 It's been a long, long day, I got a lot to say It feels like I'm carrying a two-ton weight I go to see my friend Hello, I'm Monsignor Patrick Winslow And I am Father Matthew Cowd And we are speaking from the Rooftop A podcast brought to you by Tan Books, in which we invite you to join our conversation out here in the open air Where we look out upon the world around us from the rooftop of the church and share with you what we see Makes me know Hello So, alright That makes me laugh every time You just like, well, hello Yeah, well hello Hello So, we're on the rooftop of the church looking out in the world We are Please, tell me what you see What do I see? I see right now The feast of St. Patrick And the way in which everyone And on the horizon St. Joseph So, I thought we might want to talk a little bit about, from our vantage point How one celebrates saints' days And how the church once regulated, and to some degree still does Her seasons by virtue of various saint days Because one of the things that's really difficult to fathom Is that planting crops, harvesting various things throughout the year We're all done on certain saints' days, because that's when it always happened But it became so ingrained in the people We have this idea, a modern idea, of course, that there was this thing called the church And there's this thing called the state And they were part of your wellness wheel Pieces in the pie As if the faith wasn't imbued in every possible sector of life Which was a bit confusing when they began to mess around the calendar Because you also messed around people's long traditions relative to these things But two saints' days that have stayed the same And have stood the test of time for a while anyway Means stayed the same on the calendar On the calendar, and which have clear One has huge implications for everyone That is today, which is a Friday in Lent And the other one is rather new The feast of St. Patrick, because by the time this airs we'll be well past it Exactly But St. Patrick today, St. Joseph on the 19th Whereas St. Joseph is a relatively new feast Not in itself per se, but in its widespread celebration So, since you are named Patrick Maybe you want to begin with the nature of celebrating St.'s days But also celebrating St. Patty's day My earliest memory of celebrating By the way, everyone out there, that's a long time ago No So go back to black and white Oh, you just Or perhaps even just radio No So my earliest memory of celebrating St. Patrick's day Really goes back to the time when McDonald's Used to offer the shamrock shape And there was a special Or at least my family told me there was a special That if you demonstrated, proved in some way That your name was Patrick, they would give you one for free Now, this is a compelling argument Which probably was your dad named you Patrick That's true Just for the benefit He's so cheap That's true Just for the benefit Well, and so I remember telling my grandmother To go, right? Big deal, it's St. Patrick's day My name's Patrick I get a free shamrock shake But you know, now that I look back at it I suspect my grandma just paid for the shake But it was probably just something that was told to me That said, it should have been free For all of us Patents out there Amen I don't know what St. Matthew's day would bring about But maybe a small fry No, it's tax day It's tax day You pay more Good point Well, but you know, it's amazing It has something as simple as that Seared into my memory So we often think about penitential time But we don't always think about how we celebrate feasts The notion of sacred time I mean, it's even in the Code of Canon Law, right? We talk about sacred time And how we observe time And times of year But that notion We don't often look at We were sort of caught in the current Of a custom or tradition So St. Patrick's Day for me Growing up, I remember corned beef and cabbage It just, it was going to happen It wasn't like we all look forward to it The way you would look forward to it Thanksgiving turkey But you just knew that you were going to have corned beef and cabbage Because that's what you do And when I was a kid, I also remember Every Friday being no meat Sure So that's where I developed my total aversion To the flavor of fish Because it probably wasn't fish It was a fish stick And that is really one of the nastiest flavors That I've ever had to endure And so as a kid that was I would take fasting all day long And I'm a man who loves food I would take fasting all day long to avoid that flavor Now, I have entered into nicer fishes And I don't, the way I get around it Is I say that You sound like, you sound like Jonah I have entered into nicer fishes But I think of salmon or sea bass They're not really fish That's how I get over my mental hurdle It was that bad But that said I have a distinct memory of Fridays Not having meat I have a distinct memory of St. Patrick's Day Having corned beef and cabbage I have distinct memory about Christmas Even Christmas Day dinners And food then becomes Very much a part Of how we celebrate these feasts Obviously we should involve prayer Obviously we should involve Actually reflecting upon the saint Or the particular sacred occasion But the way which we manifest That joy and celebration Rightly named feasts Is by feasting Right, right No, so true I think that the fish notion Growing up every Friday Of course that was the church's discipline And still is to some degree You can substitute it as you all know But unfortunately probably few of us Think to substitute it Being significant Outside of land You're in land, it's required Outside of land You substitute something else And the problem with that individual choice Is understandable as it is Is just that you lost something culturally Because people did things together You didn't get a choice And that was part of the goodness of it Is that everyone was in the same boat And so we have that sense in land But it's the reason that typically The McDonald's or whatever Would have the fish filet There's no other reason to have that fish filet Except people didn't eat on Fridays It's the reason you had all kinds of Things that the Knights of Columbus Would and still put on, right Related to fish fries and things like that So it just created a kind of cultural ahesion And that's from a kid's perspective really That's what we're talking about Because quite honestly today I was excited to hear the officer Reading the writing of St. Patrick Right So now that I'm an adult I have an appreciation for the life of the saint It's not just about Quorum Beef and Cabbage No but it does, I mean If you can have both, right Well that's it It is both Yeah, the nature of Sometimes the nature of the faith It's approached almost too cerebrally And not so much viscerally That we create these things in culture That everyone gets to be a part of I mean Italian culture of course Traditionally, you know We're coming up on St. Joseph's And they have very specific food That you only get on the Feast of St. Joseph The Zeppeli The Zeppeli Yeah And lots of different feasts That have the same sort of thing And it typically was not always But typically tied to Exactly the kind of time in which this thing was available We're so used now to Being able to basically get any kind of food Any time of year But the times still do have a sense Of this is what you eat at this time of year That time of year And it became embroidered into the lives Of these various feast days of the saints And I love that Because you realize You're not going to get that again That's the one time Which we kind of do with turkey Like how many people make a turkey The rest of the year And you may want to throw that out So I don't even like turkey On some level it doesn't matter We always try to do a better job of a turkey every year And try to come up with a new recipe But it's just the fun of doing it And knowing that everyone, all these people That you don't know Are going to the grocery store For the same reason as you Doing the same sort of thing It does breed a type of community Among people of some common purpose And so it has deeper significance In the life of the faithful As manifesting a type of communion That is deeper But these are fruits of that Right It makes a lot of sense That the actual feasting Is part of celebrating a feast day But as a kid I never woke up and said Hey, I can't wait to learn Or think about St. Patrick today I mean It was a shamrock And it was the shake It was one of those little leprechauns It was a lot of green And then you go through your teenage years And college years It's all about green beer And things like that Yeah, that's an interesting question, isn't it? You wonder, to some degree To the extent to which we have dropped these things Yeah In some ways Is the extent Fulton Sheen used to say You know, we dropped the beads Me and the rosary And people started hanging them up We dropped We'd go through a list of things Saying that These were cultural artifacts That were driven by A cohesion to a faith That we dismissed Or dropped Or lost the meaning of And since the world has no real things To sort of bring it together The secular realm They pick them up But then they infuse them With their secular values So the green beer The partying The carnivalé Which literally means Say goodbye to me Because these two are fast Used to be more serious And so a carnival A carnivalé Or Mardi Gras Which is literally Fat Tuesday Yeah They get co-opted Yeah And the Christians used to be the one Co-opting the secular culture Yes But you're right It is a flip And you know And they take it And they love it Of course The whole world loves St. Paddy's Day Well, they're like Mardi Gras They don't think about St. Paddy's Day Right, St. Patrick Just like all the names That you have in Spanish colonial culture Right From Sacramento To Los Angeles Right To San Diego Yeah Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera No one thinks about those places As having anything to do With the faith But of course they did They did And we've lost it Absolutely Now, that being said Not to be dour I guess the question then becomes Too late for that How do you How do we regenerate Because I don't think it Yes, you can do it In terms of your family And you should You should have those saints That you're particularly devoted to The saints to whom Your kids are devoted to Especially if your If your children have Any particular devotion To the saint But also their name day Which is still a part of Most of western Catholic culture Celebrating one's name day One's saint's name Also their confirmation Saints, et cetera Those should be particularly highlighted In the course Of a family's year And there could be Special things you only Get at that time That's a great way to do it I do think, though, there's It's still sort of lacking that It doesn't make other people do it Or invite other people to do it And so that's one thing Ecclesial or even in terms of a parish You could sort of institute That these are certain feasts In a parish Which, you know, you did At St. Thomas, for example The World Feast Because we had so many nationalities there Which is not celebrating A particular saint But just another It was the conclusion Of our Fatima devotions It was So it was the first Saturday After October 13th, the miracle Because our Lady is Fatima's for everyone And it's universal It's a universal devotion And before that At the other parish You had the wonderful Italian Fest The Italian Fest Which no one was Italian Was it St. Genaro's? Or was it... I don't even know What day we did it on I can't remember It actually corresponded To a sweet spot In the local calendar Gotcha But that said It was a wonderful occasion Whereas these things are a lot of work They're a lot of work Which means They will go to the wayside If you don't show up To pull them off Yes And disappointed a bit That things got scaled back And some of my efforts To bring something to it But I grew To bring these types of festivals These feasts to parish life They get turned into picnics And things like that Which is just a bit small ball It's not quite the same So I grew up with feasts There was the Feast of Our Lady of Fatima There was the Feast of St. Anthony's And people would go to them They would go out for days They would start on a Thursday Maybe a Friday But definitely a Friday, Saturday, Sunday But they could start earlier And there would definitely be food That you wouldn't get anywhere else And up in New York You'd also have some gambling A gambling tent Things like that That was part of the culture So you had all sorts of things That were going on They'd bring in a carnival With a ride Right And everybody looked forward to it The town, Catholics and non-Catholics Would be sorely disappointed without it The easy thing to do is not do it The easy thing to do is to say Well, consider all the work we put into it It's not really a money raiser A fundraiser Because if you consider the hour as a labor We're all working for less than minimum wage In order to generate this income But that's not what you do it Right I can't even imagine a life For those feasts and festivals that didn't have it But yet people in many dioceses Are growing up Where these things are like Relics of the past Yes And this is hugely problematic In the fact that we have The vast majority of people Who would consider themselves fairly lonely Because there aren't those Social invitations To be part of something And I was reading a book recently A really interesting book Just about this sort of disconnectedness Of the you with relative to They've only grown up with Social interactions on their phone And so they don't have meaningful conversations With people often in time And they're quite content on some level With not doing that Which is massively problematic For the future But it's not that hard to create But it does take work I remember a parish I had In the mountains when I was up there Someone came up to me And just talked about a festival he had When he was a kid Which was for Corpus Christi And instead of doing the flower Pedal images upon which You would walk with the monstrons As part of the procession For Corpus Christi His parish did sawdust And they would color sawdust Tons and tons of sawdust And they would color it All kinds of different shades And design things And lay them out on these Quote-unquote chalk carpets And you take the different colors And you would fill them in Almost like a crayon sort of book And I said let's do it Let's try it And he organized it He was great at it And it became a parish custom You know for five, six, seven years And to the point where I had kids You know that started it When they were three or four And then they get to seven, eight or nine They just assume This is what everyone does For them it's always been that way At that time of year And you infuse it with all kinds of I mean as soon as you've walked through With the Blessed Sacra Then you walk back out With cotton candy pretzels You know your name You gotta give some incentive Absolutely But unfortunately that was stopped too But in his parish He said it had gone on For like a hundred years That they had done this thing And you would never imagine Not doing it Right It just would be something you wouldn't do It's the same sort of thing You know for Christmas time I think at Christmas time It's hard to imagine Our society and our culture Not having the decorations And the lights and things like that That said It all needs to be rooted In something deeper and more meaningful It all needs to be connected If it is It's just a powerful synergy Across the board It's the way life should be led With a sense of sacred time A sense of a rhythm of a week Of a year A sense of a rhythm of the seasons Of the church The feasts of the church It's a natural sense These rhythms are natural And we build upon them And we co-op nature To reflect a higher meaning A higher significance An eternal rhythm if you will And eternal realities I remember reading about Ratzinger When he was a boy He commented What it was like growing up in the community And was it Mark Tell-In I think that's where he was raised Mark Tell-In Southern Bavaria in Germany He commented about how Catholicism Was the great equalizer The faith was a great equalizer He said You would show up on Saturday And in the same confession line Would be A humble, manual worker And the most wealthy person in town All standing there as sinners Waiting to go and confess And to humble themselves before God And all knelt the same rail They knelt the same rail They confessed to the same God That it was equalizing That there was something so profoundly impactful About that notion We all have various roles of stewardship Under God and levels of authority That are just participations And the only one who has authority Who is him But in the end But you're all in the end Attempting to work for the common good At his mercy At his service And then I would imagine That would inspire It should have inspired A sense of respect and dignity From somebody who had a higher social status Or economic situation Toward those who were in lesser rungs And not breed as much animus As one may have in the reversal Where somebody might be a lesser economic condition Or a lesser social level Because they see each other As dealing with the same fabric of life The same eternal realities We can speak to this as priests too I mean, it's interesting that We were professionally At times when we spoke about this Many times we were professionally devotional In other words, we were sacramentally configured To be able to give God's gifts to his people And as a result It's part of your open stay It's part of your labor, your work of God To do that And as a matter of fact There's a great line from a book I once read called The Jewish Marriage And this woman in the book is converting And her first experience of Catholicism And beginning this process She goes to a mass And she sees this priest walk up there And sort of lay out his chalice And mess with the book And sort of he's dressed up in his clothes She doesn't understand And she described it as It seemed as if he was a plumber Who walked up there with his toolbox You know, laid him out on the altar Unleashed, got the waters working Opened the taps Closed the taps back off And then put everything back into his toolbox And then went home And that's true professionally You and I are conduits of that For the people of God And as devotional as it can be For us personally It need not be Because we can do the work Without participating in the work And the reason I bring that up is that One of the things I think it's so interesting Is priests that you and I have engaged in before Whether it's the Fatima processions At the parish or actual pilgrimages The thing that's always struck me About pilgrimages, especially when I was living in Rome And I saw so many priests come Is to watch the priests with the faithful Doing something devotional Whether or not sort of leading By virtue of the sacrament And as it were unleashing like a plumber Those waters of grace But they're walking up on their knees They're touching their rosary to a saint's tomb They're kneeling down and praying the rosary itself Or devotionally beholding the body Of a saint or et cetera I love watching and having the opportunity myself To do things with the faithful That we're all kind of at that same community To see the shepherd as a pilgrim That's very important I also like devotions And axiopiety Because they're coming from ourselves They're coming from within And they're gestures toward God By our own initiation Whereas when you go to Mass You're fundamentally on the receiving end Right You are receiving Christ's offering And sacrifice his body and blood You're receiving him And to be quite honest He's the one doing the work We go there and we are served Right Same thing with any of the other sacraments But when you have a devotion Like for example the Fatima devotion Where we had these processions on the 13th Of the month from May 13th to October 13th The time of the apparitions of our Lady of Fatima in Portugal When we did those You went and you gave It wasn't about receiving It was about you giving And I have to say If anyone had requested that we had a Mass As part of that devotion I would have said no Because it would have changed that Right And again I'm a big fan of daily Mass Absolutely And it's a thing that hooked me and my life With daily Mass But you also need opportunity to give Right And to be creative in that giving There's no question about A conscious and active role Relative to the Holy Mass That is to say I'm uniting my sacrifices I'm uniting my will You put something into it I'm participating I'm putting something in I'm kneading my sufferings As it were into that bread Before it's consecrated I'm trying to offer But it is ultimately his sacrifice At which we come to adore And to receive And as you say With the devotions There's something that's sort of Uniquely creative about them In our response to what we did At Holy Mass Like I'm going to bake this thing I'm going to make this a carpet I'm going to have this What do you mean by carpet You mean the chalk The chalk carpet The flower carpet You're going to walk on And destroy them With your feet Which seems so incredibly Right, it's a sacrifice It's an offering Yeah, it's wonderful In this simple but beautiful way In which communities across Christendom Have always responded to God's gifts They have come up with things To say, now it's our turn Now we want to give you this This is why it takes work And why it's not about the bottom line Or the finance or whatever else So I don't mean to throw any of our Brother priests under the bust And so as to say Go out to your priest and tell him Let's do these devotions Or whatever else It shouldn't be something The priest organizes, frankly It should be something that The faithful organize The priest can support That you come with these Various saints' days Or whatever is important To the parish To the people of your parish Etc. And say, let's start something And it can be small But let it be consistent And get people on board With you offering something Back to our Lord And pray as a saint And work in that saint Or this particular feast day Or whatever the case may be Such that the parish is a place We don't just come to Holy Mass But it's the place where we're going to Give something to our Lord With consistency. Yes. And the way in which you can get Something started, the right way To get something started Would be not to go to your priest And say, hey, we should be doing this Exactly. Because what the priest hears You should be doing this. You should be doing this. The priest hears somebody telling them Another thing they need to do. But if you go to your parish priest And you say, look, I think this Would be a really good idea. What do you think? I'd be willing to organize it And make it happen. But it can't be so priest dependent That it becomes almost like Another event on the schedule. It really ought to be the devotion Of the faithful. Now, it doesn't mean that there Is a place for the priest to lead Something to be a part of it. But if needed, a deacon could step in Or if needed, even a seminarian For a summer assignment Could be able to pull something off. That sort of thing. If you approach it that way If that is your request You might get somewhere. What priest doesn't love Doesn't love to walk into his church His parish center is whatever Where he's stationed and see people praying See people doing these acts Of devotion to our Lord. I just did a parish mission At a local parish here. And it was striking The parish is open all day long It doesn't close until 9 p.m. And I went there Throughout various parts of the day And I don't think I ever went in there And didn't see people praying. I think that's what it should be. Absolutely. I think doors to churches Should be open. I think we have enough technology These days to Monitor and to keep secure Cameras, alarms Things like that. I mean, even some parishes That have perpetual adoration The people who go, they know the code And it's this little punch code To be able to get in. I think we can use technology enough I don't like the excuse For security and safety purposes We throw a bolt. Because I just finished A trip outside the diocese And I tried to three different churches There were a lot, so I called some more And every single church said I just want to go pray. Yes, I can pray in my room. And I did. But I was on the road And I really wanted to be able to pray Before the Blessed Sacrament And the churches that I called Said the same thing. For security purposes We don't open up until 10 p.m. We lock up right after it. Now, mind you, this one place I was traveling Was probably the highest income Per capita place I've ever been in my life. There was not exactly a big threat Of danger. See, if I were a wealthy benefactor I think I would make a Restricted donation Toward a church project That the doors of the church would have to be open I'd be happy that a portion Of whatever funds that I gave Would go to the security system To allow for that to be done safely Honestly, why You know, why raise all of this money Among the faithful to build A church that has These slim narrow windows? I know. These are places to go anytime. This is for the faithful. Open the doors. Open the doors. Amen. Let us in. Amen. Preach it, brother. Preach it. What is wrong with those priests? Some disgruntled parishioners Are going to be sending this to These priests say, yeah. I know. Well listen, I'll throw you one of the bus. Father Cout was mimicking me And I didn't really say that. That's right. Exactly. We know that there's always Difficulties, but it can happen and it must happen To keep these churches open. No, it's true. Honestly, I have no Problem making that argument to our brother priests. It's so important. It is. And it's almost to the level of A pet peeve. I'm principally Opposed to the notion, but I'm so Irritated by it. It's almost as though pet peeves are Escalating something from principal To something even higher. It peeves me. Well good. You're in a position To do something about it. Oh, I hate that kind of work. Well, before we go, father. What you were just talking about reminded me Of a beautiful little story That I recall When I lived in Rome For the most part, there are some Roman Churches, there's 500 churches in the vicinity of Rome. I mean a lot of churches And obviously a lot of them are locked And some of them are locked On hours of the day and they're all locked at night. A couple churches have some Night adoration, etc. But there was one church down from where I lived And he would stay open Around like 11 o'clock or midnight. The church? The church itself would. So the priest would keep the church open? He kept it open. And it was right on a very busy Shopping thoroughfare A little close to the Trevi fountain. So imagine how many people come by there. So he's attempting to provide an oasis That's close to the other people. Stopping to be quiet. To pray. And to pray. What was really interesting about that church Is 24-7 365 days a year It's music playing. Was it recognizable? It was, it was. It's not like old-fashioned Christmas music Where it sounds Changed. No, no, no, it was Some of that too, but it was mostly things You would recognize. So there were like Christmas carols? Quite a few. And some in English. I don't know how he put His musical selection together. He probably put his first And only selection together during the Christmas season And just had that on a loop. So I did find a way To ask someone in that church one time And this is kind of an interesting response Because the music was kind of Piped out from the church. Like once you got in, you didn't really hear it. So it was almost a hook. It was a hook. And the idea was That everyone loves Christmas music. Isn't that right? I thought it was so clever. What you lived there, you kind of got sick of it. But I loved the zeal. I loved the idea. He just wanted people To go into his church and pray. And people did. People did. All right, well then on my last thing I'll kind of pick up on that thought. In essence, what this priest is doing He isn't preaching To these people But he's letting the church Itself preach to them All of the sacred elements All of the sacred images The atmosphere, the feel The way prayer Sticks to the walls and the seats Right. As a kid, I can bear witness To how powerful a church Can have an impact. As a child, when I went to church In fact, I could say pretty much Up until I was about 20 I don't think I Ever remembered A single word a priest Ever said at any homily They could have been The most beautiful orations The most important Impleignant things spoken But as a kid I remember the church. Because my eyes were all over it. That's right. And when we would go do some of the Really more beautiful or innate churches It leaves an impression on you. I remember the very first time I went Back home with you. We were in seminary And you just took me From one church to another And conversely We were up in a pizza hut. And it had an impression. It speaks. It had a huge impression. The old adage is that we form our buildings And the buildings form us. And that's true. Especially the imagination for a child. Oh yeah. That's the truth. And so a very clever idea This man to allow the church To be able to evangelize And using the Christmas music And an open door Yeah. It's fantastic. It was. Good for him. I don't think he's listening. But in case he is. Bravo! I'll stop in. Now I'm going to go look for it. In fact, you've probably just boosted Among the tens of people that listen to us Boosted The traffic to his church Traffic to his church is part of a Destination for building. Well, drop a euro in there and help him with the upkeep. Do you remember the name of the church? Next time We need to circle back. Do you remember it now? I think I do, yeah. But I'll confirm it first. We'll check it on the map. Make sure we get it right. Watch. The pastor has probably been moved on And it's somebody else who locks the door. But hopefully it's still happening. Yeah. Amen. Have a blessed week, everyone. A blessed feast of St. Patrick Even though it'll be gone and over by the time you get here St. Joseph And the Annunciation. The Annunciation. Did we wear a rose this weekend? Yeah, we're halfway there. We're more than halfway through a season That anticipates a feast. Yeah. That's a lot going on. Holy week. We have that Four time before Palm Sunday and We have Palm Sunday and Spy Wednesday, Holy Thursday. That's your feast day. Spy Wednesday. That's the betrayer's day. When Our blessed Lord was betrayed by Judas. Yep. There we will see Father Cout Having to suppress his inner demons. I can't deny it. And St. Philip Neera used to say every morning The first thing he said to our blessed Lord One of the first things he said every single day Watch out, Lord. Today Philip's going to betray you. You begin with that notion that I need his grace to be able to not betray him. It's true. I think I've turned this around on its head. Precious prayer there. It is a precious prayer. Maybe you should say that. Don't worry. God bless you all. Thanks for listening to this episode of From the Rooftop. For updates about new episodes, special guests and exclusive deals for From the Rooftop listeners, sign up at rooftoppodcast.com. And remember for more great ways to deepen your faith, check out all the spiritual resources available at 10books.com. And we'll see you again next time From the Rooftop.