SPEAKER_04 0:07

Welcome to Beyond the Beacon with Bishop Kevin Sweeney, a podcast of the Diocese of Patterson, New Jersey. Join us for conversation about our Catholic faith, and together let's strive to live a life of faith, hope, and love. Jay Agnish, and with me is Bishop Kevin Sweeney. Bishop Kevin, how are you? Oh good, Jay. How are you doing? Doing just fine, thank you. What's what's new? What's what's going on?

SPEAKER_05 0:29

The we're recording this before a few weeks before it's gonna come out, and uh I don't know why sports always comes to my mind first, but the Knicks are playing the Celtics tonight in their second round playoff series.

SPEAKER_04 0:42

So it's kicking off tonight?

SPEAKER_05 0:44

First game is tonight, yeah. Uh or three weeks ago, I guess. Right, right. Uh and during the regular season, they were 0-8 against the two best teams in the Eastern Conference, Boston and and the Cavaliers. But this group are so strange. They shouldn't have won the last game that they won in Detroit or two of the other games that they won in the series. And they find a way to win. And uh so maybe they're gonna surprise us and have a chance against the Celtics. So that's fun. That's fun. Uh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:11

Uh and we were we were just chatting about the at this time at where we're recording, there is uh the conclave is yet to begin. Right. And we were uh tossing some names around about potential future popes, um, not to take it lightly, but we'll uh continue to pray for for uh the future of the church and the and the popes.

SPEAKER_05 1:30

But uh Father Murphy is a good friend of Monsignor Kupke. Yes. And uh you've been having some conversations, huh?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

Um well he I he's an expert on all things historical, and he I remember uh before uh Pope Francis was elected the day before he told me who it was going, oh, it's gonna be Bergoglio, it's gonna be Bergoglio, and I guess he had told some other folks that too. So he he's quite the expert.

SPEAKER_05 1:50

Right, right. And now we're not sure. I had said that I I heard he was going saying maybe Christophe Pierre, but it seems like you're saying he's changed.

SPEAKER_00 1:58

Yesterday he said now now he switched to Aveline of the Cardinal from Marseille. That's what he said yesterday. But he I think he's he's it's a little bit difficult. More difficult this time.

SPEAKER_05 2:10

I guess you you can write up until the conclave, you you can pick your right uh um so uh so we'll see. It's uh Yeah, it's gonna be exciting. We'll have a new Holy Father by the time this comes out.

SPEAKER_00 2:23

Yeah, and if we think has generated a lot of media coverage. Right, right. Amazing.

SPEAKER_05 2:27

And betting action as well.

SPEAKER_04 2:30

It's keeping us busy here at the communications, as well.

SPEAKER_05 2:33

Uh we've mentioned the past podcast Jesuitical. Uh uh Father Murphy works with some uh Jesuits, right?

SPEAKER_00 2:38

Um at Xavier in New York.

SPEAKER_05 2:40

Xavier High School, right, right. Uh we're from your 11ths, right? Yeah. Uh so um Jesuitical podcast uh and their sister podcast inside the Vatican have been doing a daily podcast, and uh they said um whatever year was in the 130 or 1400s when it became an excommunicable offense to wager on who's gonna be chosen by the conclave. But somewhere in the last hundred years or so, it changed. It's no longer an excommunicable offense. It's highly um uh not suggested, you know, uh not recommended. Uh um you're not supposed to do it, but um obviously that's not stopping many from so um uh we're gonna introduce our guests. We're happy to um uh have them with us today and talk about a great topic of retreats and uh men's spirituality, and uh, but maybe we'll um we'll start with a prayer.

SPEAKER_04 3:32

Yeah, sounds good.

SPEAKER_05 3:33

And um as I've said, I get to spend a lot of quality time with the Holy Spirit this time of year and celebrating confirmations, but it's such a beautiful time of year in so many ways, first communions, confirmation, graduations. Mother's Day is coming up, it'll pass by the time this comes out. But this time of May is so beautiful in so many ways. But the Easter season, also these 50 days of celebrating the resurrection and um asking the Holy Spirit to inflame the gifts of the Spirit in each one of us. Uh so maybe we'll join together in prayer. Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. In these Easter days, in this beautiful Easter season, as we pray for the church and the cardinal electors, especially, that they'll choose the candidate the Holy Spirit wishes to give us. We ask the help of the Holy Spirit as we pray. Come, O Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love. Send forth your spirit, and we shall be recreated, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. O God, who has taught the hearts of the faithful by the light of the Holy Spirit, grant us in that same spirit to be truly wise and always rejoice in your consolation through Christ our Lord. Amen. Our Lady Seed of Wisdom, Mother of the Church, pray for us. Saint Joseph, pray for us, all holy men and women, pray for us. Name of the Father and the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

SPEAKER_04 4:51

Okay, so you you've already uh introduced Father Dan Murphy, a retired priest of the diocese. Welcome.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

Retired, but not yet tired.

SPEAKER_04 5:01

Still plenty busy uh leading retreats, and which we're gonna get into. And uh Dick Freiberger is uh he's a member of the Call to Courage Men's Retreat Group, which is gonna be the topic, uh main topic of conversation today. And we're gonna bring on Frank Farrell, right? Is it uh in a little bit? Francis Xavier.

SPEAKER_03 5:20

That's right. Francis Xavier Farrell.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Correct. So we um yeah, Father Dan left me a message when, Jay, I got a great idea for a podcast. Gotta talk to these guys who are part of the Call to Courage Men's Retreat group.

SPEAKER_05 5:32

And Father Dan uh kindly invited me, and I I didn't make it this year, but last year. I was happy to be there. Um so maybe Father Dan and then um Dick, you could uh you were both there as long as well as Frank was at the beginning, and how long ago was that?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Well, the origin, I guess, of Call to Courage goes way back to probably the early 90s uh when uh I was pastor at the newly formed parish at St. Kateri, now it was Blessed Caterian, now Sancretary in Sparta. And uh a group of guys got together, and I believe we were doing like a book study on a book called Simplicity, one of the first books by uh Franciscan father Richard Rohr. And uh the experience just grew where these fellows just felt it was really wonderful just to gather together to talk about their relationship with God and their faith. And I thought they found it very unusual for for guys to get together and talk about faith and not just about, you know, sports or other activities that they were involved in. And that whole thing just continued to grow with people like Frank and and Dick. And it just um kept going on and on. Even after when I left, it continued to go for how many years, Dick? Did did the men's? 16 years. For 16 years. Yeah. And uh I and I always felt that in my experience as as a priest, that retreats were key in leading adults to a deeper spirituality and realizing too that men and women approach God and their uh their faith in different ways. And certainly with men, it was a great opportunity to get men to come together uh with with peer ministry to share their faith, uh, to grow. And I found that uh retreat experiences also helped to develop a wonderful sense of parish community.

SPEAKER_05 7:17

Uh so then uh a book group uh that that grows um and leads into really becoming a faith-sharing group. Uh and then that leads to someone saying we should plan a retreat together. Let's go, let's have a weekend retreat.

SPEAKER_03 7:30

That was your idea to have a retreat after um four or five years of the men's spirituality group and meeting every Saturday, and and we got a lot of momentum, as Father Dan mentioned. And at one point it was your idea, let's have a men's retreat. Uh so Father Dan put a team of people together. It was ten people. I was on that first team, Frank was on the first team, Father Dan. Um and the first retreat we had was in March of 1998. Uh and we had it up at uh Mount Paul, which was a Paulist Fathers, I don't know. Yeah. Uh in Jefferson Township. It was right down the road from the church. Yeah. Owned by the Paulist Fathers. It's since been uh sold. It's part of King College. Yeah, King College. Oh wow. Um King Silence? Yes. Yes, exactly. That's exactly what it is. That's that used to be the uh the Paulist uh Fathers' Retreat Center there, now Paul. I had visually been there in a vicious.

SPEAKER_05 8:24

And do you remember what that first one was like?

SPEAKER_03 9:06

Uh yeah, kind of. It was a long time ago. The the the center up there is beautiful, it's up in the woods. There's a beautiful lake out in the back. It's very rustic. Um we actually, I think we cooked for ourselves that first retreat. Um and our uh topic was it was a Richard War tape series called Called by Fire, right? And it was about uh archetypal uh energies in men, right? Uh and what we always do with these retreats, and this has gone on, is is uh this is basically an interactive, pretty much kind of layman's retreat who who give the talks, but then we have Father Dan or a lot of deacons who have helped us, right, with all that. Um so yeah, that's that's kind of how we got it going initially.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

And I think one of the key things that I think was very creative on on the on the team's part is that they would select a book, right? A group of us would select a book that would would be good for men to to understand, and each of the fellows on team would select one of the chapters from the book and use that chapter as the background, the focus of their individual talk, in which they would share a lot about their own life journey and their own faith journey. And then as time went on, as we continued to move down the road, uh then we just picked out different themes, and I'm sure Dick and Frank can talk about some of the themes we've developed over the years. But at the same time, uh in the parish in Sparta, uh Sister Barbara Moore, who was a Dominican sister who was our pastoral associate, she pulled together a group of women, and so we also had a women's retreat. So it was really good because the women's retreat, the men's retreat, it really just fostered a wonderful sense of community, and I would find after these guys and these women were so on fire in their own spiritual lives, I could get them to do anything. I would ask them to I think I have a great opportunity for you, and now they were so filled with the spirit, they go, Oh yeah, Father, I'd love to do that, I'd be glad to do that. So it really built community, it built the opportunity for people to understand their gifts and their talents.

SPEAKER_04 11:07

Um I absolutely very, very helpful to the growth of the parish community. So while these are like a singular event that happens at one given time about a particular topic, there's also a lot of prep work that goes into it, right? And that Oh, yes. There's some fellowship there, there's uh some with with with the men and I guess the women as well.

SPEAKER_03 11:29

Maybe can you speak to that a little bit, the prep work leading into the retreats? I could speak to that a little. Um and just to dovetail that into the history too, so so we had six retreats, we had one each year, uh of the men's retreats, and then Father Dan left and went to Our Lady of the Valley in Wayne, right? Uh but our retreat uh initiative had we had a lot of momentum. And actually, myself and another fellow, Chris Auger, Chris passed away last year, uh, we kind of took the reins and we kind of said we want to keep this thing going. And we had several deacons working with us, and we had several other men of the parish who really wanted to do it. And so we kept it going. It was 13 years, not 16 years. But anyway, we kept it going for a long time. And whoever was the pastor would help us with setting up things like reconciliation services and do the masses and the things that we would need a pastor to do. Um but yes, it's a process, and it's it even extends to today what we do. It's a whole process of pulling the team together and a lot of planning and deciding on a theme, right? And deciding on uh finding speakers. Father Dan's really good at finding speakers for us.

SPEAKER_04 12:38

Um it sounds like it's unifying the your the par whatever parishes and are involved as well with clergy and laity. It sounds like a great thing.

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Do you remember how long we stayed at St. Paul's? And then did uh I know in recent years you've been in Newton, right, at the Sacred Heart Center?

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Yeah, yeah, we s yes, we stayed, we stayed at uh Mount Paul until it was sold. Uh 2010, 11, 12, around there, right? And then then we we moved to um the Sacred Hearts Center, which is just outside of Newton, run by the Salesian sisters, and I could talk for a long time about how wonderful they are and what a great job they do. Um and that's where we are now. Um through the Kateri retreats, and now we've moved on to the Call to Courage movement.

SPEAKER_05 13:23

Do you remember the origin of the Call to Courage name?

SPEAKER_03 13:26

You won't why don't you talk a little bit about that name?

SPEAKER_00 13:30

You can talk a little bit about that. Okay. All right. Well, I I I think when you when you think of men, you think of courage. But I think there's a a cultural understanding of masculinity which is caught up in having big trucks, being tough, you know, being dominating, um, being forceful, where that's not really what courage is for a for a man. You know, the word courage comes from the word, from the French word, from the Latin word heart, from heart. And the whole idea, it's really uh to be men who who are strong in their hearts, and the whole idea of compassionate, taking leadership roles, servant leadership. There's an excellent article this past week in America magazine about, you know, uh, you know, Catholic understanding of masculinity. So I think we try to realize that we are always being called to a deeper sense of courage, but not courage in the in the cultural sense, in the world sense, but rather in in a Christian sense. Right. Uh so I think that really um was probably where we got that from. But I'd like to also address, too, even some of um of the origin that what I find very strong, very important, is that um two things that uh I was always excited about being a young priest after the after Vatican II was the idea of uh universal call to holiness, is very key in Vatican II, and that all of us, you know, you know, priests, religious, and lay persons are all called to develop and form a deep personal relationship with God. And so I think that's the I think the real core, the real basis of any of these retreat experiences is to help, you know, lay people develop this call to holiness and also the idea of pure ministry, you know, the call of our baptism, that our baptism empowers us as being priests, prophets, and king, to really take those important roles. So I those are the things that really would energize me about forming any kind of adult retreat experiences. Right. Those two themes from Vatican II.

SPEAKER_03 15:24

Oh, I just wanted to jump back in on the call to courage theme, because actually Father Dan and I just talked about this a couple days ago. And uh yeah, the courage thing, we could talk a lot about courage, and I I sent a few scriptural passages, right, that deal with courage. Um but the other part of that, not only the courage part, but uh the called part I think is really important. The fact that that we are called, right? And and uh, you know, when someone calls you, do you take the call, number one? Right? And if God's calling, do you take the call?

SPEAKER_05 15:54

Let it go to voicemail. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 15:57

Or are you listening to the call and how are you responding to the call? Uh and that whole idea of being called is so go for a long time.

SPEAKER_05 16:06

We're recording this on um the day after the third Sunday of Easter, and uh just uh yesterday's gospel, Jesus and Peter, um, and uh um I've said this before, I think, but uh I was at a uh uh a a diaconate ordination in Rome when I was vocation director in Brooklyn, and this was the gospel um that uh was for the mass, and I forget who the bishop was, but his homily after Peter says three times, I love you, and Jesus says, Feed my sheep, care for my and then says, you know, when you're you were young, when you're older, they're you're gonna um and the last and then he said to him, Follow me. The bishop at that time talked how different that follow me was from the follow me three years before, right, when they didn't know what they were getting into. So that sense of being called and and that call developing, it sounds like that's been happening on on the retreats, huh? And Peter, who certainly was called to courage, he took some time to get there, but with the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 17:05

With his with his brokenness. Right. Uh because the threefold denial, the threefold acceptance, the fact that God doesn't call the perfect, he calls all of us. And I think that's an important thing, I think, with men's spirituality, who sometimes think, well, with my past, I I can't I can't be this. But we realize that through the gift of God's healing and forgiveness, uh, we can be strong men of faith, taking an active role.

SPEAKER_03 17:26

Yeah, I think uh one of the beauties of the of the retreat and and and the men giving talks is uh, you know, when you're there with other men, um men understand men, right? Okay, and and and we can tell when men are really being honest and maybe when they're not. Uh and and one thing that's really developed over the retreat experiences over the years is is this deep sense of men really getting getting honest, right? And it's really powerful. It's really, really, really powerful when we share our stories with with real honesty, and we talk, you know, we talk about the wonderful things that have happened in our in our lives, we talk about the really difficult things that have happened, right? And the the losses and and brokenness as Father Dan was talking about. Uh you know, it's all part of the package.

SPEAKER_04 18:09

Um So take us a little further into a retreat. Um, like so how many people are attending, what how long are they? What are some of the so there's a topic for for each one?

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Yeah, so so so so uh when we decide to put on the retreat, I always say there's a couple things you need. I mean, you need a team of people to put it together, you need a place to have it, right? You need a venue. But then then when you start getting into the content, uh to me it's always what I what I've found over the years is uh you ni you need a theme, some type of theme to work around. And then then the big thing is you need to find men who will give talks, right? And these are like 15, 20 minute talks, if you will, uh on the topic, right? And Father Dan's been great with working with uh the men who are gonna give the talks and helping them develop it. Because it it it sounds like it would be easy to do, but it's really not. And and we've had people over the years who uh one one guy in particular I remember was taught, told me he taught graduate school and lecture for two or three hours at a time. And another fellow was a motivational speaker, and that's what he did for a living. And when I said, could you give a 15-minute talk, they were like, Oh, sure. But both of those guys, and these are different years, came back to me like two or three weeks later and said, like when you did this, did you have a hard time doing this? Because when you start talking about yourself, right, and your own inner journey and and you know, it it's it it's much more difficult.

SPEAKER_00 19:37

And and uh Father Dan, you usually work with them one by one, one on one to and yeah, very often I will pull together some ideas like uh this the last last research we had uh was uh based on um on the call of um Jacob, the whole wrestling with God, but also the four marks of the church. It was kind of interesting pulling those two themes together, right? But so I would find articles for them on those topics and work with them so that I they would have some material they'd have to work on. It wasn't just go give a talk. Because I wanted to make sure that it was formed in, you know, authentic theology and proper teaching and things like that. So they were given some some core things. And we just were we were just creative. We picked we just picked out a theme.

SPEAKER_03 20:22

And and everybody's on a different place in their spiritual journey, right? And I remember what we used to on our enrollment forums back for the Kateri retreats, we had a line on there, you know, we said kind of everybody's welcome, but one of the lines was uh spiritual giants and novices welcome. So we're casting it out to everybody, right? Wherever you're at on your journey, you know.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

Um perhaps we could also move into the whole idea of where call to courage came from based on the uh retreats at at St. Kateri. Then after I left St. Kateri, I was I was assigned to our Lady of the Valley in Wayne. And I knew I wanted to establish some kind of program, you know, in retreats for the men and the women. So I I chose decide, I decided I sent a few guys up to Kateri retreat. Then I sent a few guys to uh uh parish in Cedar Grove, where one of my good good friends, priest classmate, was pastor, and they had a very successful cornerstone retreat program. And cornerstone is is very active in many parishes in our diocese. And so I had the guys come back and they made the decision, well, which way do you want to go? And they chose Cornerstone because it was in-house, it was only one night, not two nights. Uh, and the women did the same thing. They went uh to try it out both, and so they decided to have women's cornerstone. So then a lady of the valley, cornerstone really took off. And then when I went to St. Matthews and Randolph in my last assignment, they already had cornerstone, and it was very vibrant there. So I was really very fortunate to be able to continue to be involved in the retreats. And Cornerstone is an overnight, and it had it's a little bit more of a formal, it's more of a format, whether it's talks and so on. It goes Friday night to Saturday night, it's five talks. Once again, it's it's pure ministry, and there's reconciliation service, there's mass, and so on. So uh, and then uh when I retired, a group of fellows came to me and said, you know, we want to continue these retreats. And that's how we found. I got a group of guys together from My Lady of the Valley, from Kateri, from St. Matthew's, and we just that's how we formed Call to Courage.

SPEAKER_04 22:24

I did it with Cornerstone years ago, and it was it was a great experience for me. What's is there a difference between maybe talk about the difference between Call to Courage and Cornerstone? Or they are they very much related and uses pretty similar. Yeah, basis is the same.

SPEAKER_03 22:37

It's you know, we kind of developed a Of a kind of a hybrid program at Kateri. And the programs at Our Lady of the Valley and St. Matthews, I think, were more traditional cornerstone. So we kind of put elements of both together. Okay. And and you would ask a little earlier, uh Jay, that uh so the retreat starts uh with dinner on on a Friday night, usually about seven o'clock. And we have some activities on Friday night. We have a whole day on Saturday, and about a half a day on Sunday, we finish with a late morning mass. And we're out of there like noon or so, noon to one o'clock.

SPEAKER_05 23:10

Uh we want to get um Frank and uh uh Dick, before you leave us, uh anything uh that we haven't covered that you wanted to share, or um uh if somebody's listening or watching and maybe haven't been on a retreat, then uh what you would what you might advise you might give or uh invitation you'd make?

SPEAKER_03 23:27

You shouldn't leave that open-ended for me. Because I'll talk for a long time, but I don't want to do that. Uh just that uh the retreat experience is a very powerful experience. And I've not only done these kind of retreats, but I've done like silent retreats, and there's other types of retreats, like theological-based retreats and preach retreats. The retreat experience is a really powerful experience. I would recommend it to anybody. And to anybody who's who's watching the podcast, uh you're welcome to come.

SPEAKER_05 23:54

Um Another resource we have in our diocese, another of our retired but not yet tired priests, Father Patty O'Donovan, uh, in his retirement, now lives at uh Loyola Retreat House in Morristown. And you guys cross paths because you're there often. And there all the time with Ziggy High School, right? Yeah. So um thank you, Dick, very much for uh thanks for having me. Thanks a lot. God bless you.

SPEAKER_04 24:22

Okay, so we're back, and now we have Frank Farrell joining us in place of Dick. Um so Frank, you've been here listening to the conversation. Is there anything top of mind that you want to add or contribute to that?

SPEAKER_01 24:32

Yeah, so I think first of all, it's been wonderful just listening to everyone talk about it. It's great. It it gets me excited for the next one, just hearing about it. Uh so how I got started was with Father Dan. And uh I'm, you know, not uh this is not a um a home for saints, it's a hospital for sinners. And clearly that was my case. I was invited uh into the men's group by Father Dan. And Father Dan, I don't know if you remember, but my very first talk uh was not an easy one. Uh he had challenged me. I had had struggles in my marriage, I had had struggles with addiction, and uh I laid it all out in in front of other men. And um, what happened next was amazing. They loved me, they accepted me, they forgave me, they brought me in as one of theirs, and that hooked me right away. And that was people like Dick and Father Dan and other men that have just changed my life forever. So what I have come to realize with these retreats is it's an opportunity for men to really get to know other men, be vulnerable with other men, recognize that there's more about us that's the same, that is different, that we all make mistakes, we all stumble along the way, and we are in a non-judgmental world at that retreat where we listen, we're vulnerable, we care for each other, we love each other, we're not there to fix each other, we're there to love each other. And uh it's it's an event that when you walk away, you're challenged to be a better man in a world that it's not always easy to be a better man. There's a lot of stuff out there that we can get involved in, and we can be there to support each other, not just during that retreat, but from that time afterwards until the next retreat moving forward.

SPEAKER_05 26:26

How would you have Father and Father Dan have known each other? Uh that led to him making the invitation?

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Oh, that's a great story.

SPEAKER_02 26:34

We didn't plan on doing that.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

So I was uh so I had gone to uh Catholic education for 12 years, and uh I had made a decision uh which wasn't a great decision, but to just step away. Uh I stepped away from my Catholicism, I didn't go to church, I was I was out of it. And um my wife at the time, however, was not, and we were having a baptism, and Father Dan uh came to our home, and uh I was very reluctant about it. And uh I think Dan said to me, uh, I don't see you at church. And I said, I don't go to your church. I said, I don't go to your church. And then um All I remember is you leaving and me waving and going, See you Sunday. Oh yeah, so yeah, we uh we connected. It was during the Lord's Prayer. Uh we had a moment together uh that we connected on the Lord's Prayer. We held hands, and uh it was a special moment, changed my life. Um and and from that moment on I I got involved in the church, and and the one thing that Father Dan is great at is inviting men because he recognizes gifts that many times we don't even see in ourselves. And I didn't see that I had any gifts to offer at all. And you know, he let me know there were gifts to offer, and uh when I took the risk and gave it a shot, he supported me through that, uh, as well as a lot of the other men. Uh that's awesome.

SPEAKER_04 28:13

Yeah, which was Can you talk about friendships that have formed out of the retreat?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

Oh yeah, my f my whole life has changed as a result of my friendships that I've met through these retreats.

SPEAKER_05 28:23

And sorry, were you there at that first St. Katiri one and Yeah, I was. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:27

Yeah. And um It was very special. We uh we bond together as men. We like Dick said earlier, we challenge each other. We know if somebody's full of it, you know, because we're all full of it sometimes. And uh we uh we'll challenge each other, we'll we'll ask each other, you know, hey, come on, what's really going on here? Um like I haven't seen you at church. Uh we do that. Um we hug each other, we invite each other into each other's lives. I have my entire life has changed as a result of uh knowing Father Dan, knowing guys like Dick, a group of other men that are still in my life today from these retreats. And it's you know what's interesting too is there are core guys that keep coming, so you know it works, right, but we keep getting new guys all the time. And it's there's a need out there.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

And we're being done to attract younger guys too. Yeah, we are just because some fellas would bring their sons, and some other young guys would come. We tried this year to really get, you know, we had two young fellas on this year giving talks uh as on the themes.

SPEAKER_05 29:35

Um I just love the title of St. Pope John Paul II's uh little autobiography memoir of his uh priestly vocation, um, that which he wrote when he was fifty years a priest and twenty-five years as Pope. Um Gift and Mystery, you know, simple, right? But Father Dan, uh when we think of priesthood as a gift and mysterious, um uh, you know, I think especially maybe the ministry of a parish priest, the opportunities that we have, uh and our people challenge us as well, right? Uh definitely. Uh right. Um and it's through your ministry in the parish that this fruit has been born, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:15

Uh and um and we're it's very freeing for for me, and I've always believed this as as a pastor, is that I realize uh I don't have all the gifts of the Holy Spirit, but I really believe that within a parish community, all those gifts are there. Yeah. And and I think part of I think the joy of my priesthood is being able to see that to draw those out, to draw those out from people.

SPEAKER_05 30:36

Uh Frank, when you were speaking at the beginning, um the experience, we use that word community, right? And or church is God's family, and the I love in the Acts of the Apostles the description of the church as the community of believers, right? But it's also making me think of uh the chosen, uh, which is just one depiction of those first twelve, you know, who didn't have all the gifts and uh and had their strengths and weaknesses and work uh you know retreats they must have had together. But but then they took that risk retreat experience and experience with the Lord and the forgiveness that they received, Peter, right? Being uh and then they they uh served the the community by opening themselves up to to share that experience and and uh and and that little invitation not seeing you at church led you to an experience of community, right? That remains.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

An amazing sense of it. One of the things that we do, uh I've taken a liking to and I've done a lot of work on contemplative prayer. So I spend a lot of time in silence. I love that type of prayer. It brings me a lot of peace. And I have the opportunity to do that with the guys at the retreat. And I have to tell you, you look out and you see 40 men with their eyes closed, sitting in prayer together with you, and just raising their hearts and their minds to God all at the same time, and somehow you're leading it blows you away. It's like, how the heck did I end up here? And then you realize you're just part of it, you know, you're just one of the guys and doing it with the other guys, and it's uh it's an amazing experience.

SPEAKER_04 32:16

Frank, talk about maybe how the group sustains it, how it keeps going. Like it sounds very organic, it's been happening for years. Uh you're not I take you're not like sending out email blasts trying to get people to come out. Is it is it like you go you know, word, you know, are you speaking to someone in person, inviting them, or how does it how does it be a problem?

SPEAKER_01 32:36

Yeah, you know, it's interesting that you bring up the whole concept of invitation. It's very rare that men are invited anywhere. You know, usually it's like the wife is invited and we tag along, right? And um and we say, Yeah, okay, we'll go. And it now it really is guys like Dick and myself and Father Dan, other men who just look another guy in the eye and say, Will you do this? Come do this. It works.

SPEAKER_05 33:00

Have you ever been on a retreat?

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah, exactly, yeah. And I think some men think that it's uh for holy rollers that we're all just going to be perfect, prayerful, little pious altar boys. That's not what it's about.

SPEAKER_05 33:15

And having been there, um there's free time and there's free flowing conversations after that. We have a great time. We have a lot of time.

SPEAKER_00 33:23

There's a group of guys that love playing the guitar and forming music, so they'll stay up to like one in the morning singing and playing guitar and doing gigs and stuff like that. Yeah. Yeah. We used to play basketball together. We always make sure there's a lot of there's some social time, quiet time, you know, stations of the cross, uh you know, liturgy, uh pendant services. So we do it's a really a cross-section of activities that we have.

SPEAKER_04 33:44

Yeah. Yeah. We're gonna have to sign up for the next one. Yeah. Um how how how can people sign up? Is it open to everyone or it's open to everyone.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Like to hear that. I think we have 18 and above is our uh only rule, right?

SPEAKER_00 33:59

Um and maybe uh if men come from another parish. Like I've I I work uh one of the my weekend assignments is St. Michael's Parish in Cranford, which is Newark Archdiocese. And so a lot of fellows have been coming from there. So m my hope is that they'll be able to form their own group and their own esta establish their own, you know, call to courage group in there in that area, in the Union County area. But I think uh hopefully from maybe people watching this this presentation uh would begin to think, well, we can do this in our parish as well.

SPEAKER_05 34:33

I was gonna ask, are you open to doing a little consulting if uh somebody out there is looking to get something started?

SPEAKER_00 34:39

Uh would you be willing to uh you know meet somebody and I think there's a lot of fellows on a lot of fellows on our team that we could really parcel out who would be willing to work with that, definitely. Yeah. Check the show notes, we'll have some context. I also would uh she was talking about, you know, Dick, you spoke about you know the different kinds of retreats, and I would like to put a plug in for um Loyola Jesuit Center in Morristown. They have a variety of retreats, men, men's retreats, women's retreats, silent retreats, directed retreats. They do a 12-step retrap program as well. Yep. Uh they have lots of opportunities for retreats, and it's right right here in our diocese, and it's a beautiful place, so I put a plug in for them. Um but I I just find that um retreats, I was telling I was just as I was just telling you before, is that you know my my second pastor, Father Martin Rauscher, who was a man of tremendous vision about the church, where the church should go, would really encourage uh different kinds of retreats in the parish at resurrection in those days. And uh he would always say, one retreat is worth ten years of religious education, because you know, the kids get all this stuff in the head about religion, uh, but then they go on a retreat and it goes from the head to the heart, and they say, and then Tom Tom Zanzig was a gentleman very uh very popular in youth ministry back in the 70s and 80s. He would always call retreats aha moments. The kids would say, aha, aha, that's what this is all about. Because it goes from the head to the heart. And I think that's key why retreat experiences are so important.

SPEAKER_05 36:07

I really appreciate it, Father Dan. And Frank, I asked uh Dick uh for a final word, maybe something that would be said that you might say to those who are um listening or watching, and and maybe especially thinking of maybe a a guy who hasn't been on a retreat, or what would you what would you offer as a message or an invitation?

SPEAKER_01 36:26

Sure. Yeah, I I think the message I would say is say yes, give it a shot, and uh see what happens, because uh it's always worth taking a risk. The worst risk you can take is taking no risk at all. So uh go for it.

SPEAKER_05 36:39

And uh if somebody out there might be saying, well, nobody's ever invited me, they're now officially invited, right? If you want to. Because you can contact us, contact Jay. Jay will put you in touch with Frank Dick or Dan, and uh we can get it going, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:52

We'd love to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 36:53

Definitely. All right. Well, thank you. Thanks for the appearance. Thank you all for being taking on and sharing this. Yeah, it's great. Um okay, good. So before we wind down, Bishop, anything else you want to reflect on?

SPEAKER_05 37:05

We'll see where we are in three weeks when this is gonna come out. So uh that's we're doing the schedule a little differently with the episodes. Uh so but uh uh uh we'll hopefully um have a new Pope by the time uh we're uh together. We'll be closer to Pentecost again, beautiful time of year. Let us all you know be asking the gifts of the Holy Spirit, praying for young people making confirmation, children making their first Holy Communion. Um great time in the church, and let's pray that the Spirit continues to inspire those like Father Dan and Frank and Dick, and we thank you for uh who you are and and your ministry uh and your outreach. And uh um it's a beautiful part of being that community of believers, the the church that we're that we're called to be part of. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 37:48

Thank you. Thank you. All right, and thank you all for joining us. Please subscribe, comment, and leave a positive rating. Get to know us better by following Beyond the Beacon on social media on Facebook or Instagram. Email questions and podcast topic ideas to the bishop at beyond at pattersondioces.org. Discover our other podcasts, Coffee with Kupke and the Paul Street Journal. See you next time.

SPEAKER_05 38:11

Thanks, everybody. God bless you.

SPEAKER_04 38:13

Thank you.