FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
Dive into the heart of the Catholic experience at Yale University with host Grace Klise, Director of Alumni Engagement at Saint Thomas More. In each episode, Grace and her student co-hosts engage in conversations with students, alumni, faculty, staff, and community members. Together, they discuss the nuances of living out the Catholic faith in today's world, culminating in the question, "Where have you found God?" This podcast offers a space to explore the intersection of spirituality, community, and education, providing listeners with personal insights and meaningful perspectives. Subscribe now to join the journey of discovery and connection.
FINDING GOD ON PARK STREET
From College Student to Priest: Father Ryan's Journey
Step into the world of our Chaplain, Fr. Ryan Lerner, as he candidly shares stories and insights from his life that have led him to where he is today: back on a college campus ministering to students.
Taking us back to his childhood before he and his family were Catholic, Fr. Ryan shares the story of his family's conversion to the faith, the role of Catholic education in his deepening spiritual life, his mother's devotion as she battled cancer, and the peace of God that he experienced as an athlete. From his college days when the thought of the priesthood only occasionally crossed his mind to today when he is busy pastoring the Catholic Church in New Haven, Fr. Ryan faithfully notices the presence of God all around him.
This summer, host Grace Klise and co-host Zach Moynihan ‘25 had the privilege of sitting down with him in the studio to uncover his remarkable trajectory and talk about the joys and challenges of ministry at Saint Thomas More (including some of his favorite homily one-liners!).
Join us to learn more about the man leading the Saint Thomas More community with a tireless and humble heart who teaches us all how to bear witness to Christ in our lives.
Welcome to Finding God on Park Street, a podcast from Saint Thomas More, Yale's Catholic Chapel and Center. My name is Grace Klise and I'm your host, joined by Zach Moynihan as my student co-host today. Thanks for listening. Father Ryan is many things to many people: priest, pastor, mentor, friend, running partner and chaplain to those of us at Saint Thomas More. Over the summer break he joined us to talk about his path first to the Catholic Church and then later to the priesthood, as well as what life is like for him these days, shepherding souls in the great city of New Haven and especially on our campus. And if you've heard Father Ryan preach at Mass, you know he has some favorite and often- repeated phrases that he tends to incorporate into his homilies, his greatest hits, as Zach calls them. So we ask him about those too.
Grace Klise:Let's dive in. Father Ryan, you just shared that this is your first podcast.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Very first podcast.
Zach Moynihan:Yep.
Grace Klise:Well, you couldn't have picked a better one, Finding God on Park Street from Saint Thomas More. Thanks for joining us here today.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Great to be here with you today, thank you, thank you and good to be with you both.
Grace Klise:In the summer, I'm guessing, as we're kind of nearing the end of summer, looking ahead to the academic year, your life as the chaplain, your days look a little bit different than they do during the academic year, I'm sure.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Sure, definitely. Chaplain is my favorite job of the jobs that I have here in the Church in the city of New Haven and the Archdiocese of Hartford. But certainly in the summer things do tend to quiet down quite a bit on Park Street, almost to the point where it's kind of eerie. So I'm definitely excited. This part of the summer, once we've moved past the halfway point and— it's kind of even scary to even say that they were already more than halfway through the summer—you do see life start to pick up a bit more, so it's always very exciting.
Grace Klise:Yeah, Zach, you're one of our students who's here for the summer, right, but it's pretty quiet.
Zach Moynihan:It definitely feels a lot different from the academic year. I mean it's certainly been nice to go over to Mass on Sunday mornings, but I'm usually a 9 pm Mass- goer, so going at 10 am has definitely been a different vibe from what I'm used to, but it's been fun. I've been singing with the choir, so definitely keeping some of the traditions of the academic year going throughout the summer, which has been nice. But it's been a lot different in the sense that I tend to go to STM almost every day during the academic year and I just don't go as much, which has been sad. So I'm really excited for the academic year to get going again, to step foot back in that place and get to see everybody after the summer, see what everyone's been up to.
Grace Klise:I know there are times during the year when I almost have to shut my door because there are just so many people that pass right in front of my door, and now I'm dying when people pass in front of my door and stop and chat for a few minutes. So I think we're definitely getting ready to have students back and filling the hallways again. But, Father Ryan, did you ever think that you would be back, surrounded by college students, 20 years ago, 20- plus years ago, when you were in college?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:No, yeah, I think it's interesting the trajectory from when I was a student at Trinity College from 1999 to 2003.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Quite a while ago, 20 years, 20 years exactly.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:But interestingly I did spend a couple of years after college. I was an assistant coach of cross country and track and did my master's degree at Trinity for a couple of years, and then after that I had a couple of different jobs, possible career paths for going to the seminary. And then one of my first assignments in the first few years of being a priest when I was working for the Archbishop and the Archdiocese of Hartford, I was working as the Archbishop's secretary and chancellor of the Archdiocese, which are basically office jobs. But one of my pastoral outlets, as I said, one of my assignments was to go and be chaplain at Trinity College. So that was the first kind of return to college, to my alma mater, just about a decade after graduating. To come back then from having been there as an undergrad student and as a grad student and coach and then going back there as a priest 10 years later, that was quite an experience.
Zach Moynihan:What has it been like then, making your way back into the college space? How does that inform the way you craft homilies, for example, or the way you make yourself available to the student body here?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Sure, sure. Thank you, Zach. Yeah, I always want to be thoughtful, certainly when crafting homilies, kind of keeping in mind the audience that's in front of me and that's where they're going to a large suburban parish, to an inner city parish. Here in New Haven there are seven different parishes that we're merging into one united parish and each of them are their own unique communities with different needs. So you always want to, as a preacher, you always want to try to keep in mind the people who are in front of you.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:When I've been blessed with the opportunity to go back and work with university students, whether undergrads or graduate students or faculty, I am able to draw from some experience from having been a college student, but again, we're talking 20 years ago. I'm more like your father's age than a peer, you know. But having drawn from some of the college experiences is helpful and all that comes with that experience— the challenges, the opportunities, also the struggles, the fears and uncertainty and the mistakes that we make, all of those things— certainly been down all of those roads many, many times as a college student, as a university student. I'm being able to draw from that experience and also trying to not only grow in your faith, but keep your faith intact and bear witness to your faith, which is super challenging and, I think, probably much now— challenging now you may not realize this but for students in university and now, in 2023, you know, the world is much, much different. And then again it probably sounded like your parents, and I would have sounded like my parents, but I just have a feeling that challenges are probably greater than they were when I was in college. Crafting homilies, you know, listening to the stories, you know trying to stay abreast of what our students are facing, the challenges that they're facing, the opportunities that they're experiencing.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Driving from my own experience and all that is helpful to kind of go up there on Sunday and at the end of the day, you start with the word of God. What is it that God wants to say through Jesus Christ, his word and the Holy Spirit to the people who are in front of you? What do they need to hear? So, always approaching that with a sense of humility, of awe and certainly from the posture of prayer, what is it that this audience needs to hear? What is it that these students need to hear? What is it that God wants to say to them through Christ in the word this Sunday? So I think that's always my approach.
Grace Klise:Working in this environment with our college students at Yale is constantly inspiring. I feel like we're on the front lines, in some ways, of the growing church and I agree, I'm not 20 years out of college, but I'm further out than I realize a lot of times, and I am really inspired and amazed by our students who make their faith and living as a disciple part of their identity as a college student, which I do agree— I think it's just harder today and maybe it's a different environment than my college campus too, and so we're just very inspired by you, Zach, and all of your peers, and it makes our job a real privilege to be spending our days with you and trying to support you as you all navigate your time here at Yale. Fr. Ryan, going back before college, because I've only ever known you as Fr. Ryan, Zach's only ever known you as Fr. Ryan. You weren't always Fr. Ryan, you weren't always Catholic either.
Grace Klise:Could you take us back to early childhood, growing up in the the great town of Manchester, Connecticut?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And it is a great town in Manchester, Connecticut. Very proud of being from Manchester, Connecticut, east of the river. Yeah, so I already dated myself a little bit, 20 years out of college, so born in 1981. And I am a convert.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:My when my parents were wed, my father was Jewish and mom was Catholic. Both were loosely practicing their faith at the time, but they came from families, from parents who were serious about their faith: my dad's Jewish parents and mom's Italian Catholic parents. When they were married, they were married by a rabbi. They thought it would be you know a little bit—i t was difficult enough for my dad's parents to welcome an Italian Catholic girl into the home— so I think that they thought that would be kind of an olive branch, a way to start off their marriage together. So they're married by a rabbi. My mom was actually trained by the rabbi, became Jewish, and then when their twin children, my sister Meg and me, were born, we were basically Jewish. But then they put us into Catholic grade school, and not for the faith formation, but they thought it was one of the better schools in town at the time. So from kindergarten on, you know, here are the two Jewish kids, Ryan and Meg Lerner. But we're learning from the Sisters of Mercy. And then we're taking religion class every day and there's the crucifix on the wall and going to church with our classmates and everything.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And growing up, you know, learning about and believing in Jesus Christ in the Church, and my parents really opened to that. Again, they were. This was more about what their families wanted for them and as long as their kids grew up with faith, you know, a spiritual life, that was important. So you know, we grew up with a Christmas tree and with a manger underneath it, but with a menorah in the window. So Christmas and Hanukkah, but we would go to church for like grandparents and stuff like that, and again going to church with our classmates. And then in the Italian Catholic side, I think the cultural Catholicism was much more influential on our lives. We did the Jewish things with my dad's family few times a year and that was important. That was neat in its own way. But when you're learning about Jesus every day and learning about the church every day and then kind of that's carrying over into the family experience, I think that was much more formative for my sister and me.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:So when we were about 12 years old, I wanted to be an altar boy. All my friends were altar boys and sooner or later, sooner, would be altar servers. It was right about the time when girls were, when the Church allowed girls and the Catholic Church allowed girls to become servers. We were right around that age, 12, you know, 7th grade, 6th, 7th grade. I wanted to be an altar boy. My dad was like, well, right, you know, you're Jewish. And my sister was the more outspoken of the two of us and I'm just like, well, dad we're not, not really Jewish, are we? And then that was, I would say it was right before we went to bed that night and there was like, okay, well, like we're gonna have to, you know, take classes and stuff, whatever that means you know. So, yeah, we became, we were baptized that year, around 12, 13 years old, and we started going to church together as a family.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And my father became Catholic. A year later he came into the RCIA. What was interesting is they always volunteered at our Catholic school. My parents were hugely involved. My father, the Jewish Earl Lerner, would you know, co-chair the school auction and stuff like that, you know, with, you know, the Catholic families and everything. So it was always, you know, a part of our lives, the whole Catholic experience.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:So, yeah, going to church as a family around that time too, right after our conversion, my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and then she, at that point, you know, obviously she needed to, you know she needed to be a mom and to care for her family and everything, but also very, you know, I think, scared although she didn't show it, she was extremely strong, but it was almost like she became a little Italian Catholic lady.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:She was going to Daily Mass and you know one of these prayer groups and Father Joe Donnelly, who is the priest emeritus who helps us out at Saint Thomas More, was in Manchester at the time and to this day she'll always be grateful to Father Donnelly because he was the pastor of the local church and it was his Daily Mass that she would go to.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:But, yeah, I started going to Daily Mass and learning all these prayers and then teaching them to my sister and me. So, the Rosary, the Divine Mercy, all the saints, today's the Feast of St Joachim and Anne, and I remember, you know, growing up learning a lot about St Anne, but also Sebastian and Anthony, the patron of lost things, who would be my patron saint for obvious reasons. And when we would run going into high school, I remember had a safety pin on the inside of my shorts that had like six or seven saint medals and Joachim and Anne were two of those and there was all kind of you know, we learned all these things from my mom and her and our family.
Grace Klise:Yeah, it's amazing to hear the ways in which the Holy Spirit works and how this really was an ongoing conversion for your entire family, not just for you and your sister, but for your parents too.
Zach Moynihan:And Father Ryan, I also come from a Catholic school background, going from K to eight, and I credit that formation with a lot of my, with the foundation that I have in the faith now that has carried me over the years and into my college years as well, and I feel like if I didn't have that foundation, those nine years at that Catholic grade school, I think my connection to the faith and its importance in my life would potentially be diminished, and so I credit that education not only for giving me a solid academic formation, but also a faith formation. Clearly those years are also very important for you and I'm wondering how they also propelled you going forward as you stepped into high school and in college, when you're less surrounded by that Catholic presence. I mean I'm thinking about whenever I would walk in a classroom K to eight, I would look up and see a crucifix and you see some of those little elements that you become accustomed to sort of drift away as you age out of that Catholic grade school environment.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Throughout my life, did I drift here and there? Was I challenged in my faith? Absolutely, but I definitely credit always coming back, never stopping believing in God or in the role of Jesus in my life because of that foundation. Again, I mentioned the Sisters of Mercy before who were teaching in school at the time, and a couple of Sisters of St Joseph there as well, but also here were four or five priests in and out of my church at that time who always had a presence in the school and that was also. This was in the early 90s and so that, so it was not a far-fetched idea for a young man at least to be thinking about priesthood as a possibility, and I was blessed with having great priests and nuns and faithful people, teachers and all that in my life.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Throughout those first nine years in the Catholic school and then going to after Catholic school, my sister and I were two out of seven people that went to the huge, who did not go to the local Catholic high school went to the huge public high school about 2,400 people in that school, so one of the larger public high schools in the state and in so many ways that was amazing. Just the experience of diversity, of every different type of manifestation of diversity in the public high school and all kinds of different faiths too. But also there was definitely that experience people that didn't believe in God. To me that was very shocking to me and people in my immediate circle of friends on my cross country team or classmates, but also kind of seeing that there was a bit of a struggle there, that it was not only shocking but also I would realize, gosh, that must be a tough way to live, or a tough way to be living as a freshman in high school and with all the stuff that we're facing to not have God in your life or have some faith to fall back on. I've certainly found my faith sustained me through high school and all the challenges that came with that, and also as an athlete. That was really important.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I mentioned the safety pin with all the saints in my running shorts and all the rituals that I would go into before going into races and things like that. Always pray before we're under pressure, right? So whether before exam or before going into a cross country or track meet or a track race. But also it was interesting and I wonder if this is the probably not the case now in the times that we are in, but here I was at a huge public high school but then our track team, 140 of us, before we would leave the locker room and go out to the track, whether we were a visiting team or home, I was the one that would be called upon to say a prayer before we began.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:This is in public school and a whole 140 young men certainly not all Catholic, not all Christians, not all believing in God, but certainly was not something people would shout from the roof top either. At that time it was very rare that you would meet someone who would straight up say I don't believe in God or I don't believe in anything, but to be called upon to offer a prayer for the team— I look back and I realize what a gift that was for me and probably my teammates in a sense, you know, when we realized before we were about to put ourselves on the line that we need power, something greater than we, than we are, and I always felt that to be a powerful thing. And, looking back what a gift that was to be able to offer that prayer.
Grace Klise:It'd be fun to be able to go back and hear some of those prayers. You have a bird's eye view of the locker room and everyone around us as you're leading that community. That was really important to you. In prayer, I'm sure, praying to St. Sebastian and St. Christopher.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Yeah, Lerner, do your thing. And everybody would just take a knee, it's like, okay, let's do this.
Grace Klise:That's pretty incredible. You've mentioned running a couple of times and how it was a spiritual experience too, as you started discerning throughout college, and then after college too, more seriously, the call that God had on your life. What role did running play throughout that?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Sure, I always think of the film Chariots of Fire and Eric Little saying that when I, you know, he was telling Eric Little was a missionary but he was also an Olympic athlete and you know, at least in those the film tells that his sister thought that his running in his Olympic pursuits were pulling him away from what God really wanted him to do and that was to be a missionary. And he said to her you know, God made me for the missions, made me for China. He was going to China. God made me for China, but he also made me fast, and when I run I feel his joy in me.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Running was a way in experiencing, like you know, obviously fully alive and also pushing yourself to your limits and that experience of doing what God made you to do in a very specific way, wanting to not only do my job and walk off the track, you know, or off the course, you know, happy, knowing that I did my job and I tried my best and I pleased my coach or my team or whatever, but also that, looking back, in the sense that I was, I glorified God, I did what God wanted me to do and if I did, well, you know, in that part of my life, or other parts of my life as well, then it was in some sense glorifying God being fully alive. So running was definitely a spiritual activity in a sense, and still it's one of the best ways for me to pray. When I'm out running, it's where I sort things out or mull over things with God and where God speaks to me definitely. So running continues to be, you know, a spiritual activity as well as a physical one for me.
Zach Moynihan:I find it to be no coincidence that we have so many runners at STM. I remember being at this one meeting and everybody was talking about all the 5Ks and half marathons that they were running. I was like, oh, is this part of the journey? Do I need to start training now? My dad was also a big runner. I sprinted in high school. I also found it to be very centering, very, very prayerful although maybe less prayerful for me because I was sprinting so I didn't have as much time to stop and reflect. But I imagine that, as you continue running today in your many roles, I wonder what the role is of running now, as you've been taking on so much more responsibility over the years. In New Haven we're undergoing a merger into one parish and obviously you've played a large role in that process. So I'm wondering, in addition to running, what are the other things that keep you grounded in a time with so much transition?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know, certainly in the ministry and this is always important, especially when you're carrying a lot of jobs and a lot of what I do is administration, a lot of it, and that's required, even the Apostle St Paul, who was deeply concerned about administration. He ran 13 communities all over the normal world at the time and those stresses are real. I have to remember I'm doing administration as a pastor of souls, souls that have been entrusted to my care, and that's always an important thing to remember, and it's easy to forget sometimes when you're consumed with you know, keeping all the trains running on time, a phrase a father uses. You know administration, and I was a nursing home administrator once for a period. That's what I did before I went to the seminary, so I've got some experience there. But the difference is you're taking care of God's Holy Church and holy people, so that's an important thing to keep in mind to stay grounded. I also think in the course of my work, no matter what's going on, whether it's paying bills or keeping buildings open or responding to this or that issue or concerned administrative stuff that the phone's always going to ring and somebody's going to need you. Whether it's so you're going into the hospitals, into the emergency room, you're accompanying families through loss and tragedy, or preparing young people for a lifetime together and holy Christian marriage.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:During confessions, you know when people are trying to fight the good fight. You know every day it's an opportunity to start over. You know a clean slate. You know celebrating the holy sacrifice of the Mass and you know being a minister, a Christ, body and blood. These are all whenever I'm at the altar. That's a very grounding experience in a very, very powerful, powerful way. The ministry is what grounds me and the, again, the inspiration of those who are living their faith and bearing witness to their faith and keeping the faith up against sometimes extremely grave challenges.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And then you know, as far as the things that ground me, I've got a great family and close friends, friends in priesthood and in the church and everything. But also you know people I've grown up with. You know who I'm still close with and they will keep you real, though they'll remind you exactly who you are and bring you back down to earth when you need that, but also pick you back up when you need that too. That support is always important. Good friends and family. I'll tell seminarians when I talk to seminarians it's going to sound awful, but it's like keep your pagan friends.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know, when you think, when we go into you know, in the seminary, you know, and it is, you're studying a whole new life and you're shutting the door on it, on a whole different life. You're closing the door and opening a new one, but that doesn't mean you cut everyone off. Now there are relationships that the power of faith does require to make some, you know, some serious hard choices sometimes, especially in the realm of relationship, but we shouldn't be quick to cut off those who keep us real and who challenge us. You know, we know us and the people who will answer the phone late at night when you need someone. That kind of thing.
Grace Klise:That's why this campus community is so special, in that you, Zach, and your peers are randomly placed with suite mates from all different backgrounds and faith traditions and perspectives and worldviews. But we also have this Catholic community at Saint Thomas More where, hopefully, one does become part of the community and forms friendships that have faith in common, which are really needed in order to sustain one's faith and to hopefully grow it during your time here at Yale. So, yeah, I think that's very wise advice that you pass along to the seminarians and good for all of us too, in that community is important and obviously a faith community is important too, but also those people who've seen us as we've been emerging into who we are and who God has created us to be, that those are important relationships to retain, too.
Zach Moynihan:It makes for a great conversation, and at STM we have the great opportunity to invite members of different faith traditions to the Golden Center as part of the Act Committee.
Zach Moynihan:One of my favorite things to do is our Fellowship in Action dinners, where we bring members of different faith communities over to the Golden Center. We share dinner, share stories in fellowship and complete small acts of service, and I think those little bits of service are things that sort of extend beyond faith tradition in really beautiful ways and bring us together. College years are definitely a time of a lot of questioning. I've had my fair bit of questioning and I've always relied on my peers and also the chaplains to get me through it. And Fr. Ryan, I'm wondering through your formation, I think we've talked about the great importance of Catholic grade school and not everybody has that, and even if you do have that, it's not a given that you stay with your faith and it's not a given that you also become a priest. So I'm wondering what were those moments, that sort of returning points for you that positioned you and put you on this trajectory into the priesthood, and what have been those transformative experiences for you over time?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:With that foundation and everything, obviously like as a convert looking back, and everything was those were important experiences in my life. Yeah. So college, loved college and I went to a small New England liberal arts college, Trinity College, one of the 11 NESCAC schools. You know, Trinity College, Wesleyan, Tufts, Amherst, those colleges. So loved college and running was a big part of that. So I ended up going to Trinity.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Just, I'd never have chosen to go to school 15 minutes from home in Trinity and Hartford, but it was for running and being on that team, which was certainly formative and helpful. What was interesting is, you know we talked about the mention that the amount of runners who are involved in our ministry at Saint Thomas More, most of my team on the cross-country teams, men and women from the men and both men and women's teams, were practicing Catholics. So you know, on Sunday night usually you know we'd all be there and you noticed when one of us was not there or we'd be eating together late or break from study. It's like to go church, that kind of thing. So that was really helpful. We had Mass at 10 pm. I think 9 pm is late for us now. We had 10 pm when I was in college. So that was always important and grounding. Now I did, you know there were times that I drifted or if there was something you know I felt at the time was more important, which nothing obviously is more important than taking a break and getting to Mass. But obviously we've also seen when we're really, really stressed out, sometimes church is the first thing to go when we need it the most, right? So, you know, drifted here and there but it was always, you know, pretty present, you know, at Mass and that was always grounding. You know I met all the exciting stuff that goes on in college, all the temptations that come with college and the challenges that are in the house. You know, having a pretty solid faith life was important.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I was also a world religion major and that was, I will always be grateful for that formation. I look at this formation, you know, realizing that it really is ingrained in every human person to be drawn out of themselves towards their, towards God. We call God the Creator, but it's really ingrained in the human person that they're made for God. You know God, we've been made be in relationship with our Creator and you see a little bit of that in all the world religions and you know, and I think it's Lumen Gentium, one of the Vatican documents says there are seeds of truth in all the world's religions and I was able to kind of examine that and through that major I was a double major history in world religion.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:It was my sophomore year. I was visiting a friend at Northeaster n, you know, in the summer and you know, big party, that kind of thing, and during the party, you know, we crammed, like you know, 50 people into this tiny apartment in Boston without air conditioning. So in July so I stepped out to get some air and stuff and I was in an alley and there was a one of these great big dumpsters. Somebody was moving out, you know, tossing all this stuff out and into this dumpster, and there was movement from behind the dumpster and somebody came around from behind the dumpster and it was, it was a homeless man and I was, you know, first little little frightened in the moment. It was just the two of us there in the alley and I'm thinking, you know, here, you know, here it comes, and you know, got all nervous, concerned for a moment and he came up and basically started chatting together and, you know, kind of learned about him a little bit. He was someone who, I believe he was in Vietnam and he came home from Vietnam and, you know, basically was rejected by his family, friends, community and came home with a ton of issues, you know, post-traumatic stress and depression and regret and drug addiction, all these things, and basically would spend his life on the streets. You know kind of shared his story a little bit.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:While I was talking with the guy, I just kept feeling, I just kept thinking about Jesus. I just, like you know, thinking, like you know. This is how it happened. You know, Jesus is, you know, in this person, or Jesus is present here, something like that. And at the end of our conversation he said to me, you know, we'll never forget this. He said he hugged me first of all. It was interesting, and then he said never be ashamed to cry. And I would always I was not crying in the moment, I was not, you know, and that just shook me and I, and then that then I felt like oh my gosh, you know, now I was hit, was struck a lot like with emotion and never be ashamed to cry. And then he just, you know, went his way and that was the end of the conversation.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I remember just looking back and I still believe you know this is Christ speaking through this person and I think of when we hear those parts in the Gospel where was moved moved with compassion, moved with compassion and the word, you know, every time it comes up, every time a phrase comes up, I'll preach on this and mention this, that the word that's used is esplagchizomai, I think it's, it relates to the spleen, the bowels. You know that Jesus, in the face of human suffering or sin, or struggle, sorrow, he would be moved, he would feel it so, so deeply and then obviously would move him to do something, to heal, to feed to. You know, want to be the shepherd for these lost sheep, all these things. So I look back on that and it's like I know what that feels, like, you know, when he says, do not ever be ashamed to cry, you know, to be moved with compassion, to feel compassion.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:It was one of those moments where I definitely thought about being a priest, without knowing what it would be. It was, I remember driving home that day with my friend after the party northeast and all that stuff, and you know, pretty much, pretty self-centered young guy, college guy, all that stuff, and then for at least a couple days, for a weekend, I thought, man, I want to be a priest again. Not knowing what a priest did outside of Mass and stuff, but it was one of those moments and those things would come in and out. You know, definitely, encounters with the poor. There was one and you know I remember, blessed with the opportunity to travel abroad somewhere before my senior year of college, in Florence, Italy, and all over Italy.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I was Pointe Vecchio, you know, at the place where all the jewelry shops are and stuff, and I was getting my mom a, you know, a medallion of our Blessed Mother. It's good, the image is one of my favorite images of Blessed Mother Madonna of the Streets. It's a very young image of our Blessed Mother. The artist made the image after his younger sister who was like 15 or 16 years old, holding their baby brother. So I bought this beautiful medallion with that painting on it and walking down the Pointe Vecchio, it's super crowded, you know, in the middle of the day and I can hear someone crying out aiuto, which means help, help. And as I'm getting through the crowd I noticed there's this guy wheeling, pulling himself up on, you know, and again, put together, it was a curved like stone bridge and it was a guy who was, basically, it was just, he only had a torso and arms, he had no legs, and he was pulling himself on a skateboard up this bridge, you know, with a can and crying out aiuto. You know, right in that very moment, you know, here's Madonna of the Streets and here is this person on the streets calling for help. Again, one of those moments where Christ comes to us through, through the poor, through the discarded, those on the margins. I guess, finally, these are out of right, gone from like the very dramatic now to just like basically.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know my studies, so world religion and history major, and so for my double major, I wrote my thesis on early Christian martyrdom and I had a Sister of St Joseph in the religion department whose class on Christian Mysticism I took myself. It was all about the martyrs Felicity and Perpetua. Ignatius, Felicity and Perpetua are named in the Roman canon and she's taught her a bunch of college students, right. So she's like the thing with the martyrs, it helps us to realize that what we do in the body is important. It's inseparable from our souls. We cannot say that we believe in God or I believe I carry God in my heart or Christ is in me, and then do something that is inconsistent with that with our bodies.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know, and that's whether it's what we say, what we do, how we handle temptation, I found that really moving, you know, again, it's tough when you're in college and also very, very, very challenging.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know this image of the martyr and the way that she would emphasize it, as, as the martyrs knew that their faith was not just something that was that they carried in their hearts and their souls, but they had to bear witness to it with their bodies, and that always stayed with me.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And so that was sophomore year and all the way in senior year, at the end of college, choosing to make my focus on Christian martyrdom, and that's at the end of a whole, you know, pretty rich, but also, you know, all over the place, kind of college experience, looking back and thinking how was I consistent, you know, with believing in Jesus Christ in my heart? Was I consistent in how I lived it out, with how I lived and moved through this world? You know, physically, the whole, spiritual and the physical. So even just going through that process, with all the stress that comes with trying to write a 150-page paper at the end of college, that brought it all back home to me in the end, kind of reflecting now back on four years of college. How did I do? How do I? How do I want to live going forward?
Grace Klise:Thank you for sharing those all. And and clearly as you've said yes to this vocation, you are bearing witness to Christ in many ways and it's a great examination of conscience of how am I bearing witness to Christ? Have I been bearing witness to Christ? Is there a consistency between what I say and what I feel and what I do and how I see and interact with those that I'm passing every day here in New Haven, whether in the Catholic Center on Park Street, elsewhere in our city? What would you say to students, so many college students, grad students who are trying to discover how God is calling them to bear witness in their life, and sometimes we think of it in pretty narrow ways. So to get married, as a priest, to enter religious life, but the whole myriad of ways in which God is calling us to bear witness to Christ and to really see Christ in the people that we encounter. What advice would you offer them?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:A couple of things: first, at the end of the day you know making that exam en, and you know where was God today. You know, how have I, how do I recognize God? Did I recognize God's presence and miss an opportunity? Have I embraced those opportunities, giving thanks to God for those, those times when we recognized him and responded as God would want us to respond, but also, you know, asking for mercy and forgiveness for those times in which perhaps we missed an opportunity to bear witness to our faith or to serve our neighbor or to honor God, you know, present in a situation. Also calling to mind our blessings, the fact that you know each of us according to our state in life. You know God has, has, you know, in a sense, placed us in a certain time and place and give us, giving us a certain skill sets or talents and gifts that that God wants us to use to glorify him and bring others at least one step closer to him through Jesus Christ. And that's all of us, no matter what our state in life, no matter what we're studying, what our, what our experiences with, what baggage we're carrying. You know God has, has called us to bear witness to him, to glorify him and and to bring others closer to him, and each of us will do that in our own very, very unique way, with with our words and how we're living and how we're accompanying those around us and and carrying out the good work that God has entrusted us to do.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:You know, again, according to our state in life, this phrase that I often use you know, we are the ones who bear the name and loving presence of Jesus Christ in the world. That is what a Christian is, and I don't remember whether I heard something like that or whether it was just something. I just started saying a lot. And now, yeah, it's mine.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Yeah, I use it twice in this interview, right, so, in this conversation, yeah, and I'm also reminded something that you said Grace, in a reflection you gave at St Thomas More, that everything we do or don't do teaches, or everything we say or don't say teaches something about Jesus Christ. That's a powerful thing. It's very sobering, but that you know, if we are the ones who bear the name and loving presence of Jesus Christ in the world, what are we saying to others about who Jesus is? It's a, it's a profound gift and blessing. It's also a very, very gravely serious responsibility I think of, like when Jesus asked the disciples but who do you say that I am, right, you know? Who do you say that I am, with, with how you are living and moving through this world?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Who you say that I am? Who do you say that Jesus Christ is?
Zach Moynihan:That phrase is actually one of the things I remember from my first year of college and and it's it's sort of our reflection that I've been having the who do you say that I am? That's something that I think about, about my identity as a Catholic Christian and how I bear that name and loving presence, to quote your trademark reason. That's actually the perfect segue, because this is a question that our, our listeners are dying to know about, it is your suite of trademarked phrases.
Zach Moynihan:These are, these are things that we hear and and we know it's the flagship Father Ryan experience, and I just want to name a couple of them and I want to see if you have any reflections on where, where they may have come from or what they, or the power that they have for you. So you already said one of them it's bearing the name and loving presence of Jesus Christ as Christians. Another one is God doesn't call the qualified, he qualifies the called, and a fan favorite is, in this local manifestation of Jesus Christ, at Yale University. I'm wondering if you had any thoughts on these phrases.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Okay, well, I'm gonna make a confession on the second one. God doesn't call the qualified. I'm almost certain that I picked that up from someone, and I want to say it might be Father Pat. He was great for the, for the one-liners too, and I think it might have been him, but I could be totally wrong. Um, I love that that's attributed to me, though, but, but I will say that that's really, um, I think that's, I mean, it's important.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I remind myself of something like that that, you know, none of this we can do on our own, whether it's, you know, being consistent with what we carry in our hearts, with how we live and move through this life. You know again what, how we, how we live in the body and move through this world, how we fight against temptation and we strive to be holy, how we carry this weighty responsibility of being being a Christian in the world, or to try to see this through one day to another. You know, you can't, it's very, it's very, I tend to think I don't, I don't have what it takes, or this is too, too heavy for me or too scary for me. You know, but in that sense that God has called us, God's gonna give us what we need to get through it. That's grace, no, and that's not something we can do alone.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:I n seminary, I had this awesome Professor, Monsignor Paul McPartland, who is from England, and he taught us ordained ministries and all this tied to the Eucharist, the priesthood of the ordained and the priesthood of the body of Christ. The two cannot exist without each other and in a lot of this based in, in the Eucharist, you know which builds up, which builds up Christ's body, and ride the church. And he presented two models of the church. This is, yes, he's gonna sound much more like, basically like a class and not this is where I'm, what was, where I got it from, I think the two models of the church that we might kind of keep in mind. So you have like a triangle, like a tiered triangle, the hierarchical Model of the Church, and you can look at the church triumphant, the church militants.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Church penitents and the church penitents. Very good Grace, thank you, so that the three realms of Christianity, of the end of Church, but also in the world, you have. You have, you know, the Pope, the, the, the bishops, clergy, lay leaders, laity, in this whole you know the hierarchical image of the Church with you know which is necessary, we are a hierarchical Church. But he also presented the Image of the Church is more of like a horizontal image and it's based on all of the Eucharistic Communities throughout the whole world that have their center in Rome. So you, maybe you look at like at least they have like the flying saucer diagram Diagram, you have at the center the circle which is the Pope in Rome, well, the one who sits in the Chair of Peter and by exercising his priesthood through his celebration of the holy sacrifice, of the Mass, that's what unites all of us throughout the whole world through our celebration of the holy Eucharist, even that image that we have, that thing that we do in Mass, we break off a little piece of the host and we drop it into the chalice. That reminds us of back in the early Church, when the Church was much smaller, when the bishop would be the head priest of the Eucharistic community and as we got bigger, there would be, you know, Eucharist being celebrated in different places throughout that you might think of a big city like Rome, or in the other villages, and in a piece of the host that was celebrated, from the bishop's Mass or the central priest's Mass, would be brought around all the other communities to remind themselves that we're united through through the one bread and that's what makes us one body in Christ. And so, to this day, when we do that, it reminds us that we're, we're all tied together through Peter and Rome, but it brings us all together as one body of Christ. But each of us, whether as individuals, those bear the name of the Christ in the world or in our various Eucharistic communities, we're local Manifestations of the one body of Christ.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:So none of us are just an isolated bubble, the Church sometimes we tend to think of ourselves like that. You know, and you know it could be Thomas More, it could be this parish or that parish. We have a very parochial image that it's all within these four walls. What happens here? This is our special little place and you know, we're the enlightened ones or whatever, or we're unique in this special way and everyone else is out there and it's like no, here we are, we are one Church, we are one body of Christ. We just happen to be this local manifestation of it. It ties us to the larger body, but it's also like the world needs Christ in it. So, here at Yale University, Yale needs Christ, and so on Park Street or on Hillh ouse, where I'm also shepherding a parish, this is the local manifestation of the body of Christ, you know, walking and moving among God's people, and so we find what we need when we come together for Mass or, or for fellowship, you know that happens on 268 Park Street. We come here to be fed with Christ, to be built up as the body of Christ and then sent out right.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Go in peace. It's not, that's not just a nice, you know a fancy way to say goodbye. Have a good day. It's like now, go out there and and transform the world. Go, go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life. Go in peace, go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Here is now Christ, moving among God's people, the hundred of you, or the 200 of you, or every little gathering of the six of you, you know, depending. You know, um, this little gathering of Christ, this local manifestation, the body of Christ, is now going out there as Christ's, you know, you think of the prayer of Teresa of Avila, right? You know, Christ has no eyes but yours, no, no, no mouth but yours, no feet to walk around the world doing good, or hands to express, can you know, to serve or give compassion. I'm totally, you know, paraphrasing her beautiful little prayers. Sorry about that, but it's, it's true. You know, we are, we are, um, those who bear the name and loving presence of Christ in the world, but as this local manifestation of the body of Christ here in New Haven, at Yale, but we're all centered part of the big part of the one body.
Zach Moynihan:Well, that was a fantastic response. I think when I hear those phrases going forward, I think I'll, I'll have a lot more to reflect on. So thank you so much. I appreciate that.
Grace Klise:Yeah, they always elicit a little bit of a smile, but to hear the theological background is, is it's really edifying? And yeah, I think that we'll all think of that, think of the, the images that you presented to of the Church. So, thank you and thanks, Fr. Ryan, for joining us today, your first time on the pod, on a pod, but especially on our pod, Finding God on on Park Street. So a question that we ask all of our guests at the end oh, where have you been finding God recently?
Fr. Ryan Lerner:Sure, we've covered a couple of things already, right, and the salvation of the sacraments and the running, you know, the heat and humidity and everything else right, and in prayer I've been blessed with time with family and friends also in the last month. Just, you know we also, you know hard lessons learned, stuff like that. These are all places where we find God. But I'll give you a funny, well, kind of a funny, but also probably, hopefully don't want to make it too squeamish for those who are here or those who are listening, but also when we receive care from others, you know, as I'm in a care profession, so I'm in my ministry, I bring the care of the Church to all kinds of people and that's a great gift in a hospital or whatever else. But it's a unique, a little experience. On Sunday I had just returned, no on Saturday, I had a funeral in the morning and then made a couple visits and went to Yale New Haven Hospital to visit a couple of members of the various communities in New Haven. That's also a profound place to encounter Christ, those who are, you know, sick or on the mend, or preparing for the end or whatever, and still carrying the faith. That's a powerful thing. But I had just returned from visiting the sick at the hospital and you know there were a couple of workers at St Thomas More power washing the building and stuff, and you know they're out there baking in the the heat and working really hard and like, let me get you something cold or whatever. So I went in to the kitchen at St Thomas More and you know that we usually have tons of Polar, Polar seltzers. Exactly tons of cans of Polar seltzer. But it's in the off season so unless we're having something special, it's not like our fridge is just packed with Polar seltzer. But what we did have were two glass bottles of seltzer, and so there I was looking for a bottle opener for about 12 seconds and because it wasn't immediately before my eyes, I decided I would open the bottle on the edge of a table on a drawer and after a bit of a fight the first one did open, but then the second one, the bottle won and it kind of exploded in my left hand here.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:So yep, had quite a little cut and realized quickly this was not something the band-aid was gonna take care of, so went straight back down to the hospital thankfully from Park Street it's just a couple of lights and just drove myself straight to the emergency room and went in and got stitches. But it was a blast, I have to say. The first nurse who took care of me Jamal I guess the cut was so and you may all totally cut this off, but I guess the cut was so deep and clean that this was really this was kind of great o she calls two other nurses in to take a look at it. So they're all poking and prodding at it, and she's like see the fatty tissue in the epidermis and they're like, wow, that's great, just having a blast with this whole thing.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:And then the nurse, Giselle, not a nurse, a resident this was also the first couple weeks of residency, so gaining some experience on the ER by sewing up my hand for me.
Fr. Ryan Lerner:But they were all just so, so wonderful and seemingly loving their work and working in the ER. This is probably one of the lighter things they had to deal with in the ER, thanks be to God. But just how kind and welcoming and caring they were and we'll also just kind of enjoying the whole experience. So yeah, I was reflecting on that and even that day and just thinking I would look at that as an experience of God's care and presence in a place where it's needed the most. My thing was kind of silly, but I benefited from the care and skilled hands of those whom God has trusted his healing gifts to, but also that these are the kinds of people who are taking care of the very vulnerable and those who are scared or sick or hurting or whatever. I thought that was kind of a profound experience of God's presence in the ER of the New Haven Hospital.
Grace Klise:Yeah, continuing to see Christ in the people that we encounter. Thank you for sharing. Thank you, Zach, for joining us co-host, and thanks to everyone for listening. We'll see you next time on Finding God on Park Street. [Music playing in the background]. If you enjoyed listening today, please share this episode and leave us a rating and review. The producer of this podcast is Robin McShane, Director of Communications at STM. Sound mixing and editing are by Ryan McAvoy of Yale Broadcast Studio and graphics are by Mary Lou Cadwell of Cadwell Art Direction. We hope this podcast encourages you to seek God's presence in your everyday life. Thanks for listening and be assured of our prayers. [Music playing in the background].
