July 9, 2023

Join Msgr Kieran Harrington and Katie Ruvalcaba in this captivating podcast episode as they delve into the inspiring life of Blessed Pauline Jaricot, a trailblazing figure in the history of Catholic missions. Discover the remarkable journey of this visionary woman and her tireless efforts to spread the Gospel throughout India and beyond. Gain valuable insights into the mission of the Church in India and explore the significance of embracing the 'easy burden' of mission work. Don't miss this engaging conversation that explores the intersection of faith, devotion, and the transformative power of mission.

Frontiers of Faith is a podcast of the Pontifical Mission Societies, produced by Katie Ruvalcaba. Theme music by Ethan Steve.  Make sure to follow us on twitter at @Faith_Frontiers and at @FrontiersofFaith on Facebook and Instagram.  To support the work of the Pontifical Missions Societies please go to onefamilyinmission.org to donate.  

Transcript

Katie:
Welcome to Frontiers of Faith, a podcast of the Pontifical Mission Societies. I'm Katie Rubelcaba.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and my name is Monsignor Kieran Harrington.

Katie:
We are very excited to start this journey with you this week as we explore the Sunday Gospel readings and invite you to view them through the lens of mission. Monsignor, I haven't gotten to see you since, what, since we got back from India. How have you been? What have you been up to?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
I'm doing fantastic. I have been traveling around the country talking to bishops and priests and others about, you know, our experience in the mission and trying to encourage others to participate in the work of the Pontifical Mission Societies.

Katie:
That's fantastic. You know, one thing I always like to think about when I consider the missions, when I consider the way that the world is going right now is where I see God moving in those things. Can you tell me some place you see God moving in the missions right now?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
You know, my experience of the missions was that the people there are very, very open. You know, they are not, they're really not concerned about very trivial matters. I mean, the matters that they are concerned about are the matters, the deepest matters of life and death, the deepest matters of being able to worship God freely and… to be able to offer them their love and their sacrifice. There's not a lot of internal, listen, people are people anywhere you go, but the priority is not on the internal squabbles, but rather really on the projecting of the faith of Jesus Christ and what he has done for them.

Katie:
Yeah, I saw that so much as well when we were out in India. Montenegro and I got to go to the missions together throughout that entire country. And what I thought mostly is exactly what you just said. There are no first word world problems out here. Nobody's complaining about, you know, whether or not Father's homilies are too long or any of that kind of thing. This is, you know, base level, we want to worship Jesus. And I think that's really what our founder, Pauline Jericho was thinking of when she started that. Do you want to tell us, you know, tell everybody just a little bit about Pauline?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Yes, Pauline was founded on, was born on this 22nd of July in 1799. So it's at the very end of the French Revolution.

Katie:
Ooh,

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
The

Katie:
rough

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
church

Katie:
timing.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
has been, you ain't kidding, especially because she was from an aristocratic family and a wealthy family. So she comes into the world at this time where the church is sort of reemerging in France, but it's a divided church because there is... state priests and then free priests, priests who were loyal to Rome. And it's in this circumstance that she begins to know about Christ, and she lives her faith, her Catholic faith, in a way that many of us do. She's devout, but yet the encounter with Christ has not really transformed her. And that encounter with Christ that will transform her will come later in her life, when she's a teenager, and she happens to have a freak fall. And

Katie:
Mmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
as a result of this fall, it causes all sorts of havoc with her body. Her mother, who's caring for her and terrified about her daughter's health, ends up dying in the process.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And it's this reality that really changes Pauline Jericho. And her mother, her father, her brother, at the time, as I mentioned, was kind of thinking about being a priest, really wanting to be a missionary priest. Pauline wanted to kind of join him. in missionary work and his response to her was, no, you really have to get people here to pray and support the missions. And that's exactly what she does. She takes her father's factory, she gets the women together in the factory, they're praying the rosary for the people in the missions. And not only are they praying the rosary, they're picking a penny once a week and they're putting a penny for the missions. And this group, these circles of 10, 10 people who are praying the rosary and putting a penny a week, for the missions. Each person in the circle of 10 starts another circle of 10. So, Pauline is really the first multi-level marketer. She

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
gets all these people to go out and pray the rosary and collect the penny for the missions. And that ends up to be an enormous sun for the church in Asia and the United States. And it helped actually build many of the diocese and churches in the United States and in Asia.

Katie:
Yeah, I think that we don't often put these things in context, but at the same time that she's collecting these pennies, this is when my church in Indiana was being founded here. And not only that, this is the time of many of the Asian martyrs. So you know that those prayers were absolutely fortifying their faith and helping them to move forward in ways that she couldn't even know. And Pauline was in her early 20s when she died, right?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
She was, well, she died in her sixth, she started the

Katie:
Oh, 60s.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
pontifical missions when she was, when she was, when she was only a little young girl, 18 years old.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
But so 1822, she starts the, so she's 23 years old when she starts the pontifical missions and she dies much later. The problem for her was she doesn't just start the pontifical missions. Of course, she starts the... Rosary Society, she has a number of different missionary rosary society. The other thing that Living Rosary Society, what she also starts is this movement, and I think that this is really important, particularly in the life of the church today, where the focus is on the laity. You know, and at the time when Pauline was born, there was a prevailing thought that the way to be a saint was to be a priest or a nun.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And what she's showing is that sanctity is for the laity.

Katie:
Exactly.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and mission is for the laity. So it's not just sanctity, it's mission. The work of the church is not just the purview of priests or nuns or brothers, it's the work of all of us and she really dedicates herself to that work throughout her whole life. And here's the tragedy, Katie, and if you think about it, think about how many of us would respond. She is basically forgotten as the foundress of the propagation of the faith.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
She is someone who becomes a relatively obscure figure after her death. She's sort of disgraced, she's swindled, people steal her money,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and she dies in a position of relative poverty after all of this has happened. And when you think about that, I think that that's the fear of so many people, but you think 200 years later she's raised as beatified. in France, her hometown. So this woman who grew up and learned about Christ in her hometown, this woman who had this real moment of revelation about how she was called to serve the Lord. This woman who's experienced ejection being rejected and being taken advantage of ultimately is beatified in her home city of Lyon, France. And I had the opportunity to be there for her beatification, which was really quite a privilege because I had only just come to know her. Wesh

Katie:
Wow.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
you.

Katie:
Yeah. And for some, you know how saints kind of like follow you around, tend to stalk you a little bit. I've noticed with you that she seems to be just a really a big hero to you, somebody that you really admire. And I think that's great. One of the things that I read about her that I loved, and you kind of touched on this a little bit, she had this dream once when she was that revelation that came to her. She had these dreams of these two lamps, oil lamps. And one of them was drying out and barely had any fire to it. And the other one was overflowing and needed to be lit. Like it had so much oil, but it needed that spark. And she came to realize that was the missions, right? Like the faith of the people of France was drying up and she needed to use their fire to light the fire and the missions that was overflowing, that there was just this beautiful space for Christ to come in. And when you're talking about the laity being, you know, the real mission field or the people that need to, you know, step into that mission. I think that's such a great thought and it's such a great calling for all of us. I'm so glad that we're doing this podcast so that we can have people look at the gospel that they're hearing every week, just like Pauline was when it was a day-to-day, you know, there wasn't… she hadn't had that big conversion yet, but she was there every day. And I want our listeners to hear the gospel and think to themselves, how am I going to light that lamp? Like that lamp is overflowing. Where do I get there? You know?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And remember, she was really young. I

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
mean, the important thing to realize is a lot of folks don't remember that children are very close to the Lord and they can have a religious conversion and they can become saints. And the moment of her becoming a saint was that moment where she was in this terrible suffering,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
that this suffering, and it's not just the physical suffering. Of course, there is the emotional suffering of then losing your mother the physical disability and disfigurement that comes with the suffering, it really

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
is really quite remarkable. And it's as a young woman, I mean, think about it, she's only 23 years old in 1822 when she starts the propagation of the faith. It's 1826 when she starts, so she's 27 years old when she starts the Living Rosary Association.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
This is a woman who after she comes to encounter Christ, in a personal way. And I think that that's what's significant. If there's a personal encounter with Christ in her life that's changed, look at the enormous amount of good work that she does for the church.

Katie:
Yeah, and crossing all of those, at the time, very important class barriers. She did not go to her fancy rich lady's society to do this. She went with the factory workers, the people who were living the faith, the people who were encountering Christ every day. We know that God has a preferential option for the poor, and I think it is so forward thinking of her to look to those people for the prayers and to build her society among the average folks. This isn't for people who are... fancy and have tons of money. This is for people who have prayers and goodwill and want to spread the gospel.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And let me tell you, that is actually still very much part of the work of the Pontifical Mission societies today. Up until now, really, there has been very little major donor fundraising. It is almost all, we've relied exclusively on the offerings of just ordinary folks, day in and day out. I'll tell you, Kitty, I went to visit a guy in Dodge City. And... He sent a big check to us and I called him up and I said, you're like one of our major donors. And the check was a significant amount. It was like $25,000. And he said, really? And I said, yeah, you're like one of our top 100 donors. And he couldn't believe it. And I said, well, this is the experience of the Pontifical Missions was really started by Pauline to really deepen the faith. not just to support the missions,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
but to recognize that by supporting the missions, the people's faith in France itself would be deepened.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And so, you know, today we have to, I think we have to make sure that we always preserve the legacy of Pauline, that the pontifical missions doesn't become, which the pontifical missions of course, Katie, we should say there are four pontifical missions, you know, Pauline started the propagation of the faith. But in France also. Bishop Forben Jansen starts the Holy Childhood,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Stephanie Brigard starts the Society of St. Peter the Apostle, all of which are to support the missionary works of the Church. So in France, you have a bishop who starts the Holy Childhood Society, which is to build Catholic schools in the mission territories. Stephanie and her daughter start a society to fund the building of seminaries. So it really is kind of a remarkable work.

Katie:
Yeah, we'll definitely give all of them their own episodes to discuss where they came from, just so that we can make sure we give equal time to all of our amazing founders. But yeah, that's what I was thinking while you were talking about that. 

Katie:
very good stuff. So Father, do you prefer, I call you Father or Monsignor?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Father is great. It took a long time to be named the priest and

Katie:
Okay.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
have the ear called

Katie:
I keep going

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Father.

Katie:
back and forth and I'm like, I got to just pick a lane and stay in it. All right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Uh huh.

Katie:
So Father, are you ready to go ahead and read this week's gospel? Or would you go ahead and read this week's gospel?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Why

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
don't you read it for

Katie:
Okay.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
us?

Katie:
So this Sunday, which is going to be July 9th, I know you're all going to be in mass. It's the 14th Sunday in ordinary time, which for my money is the best Sunday in ordinary time. And our gospel this week comes from Matthew chapter 11 verses 25 through 30. And it says, at that time Jesus exclaimed, I give praise to you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth. For although you have hidden these things from the wise and the learned, you have revealed them to the little ones. Yes, Father, such has been your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son, and anyone to whom the Son wishes to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are labor, sorry. Come to me all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart, and you will find rest for yourselves, for my yoke is easy and my burden light. That's one of those verses that I think people are used to hearing, that they hear it every couple of years there. But it's one of the more profound ones for me. Tell me what that brings out for you with the idea of missions.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Well, you know, first off, as a, I'm a parish priest. And so as a parish priest, I think about that passage often when you're going to visit the sick and particularly people who are very, very ill and who are really suffering and are scared,

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
you know, because sometimes when you're very sick, you're alone and you're afraid of dying and you're afraid of dying alone. So I think about that passage often when I think about folks who are really suffering and whether that suffering is physical or mental. I think that also is definitely a passage that speaks to the experience of the missions because in the mission territories it's important to realize that Christians are a minority. So where we were in India, Christians are a significant minority and with being a minority comes discrimination.

Katie:
Mm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
and sometimes even persecution.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And so, and those folks hold on to Christ.

Katie:
they do. I'm thinking of, do you remember that those people that we met and they were tribal people and they were having trouble working, finding food and things like that was difficult. But the thing that they wanted more than anything was a church and a rectory so that they could have their priest nearby.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Yeah, that was actually remarkable. If you remember, I said to them, what can the church do for you? Can

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
we build a hospital here? And they're like, yeah, we don't need a hospital. Or do you need a program for school? No, we don't want a school. What do you need? We need a church to come to pray because we know if we are here to pray that God will bless us. And, you know, that passage is important because this Sunday, we're talking about the Sunday readings. The first reading is from the book of the prophet Zechariah.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And it's the experience of the people who have gone out to, they've been, they brought into slavery in Babylon, right? The temple has been destroyed. And what the Zechariah is looking forward to is that day when they come back to Jerusalem, where Jerusalem becomes the holy city. What I think is significant about that is it's the sixth century when the Persians capture, when the Babylonians capture Jerusalem, destroy it. So it's the sixth century. If you think about the history for the Jewish people from the sixth century after that period, they also experienced they never were able to get back. It was a Persian rebels that then all the

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
then there's the Greeks and the Romans are still the occupying force. So this prophecy is even yet to be recognized. And I think it's recognized in the person of Jesus Christ with Zachariah, that Jerusalem that is being spoken about, of course, is that Zion is the Kingdom of Heaven which Christ ushers in. And so that passage from Zechariah actually is the passage which kind of prefigures the Palm Sunday readings, Jesus coming in to Jerusalem on a donkey.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
So there's a lot of connection with this eschatological, this question of that we're looking for the Kingdom of Heaven, which is not here. but is in heaven. It's a here and it's a now.

Katie:
Yes, absolutely. And I'm thankful that you took some time to address that first reading because I know I'm not the only mom who's going to be listening to that podcast and none of us are going to get to hear that reading this Sunday because all of our children are going to be losing their minds because there's donkey in there twice. So none of us

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
hahahaha

Katie:
is going to hear that reading at all. Too bad for the children. Well, it's exciting for them. But yeah, I like what you're saying about this being a prefigurement of Christ coming in and the Like the joy, he's talking about your, his yoke is easy and his burden is light and the joy of the Palm Sunday readings, which is sort of over-clouded with the fear and the knowing what's coming on Good Friday. That sort of speaks to me with the missions and the gospel reading here is that there's that overarching fear, you're a minority, there's something perhaps terrible that could be happening to you. Some of our people in India that we spoke to were fearful. and in constant concern about what might happen to them. And so when you're thinking of it in light of that Palm Sunday reading, like there is still joy there. There are still people who are delighting in Jesus. And that, although it seems so difficult, that burden is light with Christ.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
It's a, you know, the thing about Palm Sunday, of course, is, right, it's the reading, the gospel reading is the passion. But

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
so it's, it's pretty, so it's, it's the death of Christ.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
But, but the, but the trajectory of Palm Sunday is Christ who is a king. So, so it is this mixture of what Christ has come, he's, he's fulfilling what he has come into the world to do, to suffer and die for you. and for me. And so it is this mixture of great joy with the sorrow of what the master has suffered for us.

Katie:
Yes, absolutely. Gosh,

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And if you

Katie:
any...

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
think about it, I want you to think about, you know, think about for most people, the notion of the yoke, of course, you're every priest is going to talk about the yoke, the is the is the, you know, I'm a New York City kid, so, you know,


Fr. Kieran Harrington:
we don't see too many yokes. But the yoke is, of course, the wooden instrument that would be on the shoulders of the of the beast that would be the beast of burden.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And of course, they're usually pulling a plow, and it's very difficult. But what Jesus is trying to say is, is that when you are in the experiences of your life, sometimes it can seem really overwhelming and difficult. And I'm sure Katie, you're a young mom. You sometimes feel that you're faced with financial pressures. You're faced with the challenges of your kids. Are they happy? Are they sad? You're dealing with your husband and he's working and is he happy? Is he unhappy? I mean, you're

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
thinking about yourself. Like, you know, there's all sorts of things going on in life. That's the... That's the plow that's behind you that can kind of drag you down.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
But what Jesus is trying to say is that actually those, it's all of those experiences which are configuring you to Christ and really making you with a saint. And it's really those, while we experience them as really quite terrible and difficult, what we need to understand is we're not shouldering that burden alone. That the

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Lord is walking with us in that moment. And that's what I think we're hearing in the gospel today.

Katie:
Yeah, absolutely. When I'm thinking of that, those everyday burdens that I face and that you face, obviously, ours are going to be different because of our different vocations in life. But those same burdens that I have, I think would be a delight to some of the people that we got to meet that were out there in India. And so when I think of, like you had mentioned earlier about how there's no infighting, or it's not really about those. scratchy little issues. And when I'm thinking about the missions, when I was out there, to me, the missions were the purest form of the faith, being able to see the actual people that Christ died for and the children that he loves so much, even if they don't really have a name for the faith that they have at this time, or they're not incredibly well catechized, they're not having fights on Twitter about how about... you know, liturgy or anything like that. But those are the people that Christ came for. And so when I'm thinking of him saying that this is a light burden, it's not that it's easy work to be in the mission fields. It's not that it's, or that those people are going through very little. It's that the joy and the obvious living out of the gospel that's happening there just makes it seem so worth it, so worthwhile. It's... It's like you ask any mother how hard it was to give birth to a child, she'll tell you it was very, very difficult, but it was worth every minute of it. And it seems like the very same thing when Christ is telling us to go out and be laborers in his field for these mission fields. That is a light burden because we know what we're reaping.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Well, you know, again, in the second reading, which

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
was Romans,

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
there is this notion of the flesh. You are not in the flesh. On the contrary, you are in the spirit. And, you know, for a lot of folks, we can kind of think to ourselves that what that tries to mean is that we're really called to be angels. You know, like, and often you'll hear people say when someone dies, oh, he's an angel now. Well, that's not the case, right? We are always in the flesh. What does it mean to be in the flesh that St. Paul is speaking about is a little different than what it is to be a human being. The word here is really sarks, which is to be really taken with the, really to be kind of filled with vices. and

Katie:
Oh yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
to be living a life which is almost animalistic, like based on my appetites.

Katie:
Mm-hmm.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
It's not to be physical, but it's to live sort of on the base appetites is what St. Paul is warning about. And of course he has reason to do because we can sort of idolize the people in the missions and even the early Christian community. But in the early Christian community, I mean, if you think about some of the problems in the early Christian community, they were really profound.

Katie:
Yes.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
And the truth is that there are the same profound problems in the missions in places of India, Africa, and elsewhere. What I think is the difference is that the poverty of the circumstances does not allow the evil to be obscured.

Katie:
Yeah.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
So we can kind of... cover up the alienation and the sin in our own lives by because of the money that we have, the resources that we have, we can sort of avoid the consequences of sin or the lived consequence. That's not the case for the people in the mission territory, right? Their

Katie:
Right.

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
poverty makes them vulnerable and requires them to call out to God. that allows for a conversion where for you and for me, it is easy that we can, even though I could be a priest or you could be a Catholic mother, it could really be easy for us to live a life that is not ultimately dependent upon God. It really becomes ultimately dependent on ourselves. I think that that's the difficulty in the missions. In the missions, people recognize immediately that they are ultimately dependent upon the providence of God and that does something. to bring about the opportunity for conversion, where for you or for me, the opportunity is sometimes obscured by all the things that are around us that can distract us.

Katie:
Well, and all the comforts, right? And this is just like what you were talking about with Pauline Jericho. She goes through her whole life and starts out in this comfy aristocratic family. And then these gradual turmoils that come on her, she's being swindled by people, she's losing her things. You know, we're challenged by God to view all of those things as a blessing. And when I'm going through my silly little things that I find so difficult, which is, you know, why is there so much laundry in this stinking house? But... I have the opportunity to view this as a blessing. This is a time for me to look to God and say, this is too much laundry, Lord. I need you to come alongside me while I do this. And as silly as that might sound, that is the burden that's there. And if I don't hand those things over to God, if I'm not looking at my life as my own mission field to work in, I'm apt to not see God in those little things. And that's why it's so much easier for us as... as wealthier people to be able to just lose this great benefit that we have that people in the missions are crying out for. Yeah. Well I just, this is a great gospel reading. I'm so glad we got to start on this one this week because this really is just like one of the greatest great gospel readings that point you to the missions that give us in there. I'm excited to meet up with our friends next week. It's next week's gonna be the Feast of St. Kateria. We've got actually maybe the second best possible reading coming up, so I'm really excited to go over that. We will be with you guys again next Friday. Monsignor, is there anything else you'd like to tell everybody before we go?

Fr. Kieran Harrington:
Just remember that it's the Father who is revealing the Son, and it's the Son who's revealing the Father to you and me, and it's purely a gift. It's not because of anything you or I can do. God's going to do this because He loves you and He wishes to give a gift. The only thing that you or I have to do is to receive the gift.

Katie:
It's beautiful. And thank you guys so much for joining us this week and make sure you keep that lamp burning and keep praying for the missions.