 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 Well, hello Father Winslow Hello Father Welcome back Happy Easter Happy Easter to you, happy Easter to you But by the time people hear this, it might actually be Pentecost So the last time we got together, it was before Palm Sunday Yeah And Sorry for the delay, because Obviously, we kind of had this We're busy Yeah, I mean You want your priest to be busy Exactly If your priest is not busy on Holy Week, there's a problem Right And if he's not trying to relax and enjoy Easter on Easter week There's a problem There's a problem Which means you didn't do anything during Easter Holy Week Yes, so they kind of go hand in hand So having a two-week delay on our normal routine is par for the chorus when it comes to Holy Week and Easter week Indeed, indeed But we are still right in the midst of Easter glory And so perhaps we could talk a little bit about that In particular, one of the things that strikes me relative to the early church Is the fact that they didn't exactly have massively significant blueprints On the one hand, you do have the Enlightenment by the Holy Spirit Which is not a small thing To lead them into all truth, to teach them all that he has taught them To remind them everything he ever said, etc, etc But there must have been those moments in which they were sort of fascinated by what they were able to do Just as when they came back, for example When he invested them with some authority And they were going out two by two They came back and they were so excited That even the demons were subject to us So there was this sort of playful fascination And I got to thinking about it this morning Because the Gospel and the readings sort of hinted at this Certainly the reading from the Acts of the Apostles This was the moment in which they were thrown into prison And the angel comes and lets them out of prison The Sadducees are together They're preaching again in the temple area And no one knows how they got out of the prison And I got to thinking to myself It was so quick after Pentecost that this all happened And so Peter must have stopped and said to himself With the other apostles huddled in the prison at some point Saying, well I'm not sure if it was supposed to go down like this But here we are And then they have this incredible thing happen Where the angel releases them Which mirrors Jesus rising from the tomb In a certain sense that it's a type of rolling back the stone It is, it is And so it got me thinking about my childhood actually Relative to whenever you got those moments of a new found freedom Remember when you got your first bike But you didn't know how to ride it Maybe to the trading wheels, I don't know I was a natural Yeah, well, yeah You were out there on the unicycle I remember the banana seat I think I had a banana seat I had a banana seat I had a banana seat That was probably the coolest thing around Banana seat? Oh my heavens, I forgot about the banana seat Oh yeah But when you got your first bike I remember I had trading wheels And I just, I took them off I was like, I can do this And so my father was the one to kind of hold the back of my seat in the beginning And when he let go I just remember this incredible sense of freedom Because it was in some sense going faster with more ease Than I had ever gone before The sort of thing when you drive for the first time You have this new sense of freedom And because you have a new kind of power underneath you And so I just wanted, I wonder what it was like for them To have these new found powers at the disposal The authority of Christ, the power of Christ Not just to heal Or to read souls Or to have these miracles happen Like getting out of prison You don't know what's going to happen You don't even know what kind of power you have Yeah Yeah Well, you know, it's interesting You know that series, the chosen that's out there That people have been watching And what's so good about it Is that it does try to put you there And to experience it the way they experienced it So like for you You just have done this reflective intellectual exercise On what it would be like to have a new power And that new freedom and how you would What it would be like What they can do with television series like this Is they can portray it well So when you're watching these guys go out As they were sent by our Lord And cast out demons and heal people And do all of those amazing things That our Lord sent them out to do To forgive sins and walk away free from their shackles To watch it It's easier to put yourself in their shoes It's one of the benefits of having These different type of art forms Movies like The Passion of the Christ Or the chosen When they're well done, they allow you To relate and to experience Using that medium In a different kind of way Then maybe you wouldn't have gotten there With your own imagination But any event, I bring that up Because I've been watching the series With my parents during Easter week You know, the season three And that's precisely what's going on And so as you're describing Your reflections I have to say I Got to it rather differently Maybe a little more lazily Because I was watching it on the chosen But nonetheless I did have a little bit of the same reaction What that would have been like for them to go out And you know The actors portrayed it well And the directors and producers They're amazed What is passing through me What is passing through me Truly extraordinary It's funny you bring that up Because it is the thing that I went to next I didn't go watch the series per se But I thought about that That affected me when I saw The Passion Which is 20 years ago now In such a way that I remember sitting on I went to the theater to see it Of course the whole place It's not like exactly a movie you're going to see You get to the end of it And I'm not sure if this was your experience But no one said a word And everyone just walked out of the theater And I remember I went home And I went with some friends of mine We didn't talk in the car I dropped them off, I went back to the rectory And I sat down outside Against the wall And I remember thinking to myself What have I done to you, Lord Not just in terms of the sin And the passion that took place there So far as I had begun to make him Abstract In my mind That there's a sort of disincarnation Of the word himself And then it put flesh Into those things and impacted me greatly Which I think the chosen has done as well I think the temptation that we often have Is when we think about St. Peter Or St. Paul Or any of the apostles Especially if you've done any traveling You've seen them depicted in art so many times In two-dimensional images In three-dimensional images Wood, stone, whatever the medium But of course They're always depicted As that moment of glory You know, with keys in hand Or tiara on head Which we should, I don't like the opposite either Where we think that they're just nothing but regular Joes I mean, they were regular Joes That did extraordinary things Because of the power that they had And so somewhere in between there To catch their wonder At the whole thing and their excitement And yet To realize that they're not just Fishermen anymore, it's kind of the whole point I agree I mean, these are art forms You know, it's right to Speak of them That's Lupo again by the way He went to come to this recording set That's one of the great Danes Lying on the floor It wasn't quite a snore He was disgruntled by what he was saying A deep breath, no, clearly not Lupo loves me And totally agrees with me In all of our disputes So no, I think referring to these different types Of art forms and putting a show Like The Chosen or a film Like The Passion And now, apparently, Mel Gibson Is working, he's working on the resurrection To put them In the category of modern art forms Along with The more traditional art forms And to understand that they have limits They have to fill in gaps They have to be speculative But so does any other art form Whatever you're doing to try to depict Those characters It's not going to be a source Of Truth, they're just trying to reflect it And so it's an important thing I get nervous If people start citing the films As a source Of revelation No, no, you can't do that But Jesus said Well, he was also kind of dressed In a Renaissance garb in a picture That I saw, you know So he didn't really walk around You have to take the art forms from what they are Understand their limits Understand where they're speculating Understand where they're trying to bridge the gap Of time You're using expressions For example, in the series Of expressions that we relate to today In language that There's no equivalent to Back then But they're trying to communicate in general That they would speak this way They would have spoken normally And colloquially And certainly that comes across So you have to kind of really interpret What they're reflecting through The limits of the medium And respect the spaces And I think they've done it well But you do have to approach it that way And not appeal to it as a source Makes me nervous I'm sure you've run into this in the past Where people will tell you about Exorcism based upon A movie, The Exorcist Or something like that Or they cite films As being a true An authoritative source For religion And that's a little scary Remember the Dan Brown series? The book Has been a historical record It was a work of fiction It somehow gets into the collective consciousness About now our Blessed Lord and Mary Magdalene Yes And what Opus Dei actually is It is amazing how it infiltrates But I wonder If there's any way When we put it this way Certainly with some art forms We were trying to depict The state Of the saints now in glory So imagine both the icon And even well into the 15th century With the egg tempera And gold And things of that nature You're trying to have it Not too terribly representational So it's not just depicting one particular aspect But something that's a bit more universal That your prayer can go through it Or pass it It doesn't fixate on something More like a Baroque period Or a Renaissance period Where you have The art forms going on And they're really beautiful But it does define it as a particular moment In the way that the art forms be preceding That did not Which I love that art form too Just think about a Caravaggio Who's not impressed Or something by Raffaelli or Michelangelo And as we move down the line To the motion media One of the things That it struck me about The shows in relative to that Because they make our lord So colloquial Too much in my estimation Just a bit too much of a regular Joe sometimes When he has those scenes And maybe this is the intent When he has those scenes And he has many of them Where all of a sudden You see his divinity sort of come forward I think in particular the scene with Nathaniel When they have any spoilers here But that moment when he says I saw you under the fig tree Wow, because they depicted him In some ways almost Uberhuman Just sort of normal human The contrast was so powerful And just that's the artist media You can do it once I may disagree with the over colloquialized lord On some level because he doesn't manifest that In the scriptures But it's certainly like a Caravaggio By having so much darkness Perceived as even being brighter Yeah, exactly, that chiaroscuro Indeed But it's kind of coming back To the original Theme there I think it's a good practice We spoke about this years ago I think it's a really good practice In the Easter season Because I think we all have To some degree a much more difficult time With Easter season and doing it well Rather than Lent Lent we sort of get I'm a bit of a disaster I need some upkeep I've got to get serious about this Prayer fasting and almsgiving All of that lends itself to Greater discipline, greater prayer life And we begin to reap some of the fruits of that For better or for worse In terms of our penances And then we get to Easter And now it's time to celebrate and rejoice But it's difficult to celebrate and rejoice Especially if you haven't done much But to sustain that in such a way That it doesn't just become Now let me roll back everything I did during Lent And so What it was like for them To have a new found Insertion into the power Of Christ It's not that different for us In some sense we should have Some sense of new life I'm participating in a divine life A supernatural life Hopefully in a way that I wasn't On Ash Wednesday And I should experience some kind of new Capacity in me Something as you said Flowing through me as it were Yeah You know I think Just from an experiential point of view Obviously there's the relief of The Lenten disciplines Insofar as they were Sacrificial in nature Not moves toward virtue Giving up swearing or things like that You don't swear like a sailor on Easter Sunday Right Happy Easter Beep beep You know that's But the sacrifices Where you They relent and you have that release That you experience on Easter But it's so much more than that That's just sort of a natural feeling On which From which one can leap From a higher spiritual current And I have to say I feel that And I I think it just It simply flows From the current of one's life You know if one is leaving Deliberately and conscientiously In the life of the church Especially as a regulated By virtue of sacred time In the seasons of the year There is a soaring that occurs Naturally during the Easter time Almost a permission Just to glide a little higher Interiorly One would hope that every year You're gaining some elevation That you never lose Such that by the end of our lives That what is considered to be Our normal flight pattern is Fairly high up there But I have to say There is that sense of Being able to fly a little higher Interiorly A greater release A deep A deeper experience Of liberation Because The Pascom mystery And the reality of our faith When lived And as faith grows Stronger Experientially Feels More real And as it feels more real It is all the more exhilarating All the more astounding All the more Seemingly fantastic And yet it's real And there should be some of that That excitement Not to just reduce things to sort of an emotional reaction But there should be some of that Excitement that the apostles had And there was the newness of it Like, can you believe what just happened? If we have eyes to see And we're living as we've spoken about before The life of the spirit I'm trying to pay attention to what God's doing And not just in some sort of You're sort of a wretch You need to repent That's all true But what is he doing relative to His grace and power in me That he wants me to do That illustrates all the different lines Of my life to put persons in front of me To give me these opportunities To do things beyond my capacity Through me that I hardly even notice That he's doing and I get to rejoice In the fact that he did it That's fun, I mean it's just fun You think about if you could live Even just one of the person's life So I mean maybe one way to think About it is for you Being as envious as you are Just think if you could live Both your life and then you could also have my life I'm exhausted already I know I'm a working priest Oh my gosh For those who didn't catch that subtlety He's suggesting that I am not a working priest I'm a priest of leisure He's a priest of leisure Clearly Actually we were at a meeting together yesterday And the meeting It was I don't know a couple hours It drained me to the core Welcome to my world And I thought that's what he does all day long In fact You know that you've arrived When being seated In a meeting becomes an extreme sport I mean I have to get up And stretch I gotta jog down the hall Just to keep my body in In order so that I can endure The incredible amount of Sitting that I do While you're sitting there You could be living my life Have a whole nother life And so Whatever it is that I'm Engaged in relative to my extreme Sports You could be enjoying that And it's a silly example The analogy limps obviously because We have bodies and so It doesn't quite work to Wield someone else's body While you're sitting in a different place One should think about it almost In those terms St. Paul says we're going to have the mind Of Christ We talk about the Holy Spirit As the soul's welcome guest That we're going to make our home with you I'm actually living a different Person's life And being able to wield His knowledge and his love on some level That's what faith and charity are That's an astounding thing I think it truly is There's no going back But there's so much Also to look forward to And there's no going back one Because one would never want to But also The excitement Because what we leave behind Is worth leaving behind You think of those apostles And the lives that they had Now that they weren't good And they weren't seeking To do what was right and good When our Lord arrives at the scene And The in-breaking of God through the Incarnation And the The whole economy of salvation Unfolding In their very midst Once you're caught up into that You can't go back You just simply cannot Unless you're Judas So maybe you could But I could No wonder you would have lived my life Really But to think of what all lies ahead There and then Your sense of time Changes Your perspective on time changes Because You're very much looking across The eternal horizon There's a sense of urgency About what needs to get done Relative to the mission Which is then imparted to the Apostolic Church Which is what we're all part of From the lay faithful all the way up to the Pope And everyone in between We're all part of the Apostolic Church We all have that same sense of Apostolic mission But do we look at time that way Or Do we kind of Look at the future And look at time in our life The way the apostles did before Our Lord arrived at the scene Something to think about Because the Easter season Really pulls you into the current Of that faith That Apostolic faith And draws you in in such a way That we shouldn't want to look back And there's only so much time left To do what needs to be done And what is being asked of us And to contribute to that Economy and Salvation And pray God take our place In the Kingdom I think that When I was walking into the Easter season After I sort of woke up from the As you know the Incredible And unique Liturgies that we have During the Triton because they are They're just you want to do them once a year But they're also very, very intense And so you get done with the Easter masses And you just sort of Everything in you is just so spent So when I finally came to on Easter Monday And realized that I was still alive I remember asking myself That question What do I leave behind now That I want to leave behind In other words I'm not just going to jump into this Easter Monday and say We're back to business before Back before Ash Monday What stays there And what do I not come back to That's a good way of looking at it Well before we go I had the Decent pleasure Today of Preparing for We're having an event out here As you know for Working on the Progress toward building a chapel here at the Seminary and some other Ancillary buildings that we Want to build to be able to house And welcome other guests From the diocese and parishioners And things of that nature And in so doing I Want to be able to show everyone The actual dimensions Of the buildings and so it was Just kind of a fun project today You did do a footprint did you We did and so we actually painted it Outside So all the buildings are sort of Painted and it's outlined So you could get a real sense of the Magnitude of it And since I can't Really read a map or I just had our Wonderful facilities Manager do that For me. I've got vision But no practical skills. Yeah yeah Surveillance now. You don't have the patience for that I don't really know. You have patience but it's It's a different kind of patience It's very selective. That's true I'm kind of done with you. Yeah I know You hang up now Well that's exciting. I can't wait to take a peek at it. Yeah definitely Alright so I just want to Say before we go How much I Adore The smell of Easter lilies There is My chapel at home I have the Easter lilies and then I have A different variety of lilies in the flower Vases On the altar And when you walk in That perfume that natural perfume It just It's so sweet And it speaks of Easter Obviously This is something that is cultural Because we use Easter lily to represent The Easter season so often That The smell becomes so closely aligned So closely associated With that joy and elevation Of Easter that you walk in And your senses are just Just mellowed And the natural scent and perfume of Easter I absolutely love this. I do too and it's one of those things that I Like the poinsettia for Christmas I mean Which doesn't smell per se but of course that That ruby red color That deep red color You don't want it any other time of year Right. And the lily Like if I see a lily the other time I don't want to smell it I don't want to smell it because that's Easter smell It's true So next year if you don't If you've never had an Easter lily in your home I recommend it. Especially if you can close off the doors Capture it It just elevates it It elevates you every time you walk by it And it just gives off its natural perfume It's just such a beautiful Simple little Almost sacramental Of Easter It's sort of the way the guys fill in the house When you walk by it's the odor of sanctity The odor of sanctity Well that's what you call it We'll leave it at that. God bless you all Bye. Ciao. See you again next time From The Rooftop