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
How Does Holy Week Make Us Holy?
SPONSOR: Briefcase Marketing
Holy Week stands as more than a commemoration—it's an invitation to personal transformation through entering deeply into Christ's Paschal mystery, experiencing both suffering and resurrection in our own lives.
• Entering fully into the liturgies of the Triduum rather than taking a minimalist approach
• The importance of seeing Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Vigil as one continuous liturgy
• Traditional practices like our Holy Night Hike pilgrimage on Holy Thursday, and food blessings that enhance Holy Week.
• Bishop Malesic's pastoral suggestion to personalize the Stations of the Cross by connecting them to our own experiences
• Finding healing in those places of suffering where Christ wants to bring resurrection
• Deacon Mike's powerful story of releasing betrayal before ordination
• The Easter Gospel Readings: how some disciples arrive at faith differently, like Peter and John at the tomb
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St. John Cantius Parish
Church Search:
Deacon Mike will be at St. Christopher Parish in Rocky RIver for all of Holy Week. He's preaching at the 10AM Mass on Easter Sunday.
Fr. Damian will be at:
Holy Thursday: St. Francis DeSales in Parma
Good Friday: Preaching at the Good Friday Liturgy at the Cathedral.
Holy Saturday: Our Lady of Victory in Tallmadge
Easter Sunday: St. James in Lakewood at 10:30AM
We will both be walking on Holy Thursday for Holy Night Hike in Tremont/Ohio City
Join us next time as we continue exploring questions of faith following the Easter celebration. Follow us online for more content and upcoming episodes.
On today's Question of Faith. How does Holy Week make us holy? Hey everybody, this is Question of Faith. I'm 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 All right.
Speaker 1:So if you're watching on YouTube, I'm wearing glasses because I just came from the eye doctor, my eyes are dilated, I can't take the light.
Speaker 2:That's the worst. At least it's not too sunny today.
Speaker 1:It's kind of a rainy day, so true, and my eyes are healthy, so that's a good thing, that's good. I have a weird optic nerve. Apparently they have to watch, so weird is okay. Weird is okay, that's right.
Speaker 2:I need to make my appointment with my ophthalmologist. My dad was legally blind. He had macular degeneration, glaucoma and cataracts, so I need to keep an eye on my eyes. They say there's four things you do to keep your eyes healthy Don't smoke, eat a lot of greens, exercise and always protect your eyes from the sun. So wear sunglasses outside. So I do all those.
Speaker 1:I do all those too, for the most part.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I have to exercise a little more, but other than that, yeah, maybe once a year I'll smoke the hookah. So here we are Holy Week already. First Holy Week for me is a deacon, so I'm getting ready to chant the exalted. A cantor will assist me in the chanting, so that's good. So I don't voice my sort of mediocre voice on the people of God.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not so much your voice it's. Can you read music and hold the tune and make it not sound terrible?
Speaker 1:Yeah, our music director Mayumi is very good at kind of keeping us on pitch, so she'll play like a chord or two and then we'll take it the rest of the way. But we've been practicing pretty hard.
Speaker 2:There's some deacons who are excellent at singing the exalted. I learned a little bit from my chance of the liturgy class in the seminary, but I am not great at it, so it's better that someone else does it. And I'm covering in Talmadge on this Holy Week, the Easter Vigil, so someone else will be proclaiming the exalted.
Speaker 1:Nice. So how does Holy Week make us holy? What are ways that you found Holy Week making you holy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think entering into it with all you have. I mean we could be minimalist and just go to Mass on Easter Sunday and say I met my obligation. That's one way to do it. But if you want a minimalistic faith, that's a good way to do it.
Speaker 2:But if you want to get more out of your faith and enter more into it, then participate in these liturgies, because these liturgies form us to be who we are and we enter in deeply into the Paschal mystery on Holy Thursday night and then continuing on through Good Friday and through the Easter Vigil, which we've talked about this before on this show. It's one long liturgy that extends over three days, and I think that's the way you become holy is by entering into the very life of God, through the liturgical life of the church, with our brothers and sisters who also gather at varied parishes for these liturgies.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, Holy Week's a stretch when you think about it, right, you know it's one long liturgy, so it's three days which, yeah, many of us probably aren't used to. And then I think for me too, you know, I'll do two pilgrimage walks, like we did last year. I won't be doing the Sagrada Familia one, which I do recommend people do on Good Friday. We'll put notes about all of these things in the show notes. But Holy Night Hike on Holy Thursday, after I finish at St Chris, I'll drive down. I'll probably have to drive to half of them and maybe walk the ones in.
Speaker 1:Tremont to get them all in before 11. But people will walk to seven different parishes and last year that was actually a stretch for me. I remember getting up to the top of the hill at St Wendland and sort of limping my way into the church. So pilgrimages are supposed to be hard, right, and you know the seven-mile walk right. So that was a little much for me but it was good, I did it and it was a lot of fun. And you know like you think about this as you're going. You know we're not just having a conversation and talking, but you know how are we kind of walking our own road to Calvary?
Speaker 1:You know what are the ways that we do that with Jesus, so I think that's good. St Chris does theirs in Rocky River, so I'll be doing that on Good Friday this year, which will be great.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a few places that are doing pilgrimages. So I had Mass Sunday night at Holy Rosary at 8 pm and I think they're doing a pilgrimage after the liturgy, maybe it's in the evening, throughout Little Italy with the cross, a procession. That way A lot of parishes do living stations that evening with their youth groups. I know that that's the case.
Speaker 1:We did that on Palm Sunday just the other night at St Chris.
Speaker 2:And if you're listening, on Tuesday the 15th, which is tax day, know too that tonight is the chrism mass here in the Diocese of Cleveland. So this is the night that the bishop gathers all his priests together. In fact we gather together this afternoon. There'll be a big convocation, there'll be a few talks, there's confessions available and then there's dinner and then mass with the bishop and the whole diocese at 7 pm.
Speaker 2:Those three oils that are used throughout the year the oil of the catechumen, the oil of the sick and the sacred chrism are made or blessed at this Mass and then given to the parishes to go out for the year. And some parishes, if they want, can take the option of processing these oils up at the Holy Thursday liturgy, confessing these oils up at the Holy Thursday liturgy. And often someone who's being confirmed or brought into the church will have the chrism. Someone who's been anointed that week or is still suffering from illness brings up the oil of the infirmed, and someone who's a catechumen can bring up the oil of catechumen. So yeah, it's a nice thing to do.
Speaker 1:That had not been part of my regular Holy Week practice in the past Until the last year I was living in Buffalo. I went for the first time and then I said I should go to this more often and then, since I've been here in Cleveland, I've gone every time.
Speaker 2:Do they have it on Tuesday night in Buffalo?
Speaker 1:They do. Yes, Same way we do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, some dioceses have it Thursday morning. So Rome does it that way and I went to the chrism mass there once in Rome. But it's easier for the priests, especially since our diocese is rather large, to gather the priests on Tuesday, because that makes Thursday, friday, saturday and Sunday very long If they have off on Thursday morning. You know we all need our rest.
Speaker 1:Do you bless food on Saturday or anything?
Speaker 2:My first parish. We did not have deacons at that time, so I did, and that's a very big Slovak tradition. As a kid we'd always take our baskets to the church for that, but I am not doing it at the cathedral now that I'm parochial vicar. I don't know if one of the other parochial vicars is, or Deacon Matt, but I do believe we do food blessings there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, father Klebo will do it at our place. I did it one year at North Olmstead in St Brandon.
Speaker 2:Nice.
Speaker 1:I did it while I was in formation, which was fun.
Speaker 2:Cool. Lest I neglect this, we should say that in the bishop's new pastoral letter it's on page 12, talking about how Holy Week makes us holy he has this beautiful reflection in here. He says let's think of the stations of the cross. There are 14 of them. They depict the suffering that Jesus endured on Good Friday. So, yes, most of us are familiar with the stations of the cross and that this is what Jesus did. And the bishop wants us to be more personal with the way that we reflect on these stations, because Christ's Paschal mystery needs to be united with the mystery of our lives. So then he continues.
Speaker 2:Now think of your own life. When have you felt abandoned and condemned? When have you fallen? Who comforted you and wiped your face? When did you feel like you were being crucified? Who has helped you carry your cross?
Speaker 2:If you can answer these questions, then you can start to tell your story, because you realize that Jesus was living his Paschal mystery in you through all these events in your life. The mystery of your life is illuminated by the Paschal mystery of Jesus. But the Paschal mystery doesn't end with suffering and death. It ends with the glory of life, renewed and resurrected. So I think that's an integral component of this pastoral letter is that Christ's Paschal Mystery cannot remain something abstract. It's not like Jesus is a character in a novel and we're like, oh, that's cool, or something that happened 2,000 years ago period, it did happen historically, but he is risen and continues to live his paschal mystery and desire to in us every day, and it's on us to allow him to do that. So that's the point of Holy Week is that we enter into Holy Communion with Christ himself through his passion and then can experience his resurrection.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. And you know, I think the interesting thing for me about Holy Week is, like you said, the resurrection happened. You know, not only is it a historical fact, but it happens, but we now have to live into that. You know how do we experience the resurrection?
Speaker 1:You know, and I think the ways that you were sort of pointing out. You know, by meditating on the stations of the cross, making those part of our lives. I've been trying to kind of get through the corporal works of mercy this Lent, which will probably fall just a little short just because I can't get into the prison just yet and we didn't have too many funerals at St Chris so I haven't buried the dead yet.
Speaker 1:So those two I've done that before, though, but still. But you know, by experiencing through that, you know how do you now live into the resurrection. You know, what are the ways that you know you're called to die and rise over and over again in your own life?
Speaker 2:If you can find those places in your life where you've experienced suffering, hurt and pain, then go there, because that's where the Lord wants to heal and bring you through to experience his resurrection. So a lot of times, those parts that are painful are the parts that we run from, when, in fact, that's the whole reason the Lord came was like I want to enter right into that, to your deafness, your blindness, your paralysis, your death, your hunger. Like, get in touch with those things, because that's where he wants to enter in and do his transforming work and share with you the power of his resurrection. So that's the hope.
Speaker 1:I have to say I really experienced that last year, not necessarily during Lent, but I think that it was just before ordination. We had our ordination retreat and I spoke with Father Dave Wust, who was our retreat master, and one of the things that I said to him I said you know, I have a really hard time. Someone really betrayed my trust in my life. Right, and I won't get into the whole situation, but someone really betrayed my trust and I really had a hard time getting past that. And he said you know, on ordination day he goes I want you to get to the front of the cathedral and when you get to the vestibule, give those people who betrayed you to God. And he goes admit that that's hurtful, right, you know. Admit that this is it. Now give them to God and rise to new life and go and be a deacon.
Speaker 1:That was the best advice I think I've ever gotten from anybody. And Deacon Del Sherman and I both said that when we walked in we just felt this huge wave come upon us and I said you know, that's really the power of the Holy Spirit in more ways than one. You know the way I was able to kind of let all these things go. And then you know the sacrament of ordination in and of itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you want to experience great life. Then certain things have to die and go, and that's how it happens.
Speaker 1:So it's good, Exactly again and again. Do you have a favorite moment from all the Holy Week ritual?
Speaker 2:I think it depends on the year. Yeah, good point. Bishop has me preaching for him at the Good Friday Liturgy at the cathedral this year. So I'm hard at work, praying, thinking, preparing those words, because I love that liturgy and I was actually looking at the 10 petitions that we pray during that.
Speaker 2:I like those a lot I love, the one for those who don't believe in God. I think that's wonderful, that we are that intentional about our prayers. So I don't know Whatever I'm doing at the time. I try to make that the most important thing. But my mind is on a lot of things because I'm at St Francis de Sales for Holy Thursday Cathedral Good Friday and then down in Talmadge for the vigil. So we'll see. Wherever I go, I'll try to do my best there and follow the Spirit's lead. How about you?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I have the chance. So Holy Thursday I'll be present, but I'm not, I'm just being the deacon, I'm just reading the Gospel, basically in the intercessions, and I'll probably assist with the washing of the feet in some way. But then on Good Friday I just chant those intercessions and then Saturday, you know, carry the candle and do the exalted. You know, and I've accompanied the OCIA people this year.
Speaker 2:So that'll be very special.
Speaker 1:And I've never seen we do full immersion baptism at St Chris, the big baptismal font, and so I've never seen that. So that'll be very cool for me to experience. And I'm preaching Easter Sunday morning at 10 o'clock.
Speaker 2:I'm a fool.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I was surprised at. I was surprised they asked me to do that. So I'm excited to preach on Easter. I've never preached as a deacon. Obviously on Easter, yeah, this will be fun, yeah, and I'm thinking and praying about that as well.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's a lot of scripture to ponder and to reflect upon.
Speaker 1:And I love the vigil and I love when the parish does all the readings. It's the story of our salvation, right. It goes from beginning to end and I just kind of get into it. I really love the Abraham and Isaac reading. I think that's one of the best readings that really talks about how we can be faithful to God and how we have to trust God above all things. So I always look forward to that reading in particular.
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Speaker 2:Correct, holy Thursday, you're at St Francis de Sales, parma, good Friday, and then I'll go to the Holy Night Hike that night. So visit those seven churches Friday. Cathedral Saturday Our Lady of Victory in Talmadge.
Speaker 1:Nice. Yeah, I will be at St Chris the whole time. I'll be at Holy Night Hike. After I finish at St Chris, I'll look around for me there, and then I'll probably start at St Wendland's, I think, because it's easier to park. Yeah always good parking there, or maybe actually maybe I'll start at St Emmerich, because you can park in that little cul-de-sac that's true too.
Speaker 1:So I'll figure that out. And then, yeah, good Friday. I'll be walking the streets of Rocky River at noon with the parish, and then we have our Good Friday liturgy at 3. And then, saturday night, I'll be at St Chris as well. So that'll be fun, good times and then preaching Sunday morning. Are you somewhere?
Speaker 2:Easter Sunday morning. Are you somewhere Easter Sunday morning? St James 1030. Very nice, That'll be great.
Speaker 1:One of the gems of the diocese, to my mind, Absolutely All right. So readings for this week. One of the things that I'm focusing on in my preaching this week is the two disciples run. They get the message from Mary Magdalene. Mary Magdalene ran as well, she ran from the tomb back to them. And these two disciples, the beloved disciple and Peter, they run, and then it's.
Speaker 1:I say these are the first bros, they make sure that they note in the gospel, one outran, the other. He gets to the tomb. He doesn't know what to do. So Peter comes in and he runs right into the tomb and then he looks around and sees all the wrappings on the floor and he runs right into the tomb. And then he looks around and sees all the wrappings on the floor and he doesn't know what's going on. And then the beloved disciple walks in, he sees and he believes. I said, and they put all of that in there, all of that competition in there, to make this story believable. Right, Because it is. It's true, they don't need all those details in there, but they put them all in there because how human is that? And we're like this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and another gloss is that John the Beloved is deferring to the authority of Peter because he's been marked as the leader. So even though he beats him there, it's his to. You know, have a proper place within this structure the Lord set up, even though he's faster and younger. Right, yeah, and we all get to.
Speaker 1:I say all the time. I say we all get to this in different ways. Some of us get to get this message faster than others. Some people just showed up here today on Easter because they thought they'd try church today. Welcome them, we may have gotten there faster, they might get there a little. They might show us something that, where we now understand the resurrection a little more deeply than we did before.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm preparing, as I said, for Good Friday, so I'm looking at this Hebrews reading and I love this line where we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who has similarly been tested in every way, yet without sin. So just a reflection on the incarnation that there's nothing Jesus has not experienced. He's still without sin, but he's even experienced the weight of sin betrayal, denial, people abandoning him in the garden, falling asleep, crucifixion, death, Like there's nothing that's foreign to him. So he gets us.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. Yeah Well, happy Easter, my man. Happy Easter, it's pretty good. Do you have a favorite Easter candy?
Speaker 2:No, I don't like candy. I mean dark chocolate, but that's not an Easter candy. That's an acquired taste too, I like I mean, it's like my personality. I like strong beer, strong drink, strong, bitter candy. You know Nice, yeah, I'm not very sweet.
Speaker 1:My house growing up, jelly beans were the thing, and my wife loves chocolate. So in fact our anniversary is Easter Sunday. Oh, so that'll be nice. 23 years, 25 together. We were married two years to the day that we met on Holy Thursday, I might add. So the Holy Week's always pretty special for us. But on Holy Saturday, the first time I met her, I gave her a little Easter bunny and a card, and she was so dumbfounded that I had given this to her that she didn't even say thank you and she just kind of walked away over to one of her friends.
Speaker 1:Then she realized I didn't even thank him for this and she turned around and said thanks, um, so yeah, so Easter will be. Easter will be fun, but I would say I'm a jellybean fan and, uh, she's a chocolate fan, so we'll see you next time after Easter here on.
