Sunday To Sunday Attentive Heart

Father John: 00:00

Welcome to the Attentive Heart podcast where we explore how an integration of mind, body and spirit make us whole and enable us to become more compassionate to ourselves and to others. I'm your host John Grubwitch and today my guest is Susan McGurgan. Susan, so good to see you. So why don't you begin by just telling us a little bit about your background and what occupies most of your time these days?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 00:23

Great. It's great to be with you. I'm Susan McGurgan. I am the director of a Lilly Compelling Preaching grant, from Marion University, and I'm also an associate professor on the theology faculty there. And the grant that I administer has three major prongs.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 00:43

We are conducting a nationwide survey of youth and young adults ages 13 to 25 on their experiences of preaching and faith based messaging, and we're going to use the results of that to develop resources for priests and deacons to be more effective reaching that demographic. We are also forming high school and college age students to preach their testimony in public spaces. And we are working on developing a nondegreed certificate in lay preaching for laymen and women who, want to be more effective in collaborating with priests and deacons in the work of non eucharistic preaching.

Father John: 01:26

Really exciting stuff and very much in line with the work that we're doing with CALD, which is also a recipient of a Lily grant. And we met together at a Lilly grantee foundation or Lilly foundation grantee gathering in Indianapolis this past March. And I was so excited when I heard about what you're doing, most specifically because I'm also a high school teacher. And so being able to understand what you're doing with high school students intrigues me so much. Now I've taught high school for a long time.

Father John: 02:00

I mean, I guess it goes back to the early two thousands. And I noticed that students have changed a lot over the years. I mean in lots of ways, in very good ways I would say too, even though maybe sometimes people get a little critical of say the latest generation of high school students, let's say. But I find that like you know this whole concept of having high school students preach so intriguing because it's hard for me within my sphere to really identify who might be those preachers amongst the high school students that I teach. But I think I'm really kind of selling myself short because of the fact that I think everyone has a story to share.

Father John: 02:38

So how about you talk a little bit about how did you get involved with wanting to work with high school students that is such a unique demographic?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 02:47

Well, it's it's I kind of fell into it by accident, by virtue of this job. Mhmm. I came to Marion from twenty two years on the faculty of the archdiocesan seminary in Cincinnati where I directed lay formation. And my entire ministerial career, I have been involved in adult formation.

Father John: 03:07

Okay.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 03:08

And this job required that I immerse myself in youth and young adult formation, and I have found it to be just an incredibly rich journey. I am very blessed to have wonderful mentors at Marion University who are experts in this area, and they have so generously mentored and helped me along the way. But what I found is that our youth and young adults are eager for hard work in the church And that really, need to be pushing back against that false narrative that says that youth do not wanna be engaged in church. They actually do, but they wanna be engaged in a real way. They want real challenges, and they want hard work, and they want us to listen to them.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 03:54

And I find that working with them in testimony is a great way to do that.

Father John: 03:59

So tell me how you you go about finding these high school students. Like what does that all look like? I'm I'm really just excited to hear about the the process of of where you encounter and then how you get students to actually feel confident enough to share their story.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 04:16

We have in the the year that I have been at Merion, we have approached this in a couple of ways. Our first headlong venture into this was forming 12 high school and college students to preach their testimony at the National Eucharistic Congress last summer in Indianapolis.

Father John: 04:35

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 04:35

And they preached their testimony on the event stage in Exhibition Hall, which was a very busy, very loud, very distracting space. Honestly, I'm not sure I could have preached in that space.

Father John: 04:49

Sure.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 04:49

And we did that process through an application process. They applied, and they sent in a draft video of their testimony. And we selected 12 that we then worked with. We matched them up with coaches, and we gave them a lot of resources and encouraged them along the way, gave them a lot of support. They came from seven different dioceses, and, they just did an absolutely incredible job.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 05:17

However, we have also worked with, a group of students at Marian University, the 60 freshmen in the, Saint Dammiano scholars program, and worked with them through a retreat in helping them craft their witness stories. So I think this process works with students that are highly motivated and desire to do this and have a lot of gifts for public speaking and connecting their story with the gospel story. But I also think it works with students who may think they don't really have a story to tell

Father John: 05:52

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 05:53

But realize through this process that that they do.

Father John: 05:56

Right. Right. Now, I mean, like, this sounds a lot of like how high schools do kairos retreats or things like that where they work on their stories. Of course, that's very scripted. They're kind of given maybe the theme and they kind of tell the it's it's you're told upfront things that you have to include, say, in the talk.

Father John: 06:14

So how's this similar? How's it different? And also, just so I fully understand, how do you how do you get in touch with these high school students from your university? Is there is there some type of bridge to the university to particular high schools that you work with? Or how's that how's that work?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 06:32

We send out word through networks of youth ministers that we know and through diocesan central offices and said that we had this opportunity coming up and invited people to apply. And so it was kind of word-of-mouth. We're hoping to be a little more I see. We're hoping to have a little more access next time

Father John: 06:59

Got it.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 06:59

When we open up the application process. But we simply sent out the word through diocesan offices and through youth influencers and youth ministers that we were aware of.

Father John: 07:10

Got it. So so back to the other question. Like, is this similar? How is it maybe different than say what high school students may know about in the context of like a Kairos retreat or like another type of retreat experience in high school? Do you see parallels or do you see different types of like a divergence in what you're doing?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 07:29

To be honest, I did not come into this as a youth minister, my only experience with Kairos was when my three sons, you know, went through that experience in in high school. What we have done is we have developed some resources that help students understand what testimony is Mhmm. And what it isn't. Mhmm. For instance, it's not autobiography.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 07:52

It's not telling my life story. First, this happened, then this happened, then this happened. But rather it's using concrete lived experience as a lens through which to see an encounter with Christ or through which to see God moving in your life. And so we've developed some reflection questions that may help them get at an experience that they then want to unpack and reflect on more fully.

Father John: 08:19

I see.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 08:20

The other thing is that testimony, although it's personal, it's not private. It emerges from the community, and it goes back into the community. So we've learned along the way that you have to work with somebody on testimony. This is not something that you sit privately in your room and craft. Right.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 08:42

Whether you're working with a peer or a small group of peers or whether you're working with a professional minister or someone much more experienced, this is a this is something that's a give and take. You you share your experience, and you see how that resonates with someone else. And you may have to go back and and and enrich it or or enlarge it a little bit to help it make sense to someone else. Because the point of testimony is to connect with the larger community and to say, in essence, I have seen this. Have you seen this too?

Father John: 09:23

Mhmm. Mhmm. Yeah. Well, I got a lot of questions here. First off, how did you come about drafting those types of initial questions to try to get high school students to reflect and open up?

Father John: 09:35

Was there a process that you that you used, or were you getting insights and advice from other maybe people in the high school ministry space? Or how did that process work?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 09:46

It emerged from, when I was, on the faculty at the seminary Mount Saint Mary's in Cincinnati. I taught an evangelization class for our lay ministers, and these were mostly second career people earning a master's degree in pastoral ministry who were looking to either work in the church or to enrich their volunteer activities in the church. And what I discovered as I worked with them in this evangelization class is that they had never really shared a personal witness with other people, and in fact, kind of shied away from it. We kind of have this sense in the Catholic church that that's not what we do, that maybe that's what other denominations do, and that's maybe not for us. And as I realized that, I began to develop resources for them.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 10:37

Mhmm. And that became part of our class is that they had to craft a brief testimony that they shared.

Father John: 10:48

Listen.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 10:48

And they found that experience so transformational and so helpful. And that when I moved to Marion, I came with some resources that I had already developed. And we realized that those resources also work with some adaption very well for high school and college age students as well. And so since then, I've kind of expanded those. I've built on those, but they emerged from my work with adults.

Father John: 11:17

Gotcha. I see. And lot of those adults then that you were teaching at the seminary, they were probably involved in some type of church ministry already in some way?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 11:27

They were. They were involved in things like chaplaincy or pastoral care Got it. Adult faith formation, children's catechesis, maybe liturgical ministries. So they were already working either as volunteers or professionals in parish or nonprofit ministry.

Father John: 11:44

Great. You know, the word that you mentioned in in in the class that you were teaching was evangelization. You know, that that word has been been used so much, especially I would say since the second Vatican Council, John Paul the second Mhmm. You know, used that word so much so much, the new evangelization. You know, given our time that we're in right now, this the the the time that we find ourselves, what does evangelization mean to you?

Father John: 12:07

Like, what does that look like? And I feel like it's so contingent upon those whom you wish to evangelize. What does that look like to you right now? Because I think that's fascinating. I mentioned earlier that I've been teaching for a long time, and I know that the high school students I taught in the early two thousands had a different way of understanding, let's just say church stuff, than the current students do.

Father John: 12:33

That's it's not good or bad, it's just what it is. And it just seems that it requires even a different take on something like evangelization because it could be somewhat off putting in some ways to the current generation if it's done in the ways that I understood like when I was younger, let's put it that way. So like what how has it developed? How has it evolved? What what is evangelization today?

Father John: 13:02

What does it look like? What is it trying to ultimately achieve?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 13:08

I, I think there is often a lot of confusion between evangelization and and faith sharing and, you know, kind of this aggressive apologetics or or kind of wanting to argue with people about matters of faith. Mhmm. Evangelization, as you said, it takes different forms. There is that evangelization, in that kind of classic sense of sharing the gospel message with people who have never heard it. Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 13:40

You know? So that mission outreach into populations where they have never heard the gospel message and sharing that with them for the first time. Mhmm. There is also what John Paul the second, you know, talked about as the new evangelization, which is reengaging, and representing the gospel message to people who have perhaps heard it, perhaps even accepted it, but it no longer resonates.

Father John: 14:05

That's right.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 14:05

That's right. And so that re you know, that kind of reengaging the gospel into cultures, that may have heard and accepted but now have become very secular.

Father John: 14:15

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 14:16

And then there's the evangelization that occurs, which is kind of the pastoral care of the people who are deeply engaged, are already in the flock. You know? So the catechesis and the formation and the ongoing pastoral care of the people who are within the community. And all of those prongs are important. You know, they are all important.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 14:37

And I think they require different gifts and different passions, and I think we're not called to do all of those things as individuals. But perhaps we find our place. We are all called to evangelize. So I think we all have to find our place in one of those areas if we are going to be, you know, true missionary disciples.

Father John: 14:57

Yeah. I think

Guest Susan McGurgan: 14:59

Pope Francis has given us, you know, such a such a wonderful sense of the hospital, the the hospital imagery of the church. You know, that

Father John: 15:08

we hospital. Yeah.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 15:09

Field hospital where the wounded come. Yeah. I love that image.

Father John: 15:13

Yeah. He he definitely left us with a lot of great imagery. We're we're recording this right before the conclave, so we're kind of in a little bit of a state of limbo here knowing what is going to emerge. But I think that we can all agree that, you know, in a certain sense evangelization doesn't really ever change based on on the pope. But what what does evangelization mean to you personally?

Father John: 15:36

Like, when you hear that word, what what do you what does it invoke? What is it what are you hoping to be able to kind of impart to someone when you talk about evangelization? We've we know what it's not, it seems like, but what is it?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 15:50

Right. It is in a nutshell, it is the essential mission of the church. You know? It is it is you know, somebody said to me once, it's it's not that the church has a mission. It's that the mission has a church.

Father John: 16:05

It is.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 16:06

And so and it is also the essential role of the laity.

Father John: 16:10

It is.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 16:11

And I think that's something that we the laity struggles with. We want to put it off on the priests. We wanna put it off on the bishops and the deacons. But it's very clear scripturally and also from the church documents that this is our role as the laity. And so we are called to share our faith.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 16:33

We are called to go out.

Father John: 16:34

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 16:35

Go out to all nations, make disciples of all nations, and baptize in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit. It's that great commission. And to me, that's that's what it is. And so as disciples engaged in evangelization, we are always looking out beyond ourselves and seeing how can we share this message of healing and reconciliation and invitation and good news with everyone that we meet. Yeah.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 17:05

And that to me is evangelization.

Father John: 17:07

Sure. Sure.

Speaker 3: 17:08

Hi. I'm Frank Connelly from Sunday to Sunday productions. If you're enjoying this podcast, I would like to invite you to become a part of the CALD community where father John and the CALD curriculum team are creating weekly newsletters, live and virtual workshops, events, courses, and retreats. Joining is simple. Just visit preachingjourney.com.

Speaker 3: 17:30

That's preachingjourney.com and sign up. We can't wait to see you there as we seek to encounter Christ and find preaching moments in our everyday life. To stay inspired, be sure to follow us on social media, on our Facebook page and on Instagram. You can find those details in the show notes. Now back to the Attentive Heart show with father John Grubovich.

Father John: 17:54

And I think it's sometimes difficult because maybe we just don't even know what the good news is. I mean, sometimes we get caught up thinking like, well, the church has such a strong intellectual tradition behind it that we get we can get very just enamored with like how beautifully and intricate the intellectual tradition is. It just seems to offer a ready made solution to everything in the world. And and I'm for one fell into that big time when I was younger where I was like, I just want to keep on reading theology, learning more about theology, and it's just and then you're just in awe of how how amazing this whole puzzle fits together of the whole cosmos essentially, right? How Right.

Father John: 18:38

But I I've kind of more I guess grown into some type of other moment where I found that, you know, our individual experience of God is just as important, if not more important, than the intellectual tradition. Not because they're competing, but because it brings to life the foundation that the intellectual tradition provides. Like if you have a certain type of container that you're working from, your individual life is the thing that blooms out of that container and is really the way that you see the unique way that God is loving you, the unique way that God is healing you in the person of Jesus, and ultimately how you're encountering the person of Jesus in other people who maybe don't even understand anything about who Jesus is. And I think that's a really profound change. So I now have looked at evangelization not as me bringing something to someone, but almost kind of recognizing and affirming what already is because it's either Christ is everything or he's nothing.

Father John: 19:42

So it's either the Christ is working in and through every single person that's breathing, or Christ is not working anywhere. Right? But you know, we've been gifted with the gift of faith, and it seems to me that, you know, if you want to be able to approach anyone these days, the last thing you want to tell them is like you're missing something, I have it, I will give it to you, and then you're just your life is going to change. I mean I know that that may be even attractive to some people who are really searching for something, but I don't ever find that that is really the most effective means simply because I don't have what the person needs, they already have it, what am I doing to help them recognize what they have and go deeper with that so to speak? Does that resonate?

Father John: 20:29

Or or like and how does that fit in maybe with the work that

Guest Susan McGurgan: 20:32

you're doing? Absolutely. That resonates, and I could not agree more. And quintessentially, that is what we believe in Catholic evangelization, that we are not bringing Christ to someone who is an empty vessel, but rather by sharing our testimony with them, by faith you know, sharing our faith with them, it's it's as if we're angling a lens and helping them see that Christ is active in their life as well. So I when I talk to the high school students, I sometimes use the analogy of, you know, when you have a device, you have your cell phone, you have your iPad, and you angle it one way and the screen looks perfectly blank and clear.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 21:12

But you angle it simply another way, and all of a sudden, you see the smudges and the fingerprints all o Mhmm. And when we share our faith with someone else, it's like we are angling that lens, and we're helping them see the fingerprints of God that mark their lives as well. So I could not agree with with more. You know? And the truth is the when we have encountered Christ, which we do as disciples, when we have encountered Christ, we no longer get to stand on the sidelines hoping to be invisible.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 21:46

If we have met Jesus, we no longer get to remain silent. That's it. And it is increasingly critical that we speak because in this beautiful broken hungry world that we live in, your particular life story might be the only scripture that someone else reads.

Father John: 22:07

Yeah.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 22:08

And you can't keep that book shut. You know? So the times that I've taken a risk, the times that I have shared my testimony or a brief snippet of my gospel story with someone else or dared to speak a word of hope into someone, God has met me more than halfway in this work and gives my words life and purpose, and I have never regretted it.

Father John: 22:29

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 22:30

Even though sometimes it feels admittedly a little bit awkward. Alright.

Father John: 22:36

So now I'm gonna get a little personal here. So so do you mind sharing a little bit about that from yourself, from your own personal testimony, what that what that looks like or or what you have shared in the past and how that was received? Because I think that that the most the concrete examples are the ones that are most effective, right, like for all of us. Like we all need to hear each other's stories. So was there a certain moment in your life, I'm sure there are moments I would hope, where where God became very real and at that moment it was undeniable and this is something that was transformative?

Father John: 23:08

I don't mean to be putting words in your mouth. But, like No. There something like that? Or, like, what what does that look like in your own life?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 23:15

Well and I think it's important to say that anytime we start to think about how we might share our witness more intentionally, we will inevitably bump up and begin to wrestle with the parts of our story that we don't particularly like.

Father John: 23:31

Exactly.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 23:32

And it's very tempting to when we first begin to intentionally share our faith with other people, it's very tempting to offer an edited or curated version

Father John: 23:42

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 23:42

You know, to kind of buff up our lives, you know, make them all shiny and nice and tie them up with designer bows. But what I've learned along the way is it's often the parts that we want to edit, the mistakes, if you will, the failures, the times that we've needed mercy that actually make our story who we're sharing.

Father John: 24:02

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 24:02

And the power of testimony lies in sharing our authentic experience. Even those times, you know, like, when we cry ugly or we forget to use our indoor voices, there is comfort in knowing that we don't have to lead a perfect life to have a perfect testimony. And it's often those cracked imperfect places in our lives that offer an entry point for someone else to encounter God. Now that being said, there are always parts of our lives that are private that we don't share with other people. So we always live in that tension between, you know, how how much do I share to be authentic and and how much is is really too much to share.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 24:54

Yeah. One of the stories that I shared with my own sons, was a time I wasn't too proud of myself. I was late to work. The morning had gone very badly. You know, we were out of coffee.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 25:12

You know, all of those little things that just kind of set you on edge. And so I stopped at a fast food place across the street from the seminary, and they were in a state of complete chaos. And either everything was late, everything was bad, my order was completely messed up, and I was not very nice. Mhmm. I was we'll just say I was not very nice.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 25:35

Yeah. And I Yep. Went to work, I sat down at my desk, and it it absolutely haunted me.

Father John: 25:41

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 25:42

And I I was rude to a young woman who was, you know, who I had no business being rude to. So I got back in my car, drove back down the street. Yep. And I went in, and fortunately, she was still there. And I took her aside, and I apologized to her.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 26:01

And she was quite taken aback. And she said, why did you why did you come here?

Father John: 26:06

That's it.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 26:06

And I told her I said, I just you know, I couldn't continue on my day without apologizing to you and sharing with you that that I I really regret how short I was with you, and I had no business doing that. And I should've, you know, I should've behaved very differently. And she said, why did you come back to apologize? And I said, because I'm a Catholic and and because I'm a Christian and because you deserve better. You know?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 26:34

And I'm not sure she, truly understood, but I have shared I shared that with my own sons. And I said, you know, it was a little thing, but it's in the little things that it's in these little choices and these little decisions and these little things that our entire life is formed. And so I share that as a a little thing that is relatable that everyone has had those moments where we've behaved badly Yeah. Where we haven't been kind. And to know that you can you can grow from that.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 27:18

And so that's that's one of the simple little testimonies that I have shared with people. It's not earth shattering, but I think it's a it's a situation that everyone has had.

Father John: 27:29

No. That's extremely powerful. I mean, even as you're saying it, like, I I feel myself welling up because I I I know exactly, like, that connects so powerfully because we've all have fallen short in how we treat other people. And we I'm sure it on our best days when we've fallen short, we reflect upon it and we know we've fallen short. And then to respond to that knowledge by apologizing, I mean that's just putting the whole piece together of really how we're called to always you know get back up and realize that we're all part of trying to heal the body, you know, each person who makes that up.

Father John: 28:08

So I mean that that is an extremely powerful story. I mean that transcends any type of denominational or doctrinal ideas. Right? I mean there's feel I feel like the teachings of Christ, for example, they don't have to be so esoteric or they have to be like you have to think that like they somehow go contrary to our hardwiring. Mean, they they just bring out the best in us.

Father John: 28:37

They don't really necessarily make us have to do mental gymnastics. So

Guest Susan McGurgan: 28:42

Yeah. And the other thing I I like about this story is that it reminds me that while testimony is simple, it isn't always easy. And testimony doesn't usually lead to instant affirmation or praise or conversion. And frankly, testimony often leads to dead silence or blank stares or polite murmurs. You know?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 29:07

So we needn't think that if we start to share our faith with other people, that all of a sudden, we're you know, people are gonna be transformed in front of our eyes. That's that's not how this works. We may often wonder if our words make a difference, but I think it's important to remember that we are never called to harvest. That that work is not ours. That is God's loan.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 29:34

We are simply called to plant seeds. Yeah. And that's what we do when we share our witness. You know? And and we never know how our words are going to fall on somebody, and we never know who needs to hear the gospel story that only we can tell.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 29:53

And we may never know the results of any sharing of faith that we do. But it's okay because we are simply called to plant seeds.

Father John: 30:02

Yeah. That's so true. And as a teacher, you know that so clearly because many times you're standing in a classroom and you don't feel like the students are engaged at all. But you're like, well, some of the word down the road, something will connect. And, like, you just kind of and and and sometimes you get nice it's really nice when you get a letter from a student, like, you know, or an email years later.

Father John: 30:24

Right? But tell me about the the high school students you work with. Have was there any were there any particular stories that you remember that the high school students have shared that you're like, wow. That was a really powerful story or especially you were at the Eucharistic Congress. Yes.

Father John: 30:42

Yeah. I mean, what comes to mind?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 30:46

Well, one story comes to mind, and it just such a joy filled story of a young woman and her brother. They were small children growing up in Indiana, and they loved to play mass. And they loved to play mass so much that their grandmother made the girl a little nun's habit and made the boy a little chasuble. And they lined up all of their stuffed animals. They used to get all of their stuffed animals, and they would line them up.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 31:20

And she talked about how the elephant had you know, it was just like with the humans. You know, the elephant had to sit in his pew and the, you know, the stuffed bear had to sit over here, and they would line them all up in the driveway, and then they would play mass. And they had an across the street neighbor who was a young single woman who used to watch them, and she came over one day finally and said, I'm dying to know what are you guys doing. And they said, oh, we're playing mass. And and she was interested, they chatted.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 31:54

And and it came out that the young woman was not Catholic, which was, as this young woman who was testifying said, that was just beyond my brother's and my ability to understand. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 32:08

And so we invited her to go to church with us. And I guess this young woman was so charmed by them that she did. And long story short, became Catholic

Father John: 32:21

Wow. Amazing.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 32:22

As a result of this. And so the point of this young woman's testimony was, do not ever believe that you are too young Mhmm. To evangelize for the kingdom. Yeah. Because when I was six and my brother was seven, us playing mass in the driveway with our stuffed animals brought this woman into the church.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 32:43

Wow. Well, that was just, you know Yeah. It was the most amazing story. Another young woman shared a story of feeling very alienated, feeling very lonely as so many of our young people do. You know, studies have shown that our young people are now the loneliest generation.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 33:09

It used to be our elderly.

Father John: 33:11

That's it.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 33:11

But now our youth are twice as likely to be lonely as our elderly seniors. And she shared this story of feeling very lonely, having body image issues, and feeling very much isolated. And how through her youth group, through encounters with Christ, through Eucharistic adoration, she came to really embrace herself as a daughter of the king Mhmm. And how that changed the way she saw herself and and how she now engages with other people. And I will tell you, what I've learned in the short time that we've been doing this is we thought originally when we started working with high school students that this would be such a powerful thing for other high school students to hear their peers preaching.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 34:08

And indeed, it is. But what really struck us was how much adults and older people need to hear the voices of our young people. Because time and time again, after they preached, it was older people in the crowd who came up with tears in their eyes saying, thank you for your testimony. Thank you for sharing your faith. We need to hear young people.

Father John: 34:33

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 34:34

You've given me hope.

Father John: 34:35

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 34:36

So what we see is that our older people are hungry to hear these voices. And and what a powerful thing it is for older people to hear younger people preaching about their faith.

Father John: 34:51

Yeah. I mean that that that's that's so powerful. I mean, because yeah. No matter what what age you are, when you see people who are just beginning their journey, there's this temple of excitement to be able to affirm and recognize and and once again helps you to kind of pick up pick it back up where you are on your journey too, no matter how old you are. The the high school students that you that you've encountered, where would you say they're getting their formation these days?

Father John: 35:21

Like, how are they encountering Christ and the church? I mean, example, the story of the students who were playing Mass. I mean, I think it it would be hard pressed to find many of my students that I have at this There's 1,300 students here. Very few I would could ever imagine them playing Mass when they were young. Like I said, maybe I'm selling them short, it doesn't seem to be the Catholic culture thing doesn't seem to be in the culture, let's put it that way.

Father John: 35:52

In some places, it's it's it's lacking more than others. So what is the the formation that you see that these high school students have gone through that bring them to a point when they kind of meet you to encourage them to share their story?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 36:11

Eucharistic adoration seems to be very, very powerful Mhmm. In in working on the lives of young people today. Many of the high school students that I have encountered speak about encountering Christ in the Eucharist as as one of these profound moments. And that seems to be an entry point in which then teachers and ministers and formation people can can work with them to say, you know, where else do we see Christ, and how can we bring that out into the world? You know, how can we move that from this experience that you've had into, something that encounters others?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 37:00

But that seems to be a very profound place for our young people to encounter Christ. And I wonder I don't know. But I wonder if it's because our world is so loud Yeah. And so distracted that the the profound silence and the peace that they find in Eucharistic adoration, just really their souls just drink it in. But I have found that to be one of the primary ways in which they express that they have encountered Christ.

Father John: 37:32

Yeah. It's such a good point. I mean, I see that just with the students here when we detach them from their devices. They really do enjoy that, and they do come alive. I mean, a lot of times we forget that the current crop of high school students never knew a time without the smartphone.

Father John: 37:53

It's not like they had one foot pre and one foot post. They never knew a time without it. So that's different than say us who we kind of understand in some way the role that the the our devices play in our life. It's not it's all kind of like a part of us because it's like we we knew what it was like not having these things, so we kind of use it more as a tool. But when that's removed, they do come alive.

Father John: 38:19

So it's a a way to kind of help them to enter into that place of less noise, less notifications. And clearly Eucharistic adoration is the perfect venue to be able to kind of detach from all those things. And I and I liked how you said about it being an entrance point because I think that's the one thing that maybe the the critics of Eucharistic adoration will often say that it becomes too much of an endpoint than maybe it could be a beginning point. You know, I always like to say our time with the Eucharist is working some type of muscle where if you're able to kind of have some type of sense that what appears to be this wafer is more than that, that it's the very presence of God, the very presence of Jesus, that like is that working a muscle to help us enter into the world knowing that everything is more than what it appears to be? People who are just so complex and what you see on the surface level is not the end of the story.

Father John: 39:28

Like how does that resonate with what you're doing and how that cultivates maybe storytelling and testimonies in in your in in what you in in what you're doing. Let's put it that way.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 39:42

Yeah. I mean, I I think we should see Eucharistic adoration and and the celebration of the Eucharist in the mass as rocket fuel, you know, launching us out into the community. I okay. I, like, completely lost my train thought.

Father John: 40:01

That's cool. That's that's the beauty of this thing. It's all just being recorded. We'll cut it, and we'll just just

Guest Susan McGurgan: 40:05

you just start see.

Father John: 40:06

Just calm down, or and you just just start when you wanna start?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 40:09

Yeah. So what

Father John: 40:10

was By the way, you're you're doing great, Susan. This has been a lot of fun. So so

Guest Susan McGurgan: 40:13

Okay. So the question was, how do we see that look at oh, okay. I know what I wanna say. So I think we should see, you know, Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the mass as rocket fuel launching us out into the community. One of the things that I'm working on now is the neuroscience of storytelling and the neuroscience of story and how powerful that is.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 40:43

That is also something that youth and young adults really relate to. And what we're discovering is that there are biochemical and physical changes that take place in the body of the storyteller and in the body of the listener when we are engaged in story and particularly personal story. And narrative is really powerful because we are hardwired to respond to story. And so I think when we can share that science of story with our young people, that also fuels their desire to share their stories, to learn their stories, and to connect their stories with the gospel story. So many people today lead episodic lives.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 41:31

You know, they don't see the connection between not only the the the different aspects of their own story, but they they don't see the connection between their story and God's story. And if we can help them make those connections, then suddenly their lives have meaning. Springtide Research, which is the research company we're working with

Father John: 41:58

That's it.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 41:59

To to develop our survey. Their research tells them that 24 of our young people believe that their lives have no meaning. That's a shocking statistic. One quarter of our young people believe that their lives have no purpose Wow. Or meaning.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 42:19

Yeah. And yet statistics also show that if one person, one adult from outside their household can make a connection with them, can have a connection with them, that percentage will drop to 6%. Wow. And so that's why I believe in this work so much because we are helping people make connections, not only with with other people, but with the their own purpose. Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 42:55

You know, with the purpose that God created them for. And that changes lives. And and through changing those lives, it does change our culture, and it changes our society as well.

Father John: 43:07

Yeah. One person at

Guest Susan McGurgan: 43:08

a This work is really important.

Father John: 43:10

Yeah. Literally one person at a time. Yes. Tell me more about the research you do with neuroscience. I'm sure you probably might know the work that Ed Foley's doing out of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago.

Father John: 43:23

Is it Yes.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 43:24

He's doing a lot of work on the neuroscience of preaching Yeah. And and how that affects there there are scientists who are doing real time brain scans. What they're doing is they're they're putting people in MRI scans as they're telling stories and other people as they're listening to stories. And so they're mapping the brain in real time, listening to and telling stories. And what they find is that if I were to tell you a story and you would be engaged in that story in any way, my brain would begin to fire in certain patterns as I remember and tell the story.

Father John: 44:03

That's it.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 44:04

And as you listen, if you were engaged in the story, your brain would begin to fire in very similar patterns to mine, and it's called neural entrainment. And it forms this connection

Father John: 44:15

Mhmm.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 44:16

Between the speaker and the listener, not only emotionally, but in very profound physical ways. And your brain then begins to release chemicals such as dopamine, which is a a very feel good chemical in the brain. And so there are powerful connections that happen when people tell and listen to stories. And you think about how Jesus ministered and the powerful effect he had on people. This is how we are created.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 44:46

This is how God created us. And when we lose our connection with story, we lose something very significant about our humanity. And I think this is why testimony is so powerful. It is, after all, how the church first spread. In those very early days, testimony was the first most powerful form of preaching, and it's how the church first spread from a group of disciples who were hiding behind locked doors into a force that defied the Roman Empire.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 45:20

And it was through person to person individual testimony. Let me tell you about a man I met, you know, who knew everything about me, said the Samaritan woman. You know, she ran back to her village to testify and changed her village. So there is a there is a real power in testimony because this is how God created us to relate to each other.

Father John: 45:44

Yeah. That's that's so true. Like like like we said earlier, I mean, like there's nothing about what Jesus does that's not affirming how we're already hardwired. Right?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 45:57

Yes.

Father John: 45:57

And there's he wasn't just using stories because he thought that might be a quaint way of talking to people. I mean it's like we're hardwired for for the story, the power of the story. I mean I'm often taken about how like sometimes maybe I'm saying this from a personal level. Sometimes priests get criticized for using stories in their homilies actually because they're like, well that's kind of like making it too feel goody and like you're dumbing it down. I'm like, well, alright.

Father John: 46:30

But I mean, if you want to connect with people, you're gonna have to appeal to some type of a story because I don't know how you can do this, especially with certain demographics let's say, who are not used to just listening to lectures or something. Right? So it's interesting. What what are you hoping to do now? Like, what's what's the plan with with the work that you're doing?

Father John: 46:52

What what's the next phase look like? Or

Guest Susan McGurgan: 46:56

We will be continuing to form students for testimony. We will be forming a group of probably anywhere from seven to nine high school students to preach their testimony at NCYC, National Catholic Youth Congress in, Indianapolis in 2025 in November. And at least three of them will be preaching their testimony prior to the big keynotes. So they'll be preaching in front of about 15,000 people in Lucas Oilfield in Indianapolis.

Father John: 47:31

Amazing.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 47:32

So that'll be our next adventure. But we also want to, help high school students. We wanna develop resources so high school students teachers can do this with their high school students in their youth groups in their classrooms. So we are working on developing resources for high school students to be able to do this in their in their work.

Father John: 47:57

Well, that's the thing I'm I'm really particularly interested in because I love to get you out at Sacred Heart Cathedral Prep and see what we can do here with the work that you're doing. It's it's it's really, really so exciting. I think there's something there that is just so untapped, you know, and I think about all these students who are walking around the campus each day. I'm like, wow. There's just so many stories here of of people's lives.

Father John: 48:22

And as I was walking to do this interview, was just briefly talking with a student who I didn't really know, but she gave me a lot of inspiration on on just how she's engaging this this last week here with with finals coming up. And like, know, that's even a little bit of a powerful witness and a powerful testimony. So I mean, you can never underestimate the power of just the the encounter. Right? So I I just think that it's it's so so good that you're kind of latching onto this in in our time.

Father John: 48:55

So I know we're kind of coming to the end here. I I just, you know, I've been reading Pope Francis's autobiography, Hope, as a way to maybe kind of maybe think about his legacy and what he was contributing to the church. So I guess as a final question, what brings you hope these days? It it doesn't have to be specifically in the church, but just in general, like, what is bringing you hope?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 49:20

One of the things that that has brought me a lot of hope in this this particular work that I'm doing right now is that we are starting to realize through talking to some of the high school and college students that we've worked with after the coaching ends and after the preaching has ended, that preaching formation seems to have a cumulative effect. The growth and benefits are immediate, but the formation seems to act some somehow like leaven or yeast in their lives. And what we've discovered is that their self confidence has increased. Their ability to speak publicly on all kinds of things. Class reports and school issues has increased.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 50:14

Their their self image has improved. And so what we see is they are showing remarkable growth in a lot of areas long after our work with them has ended. And so it makes me it makes me think, you know, in our church, preaching formation is often seen as something that we allow people to do once they are already kind of in a leadership path or once they are already in you know, on a track for leadership in the church, seminarians or very elite lay ministers in programs, something that people are invited into. And so I find myself pondering this question. Instead of waiting until people are already kind of highly effective disciples to form them for preaching, what would happen if we begin forming disciples for preaching very early in their spiritual journey?

Guest Susan McGurgan: 51:14

You know? What might change for us as a church? What might change in them? And I find that, thinking about the possibilities of this work gives me a lot of hope. And thinking about the gifts that our young people bring to the church Yes.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 51:31

Continues to bring me a lot of hope.

Father John: 51:35

That's so exciting. Susan, so great talking with you, learning more about what you're up to, hearing your own testimony, which I think was very compelling. It was very moving. So even even though it's a small brief encounter. So I just want to thank you so much, and I'm looking forward to cultivating more opportunities for partnership with both the high school I work at and also with the work that we're doing with CALD, which is so much focusing on the power of lay preaching in the ordinary day, so to speak.

Father John: 52:08

So thank you so much.

Guest Susan McGurgan: 52:11

Thank you. It has been wonderful spending some time with you.

Father John: 52:17

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Attentive Heart podcast. We hope that you were able to find it helpful in your spiritual journey and practice. This podcast is produced in collaboration with Sunday to Sunday productions and the Witness Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode and you'd like to help support the podcast, please subscribe and share it with friends. To love.

Father John: 52:57

Hold on to love. We cultivate healing through kindness. Hold on to overflowing. Hold on to love.