to enter into your life, because that's what he came to do to heal you you know Amen and me and Deacon Mike too, exactly.
Speaker 2:You know who heals things. I don't think it's briefcase marketing. You know Amen and me and Deacon Mike too. Exactly. You know who heals things. I don't think it's briefcase marketing, but maybe it is. Can you make it so?
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Speaker 2:Very good.
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Speaker 1:All right. Church Search Cathedral, st John. Congratulations again. Oh, thank you, lots of stuff going on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the cathedral is, like I think, 175 years old. We're celebrating that this year Now. It's gone under some transformation since then. Originally, 9th Street, east 9th Street here was called Erie Street, and you know that because if you're at the Progressive Field on the east side of 9th, you'll see Erie Street Cemetery.
Speaker 1:So that was the original name of the street.
Speaker 2:And what else can I tell you other than we have confessions here every day, monday through Friday, 6.30 in the morning, mass every day 7.15, and then confessions every day, 11.30 to 12.30 in Mass every day at noon. Every day, 1130 to 1230 in mass, every day at noon. And I am in the midst of planning some new event this summer. I think we're going to be calling it Wednesday Evenings Live. Every Wednesday evening from May 28th to the last Wednesday of August, we'll have Vespers in the church at 530, and then we'll have live music on the Jubilee stage. We're preparing the luce lawn and then we're going to maybe have a beer garden, even if we can figure it out with legal. So the bishop would like more activity happening at our mother church here in downtown Cleveland and part of my job as the new parochial vicar is to see that that happens. So super excited about it.
Speaker 1:So it'll be fun. So Cathedral St John here in Cleveland and let's take a look at the third Sunday of Lent readings. First reading Burning Bush this week.
Speaker 2:Oh, love the Burning Bush. So the Burning Bush, to me, presents the great both. And, as we were talking about before, why? Because the bush is on fire and at the same time, it's not being consumed. Usually, when things are on fire, they're burning up. They're becoming less of what they are. This is a great example of God's non-competitive love for us, that when we let him in our life, it doesn't make us any less than who we are. It makes us more of who we are, and it's one of these mysteries that shouldn't be able to happen, but does the mystery that Jesus is both God and man without being any less man, or any less God by being both, or Mary is both virgin and mother at the same time. So I absolutely love the burning bush.
Speaker 1:How about you? Yeah, same, so it'll be good. I always like the remove your shoes. You're standing on holy ground, but Moses doesn't even realize where he's standing and he's just kind of like whoa wait a minute.
Speaker 2:What's going on?
Speaker 1:But as he starts to understand, he realizes this is the Lord that will lead them through the exodus and to save his people. So all good.
Speaker 2:Let me just say this now because I'm going on Flannery O'Connor pilgrimage this weekend. If you ever read the short story Parker's Back, it's about the guy with all the tattoos. There's a scene in the short story where he becomes a kind of Moses. There is fire and his shoes fall off. So I won't say any more than that. But if you're preparing yourself and your heart for this weekend's liturgy and you say I'd like to read some good fiction, maybe by a Southern woman, american Catholic, read Parker's Back.
Speaker 1:There you go, flattery O'Connor Parker's Back, we'll have this and a whole lot. You next time.
