- Welcome back everyone to the frontline with Joe and Joe. Joe Basilow and Joe Recinello, you're exactly right Joe. - We work for the man upstairs as you do. - You're setting me up quite well. You just gave me an alley youth. - The greatest revolutionary act to commit right now is to open your mouth and speak the truth. - Whether you're an academic or you're a regular guy, you have to be fearless. - And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Hello again everyone and welcome back to the frontline with Joe and Joe, Joe Basilow as always joined by Joe Recinello. And once more, dear brothers and sisters, let us go into the breach on the Veritas Catholic Radio Network, 1350 on your AM dial, 103.9 on your FM dial, spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City metropolitan area. Please be sure to download the app, the Veritas app, share it with your friends. You'll have access to all of our station's content, not just the frontline with Joe and Joe. Keeping in mind, we are an EWTN affiliate, so you get all of that programming also. And wherever you see Joe and I on social media, we're all over the place, we're on X, Rumble, Facebook, YouTube, Facebook and YouTube. Of course, until they shut us down, which I'm sure is coming right around the corner. But having said that, we're still there. So if you see us there, help us out. Like, subscribe, share, do all that fun stuff. So Joe and I, anybody who listens to this show over time, know that there is one topic Joe and I love talking about. We like talking about everything. There's just one topic we love talking about. It's the rosary, all right. And the importance of praying the rosary. But I think a lot of people, you know, they understand praying it and maybe the mysteries, but where it came from and, you know, why is it so important to, let's say, Catholic piety? Well, we have today, Father Joseph Anthony Kressen, he's the spokesperson for the Dominican rosary pilgrimage, which would be taking place September 28th and Father's gonna tell us all about it, all right. And that's something that a lot of people gonna wanna know about. I wish I was on the East Coast 'cause I probably jumped in, but I'm out here at Arizona in the desert. But having said that, some of you familiar with Father Kress because he has his own show and does a lot of podcasting. However, he entered the Dominican province of St. Joseph in 2010. He made his solemn profession on August 9th, 2014 was ordained a priest on May 21st, 2016. In the spring of 2010, he graduated from the Franciscan University in Steubenville with a Bachelor of Arts and subsequently received a Bachelor of Sacred Theology and Masters of Divinity from the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception. Father Joseph Anthony has served as the chaplain to Catholic House at the University of Virginia since February of 2017. He's the co-host of the God-splaining podcast alongside four of his Dominican classmates. Over the years, he's worked in overseeing large-scale liturgies, including World Youth Day and Crackout, National Eucharistic Congress, USCCB, Convocation, Father Emil Capawan, Homecoming and Amazing Parish Conferences, a native of St. Clair'sville, Ohio. He's the youngest of three. Father Joseph Anthony Kress, welcome to the front line with Joe and Joe. - Well, we had to add another Joe in there, so we're a trifecta in here. So you got Joe, Joe and Father Joseph Anthony. So yeah, I think I'm happy to be here. I really appreciate the time that you guys have carved out for us, but I feel at home here. It's just a bunch of shows getting together and talking about the faith and enjoying it. So yeah, thanks for having me here and I'm happy to be a part of it all. - Absolutely. I always tell our guests to our name, Joe. Father Fessio likes to tell us all the time. We've got four Joe's, Joe, Joe, Joe and St. Joseph. - Yeah, the big guy. - The big guy. - They're the big guy in there. So yeah, Father, thanks. It's gonna be a great conversation. I'm gonna throw it over Joe, we'll get rocking. - Father, could you lead us in prayer before we begin? - Yeah, absolutely. In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, we take this opportunity to come before you and we beseech you to pour out your Holy Spirit upon us. And upon this conversation and upon all of our listeners, wherever they may be and wherever they may find themselves, that as they listen to our conversation, that they may be drawn closer to your love in your Son, Jesus Christ. And we ask the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary as she's directed all of us closer and closer to her son, that we may hear her words in our hearts as she instructs us to do whatever he tells us. So maybe our hearts and our ears be opened to that which our Lord Jesus Christ instructs us to do through this conversation. And we pray all this as we pray the prayer of the blessed mother, Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed are at thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Saint Dominic, pray for us. - Pray for us. - In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. - Thank you for that Father. - Yeah, happy. Let's go. - Father, I'll be honest, I love the Dominican order. I met my wife through the Dominican order through-- - Oh my gosh. - A for Saudi organization in New York City. A good friend of ours, Father Pierre Giorgio. I think he is in Kansas City now. He was with us as a layman before he became a Dominican. So again, a soft spot in my heart. As Joe said, the rosary is huge. So let's start there. Dominicans, what's your connection to the rosary? - Yeah, we're very intimately tied to the rosary. So the traditions held that the blessed mother actually gave the rosary to Saint Dominic, our founder. And so she gave this devotion to Saint Dominic for a specific reason that it would be a weapon against heresy because that's always a perennial issue is the false teaching and those things that are kind of nullifying or falsifying the gospel and a weapon to protect the truth. And the truth just happens to be her son, Jesus Christ. And so with that instruction, it's a way to dive deeper into the mysteries of the life of Jesus by meditating on them in union with his mother. And you'll see the Dominicans as we wear our habit. I'm seated at this point, so it's kind of hard to see, but we have incorporated the rosary as a part of our daily dress. And so we wear that habit or the, I'm sorry, we wear the rosary on our habit on our left hip, which is the placement for a soldier's weapon of choice. And so as a soldier would go into battle, we would reach across his body to his left hip and un sheath his sword. We as Dominicans reach across and we grab the beads of the rosary as our spiritual weapon for a spiritual battle. So it's an opportunity, it was a gift of the Blessed Mother to Saint Dominic for the brothers that would engage in this life of preaching. We Saint Dominic founded his religious order to be an order of brothers, preachers. So the order of friars, preachers, OP is the letters that we have after our name for the order of preachers. But it's that kind of spiritual weapon, knowing that we are fighting a spiritual battle, but we are doing so by meditating on the life of Jesus Christ in union with his mother. And so when we look at the history of it, it's very, very intimately tied to the Dominican order in our founder Saint Dominic. It has been for the last 800 some odd years of our religious life. And so we have a special devotion to it and a kind of pride in this. It's our patrimony, like we take that very, very seriously. We wanna make sure that others know about the power of the rosary to combat any of those lies that enter into our lives, that get whispered in our lives, that the rosary is a great weapon to cut through those lies and show the power and the mercy and love of Jesus Christ. And it's a devotion that is accessible to every person, every individual. And so that's why we take a certain pride in promoting devotion to the rosary and the devotion to the blessed mother, specifically through praying the rosary. And thus, which leads us to our big pilgrimage that we'll have later this year, which we'll talk more about. But yeah, we have a very, very intimate connection to the rosary. - Joe, I just wanna ask father something real quick. I think this is very providential that your order is having this pilgrimage in the United States. Because ultimately, when Saint Dominic founded your order, there was a heresy going on in France. Talk about that briefly, because you guys, I saw me on EWTN, it was phenomenal. It really, every time it's on, it's like every time I watch Cool Hand Luke, it comes on, I gotta watch it. Well, this is your movie on EWTN. Every time I see Saint Dominic, I'm like, I'm watching this movie, 'cause it was so good. You guys go barefoot into France in the movie, basically, 'cause the heresy or the heretics for that matter were very austere. So you guys had to basically get down to grassroots, you go into the fields two by two, you bring the truth of the gospel. It's an amazing story. That's what you're doing to America right now. It's providential, 'cause we need Saint Dominic. Bad. - We actually, we do have shoes. That's one thing that has happened. We choose now, I wear the soles out very quickly, but I do wear shoes. I just don't want it to be confused. No, no, it is important. And the heresy that Saint Dominic encountered, he came face-to-face with in Southern France, was what's called the Abigensian heresy, which was like a refashioned form of a previous ancient heresy of mannequinism. But it's a dualist heresy. It's a dualism where there's the recognition that there are things that are like physical, tangible, and the things that are spiritual in life. And there was this kind of recognition that these two things are always in conflict with each other. And the physical, the tangible is actually now in that, in the heresy, seen as evil. And the spiritual is the only thing that is seen as good. And so there was this really big effort. Like you said, the Abigensians were extremely austere because they wanted nothing to do with the physical world. They wanted nothing to do with the tangible realities because anything that was tangible was evil. There was no good in the physicality of life. And so anything that they could do to distance themselves from those types of things was real. It was like the physical was bad, but the real things, the real things were the spiritual things. And the reality is that, you know, that heresy continues to make its rear, its ugly head throughout all of every century. You know, we see it nowadays like, oh, no, no, no, no. You don't understand the real me is inside. That's the real thing. Everything on the exterior doesn't matter. And so what St. Dominic did was really to preach the incarnate Lord, right? The God who became man took on a physical reality and took on our humanity and sanctified it and redeemed it. And yes, there is tension, but that doesn't mean the physical is bad or evil. The Lord took on a body and took on humanity in order to redeem it. So there's a beautiful approach and it's always been a very Dominican approach as the integration of the body and soul. The body and soul are together and always united in that there's good in both. And so in order to do that, he goes in to France and gets the brothers around him to continue to preach the incarnate Lord as the redeeming person of humanity, not just a human spirit, but the entirety of humanity, body and soul. And like I said, you talked about the prophecy. I mean, that's something that I think right now in our contemporary context, is something that's very much coming under attack is that this integration of body and soul, everybody's trying to separate it, that you can do whatever you want with your body, whether that is a hedonistic lifestyle or a manipulation of it, or the recognition that the body doesn't matter. It has no importance and you can manipulate it and change it to match whatever interior things that you are feeling or experiencing. And that's never been part of our Dominican patrimony and our preaching is because we see that Christ took on a humanity in order to redeem all of humanity. And so our push is to recognize that the very grace of the incarnation that he whores into our lives in the sacraments is to redeem both body and soul in unity together. So it's something that's very near and dear to our heart. And once again, we do this in a variety of ways in our preaching and our study, but also primarily in our devotion to the one who gave him a humanity, the one who gave him a human body, which was his mother. And that's why we're so devoted to the Rosary to help us understand the beauty and the sacredness of our own humanity, because it's through the blessed virgin that Christ took on his humanity and became incarnate in her womb. And so we turned to her and asked her to do this very same for us. - Yeah, Joe and I usually describe it on the show, Father Joseph Anthony Cressus joining us here in the front line with Joe and Joe. We usually describe it. I think we're correct. It's kind of like nowadays it's like a neo-nosticism. It's a similar type thing. And it really sometimes, for a couple of Italian guys like us who lack patience a lot of times, it's kind of exhausting. You know, when you hear about like the nonsense and you hear I could be whatever I want, well, actually no, because there's a reality in your body encompasses part of reality, you know? And it's a rejection of that. And I know that. I personally cannot understand how anyone, even if they're a heretic, but they call themselves a Christian. When they take that view, whether it be al-Bagensianism or mannequism or nosticism, it's like Christ became a man. You can't get around that logically. You cannot get around the fact that God, from origin, became a human being, took on material form. What do you mean material is bad? What do you mean the body is bad? And again, it gets frustrating. And for Italian guys, the vein pops out of your head and you wind up getting into an argument. But Father Joseph Anthony Crest is joining us here. We're talking about the 2024 Dominican Rosary pilgrimage. Father, real quick, before the next question, a couple of nuts and bolts. It's gonna be on September 28th. Where is the pilgrimage? - That's a great question. It will be at the National Basilica Shrine in Washington, DC. So the Basilica Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. We will have a day's worth of programming starting in the morning. We'll have different kind of talks and meditations on the importance of the rosary and praying that rosary. We will have mass together. We will have confessions available. And then we will do a very beautiful rosary pilgrimage, or I'm sorry, rosary procession. The entire thing is a pilgrimage. We'll do a rosary procession throughout the upper church of the Basilica where we will together pray all the decades of the rosary in a procession through the Basilica, which is an absolutely beautiful experience. And we will have many Dominican friars throughout our province and throughout the nation that will join us for different elements of the preaching and the confessions, but also joining in bringing our liturgical life and our kind of heritage and monastic and through the different kind of chants and antiphons and hymns honoring the blessed Virgin in both that rosary procession and the liturgies that we have there. There will also be a period of actually eucharistic iteration as well. So it's a full day's worth, but it'll be an opportunity to come together as a faithful people in meditating into the life of the Lord through the rosary in that sense. - We're talking about a place that's in serious need of the intercession of our blessed mother, Washington DC. So what a great place. Father, let me ask you this. - Well, I promise we won't get you too much trouble, but I have a little bit of a problem with people who are obstinately or who obstinately refuse to understand the Catholic position when it comes to Mary, okay? You know, I've beaten anybody up, but here's my thing. Go through a lot of different things. We're talking about the rosary, which predates Martin Luther by a good, what, three centuries at least, okay? So predates Protestantism. This is what Catholics have done. This has been a Catholic devotion for a long time, but here's the thing just from scripture, is you always hear solo scriptura. What part of the, in scripture, when our lady says, "My soul doth magnify the Lord." And maybe somebody should go and buy a thesaurus and understand what the word magnify means. Mary makes Christ clear to us. No, as I say, that's the way I take it, okay? That was what I do. Aside from any other reason to devote yourself to our blessed mother and the rosary and pray the rosary every day, because Mary makes Christ clear to us. The things that he says in scripture, because we're in the hands of our blessed mother, they become crystal clear in here and then in our soul. Tell me if you agree with what I just said, because that's the way I see it, amongst other reasons. But to me, Mary makes Christ clear and that's what's important to me. - Yeah, I mean, I go back to the wedding feast of Kana, right? I think that is the paradigmatic role of the blessed virgin for each and every one of us is that she sees the need and she directs the waiters at the wedding feast of Kana to turn to her son, 'cause she's radically convinced that her son has the power to kind of bring a resolution to this issue, problem, conflict or whatever it is. And so when we pray to the blessed virgin, as we would pray with all the saints, but her in an extremely preeminent way, and thus we kind of honor her with such beautiful hymns and songs and prayers and devotions. It's because she's not only just revealing her son to us, but she's directing us closer and closer to him, just as she directed the wait service, the waiters to her son. And she did so actually with a lot of courage. She looked at him and said, do whatever he tells you. Like this is not a moment to hold back. And so when we look at the gospels, we can see the role that the blessed virgin has is to direct everything. She carries Christ to others, just like she carried Christ in her womb to visit her cousin Elizabeth and thus John the Baptist leaped in the womb. And then she directs others only to her son and she doesn't give the answers and she doesn't act like she has this moment where she can provide everything, but she only directs us closer and closer to her son. And so when we interact with the blessed virgin, when we pray to her or have devotions to her, it's because she's not only carrying her son closer to us, but she's carrying us closer to her son at the same time. And so there's nothing to fear and she's not inserting herself as her own deity, in any sense. But she has this beautiful role that is kind of a two-way street. She carries Christ closer to us and then she carries us closer to the Lord himself. - Thank you for that, Father. And if you're just joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, we're being joined by Father Joseph Anthony Kressy, he's a spokesperson for the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage. Now that's gonna be on September 28th. That's gonna be at the National Basilica in Washington, D.C. Father, what time does it start early in the morning? - Yeah, it does. Like I said, it's a full day. When we start in the morning, and then we'll run into the early evening with things and then make sure that everything ends by dinner time. So we'll run, I think it's pretty much your standard nine to five days worth of events and prayers and preaching in that sense. - Well, if you're on the East Coast there, hey, no matter where you are, if you can make your way to D.C. on September 28th, please do so, very important. Joe Restonello, where do you wanna go? - Father, I think America is in like a lapanto moment. And why I say that is you're seeing like the Eucharistic processions going on throughout America. You're seeing first Saturday, men's rosary rallies, not only happening in America, which I participate, but all over the world, Ireland, Australia, and now you have this. And that's kind of, to be honest with you, when I saw this, and that's why we wanted to have you on. It seems like we are in a need to get closer to God and through the Holy Spirit, the church is responding. And this is a part of it. Is that why you guys are doing this in 2024? Just out of curiosity. Because it's right before the election. And frankly, I think it's gonna be insane, to be honest with you. - It was started last year. So last year in 2023 was the first time we did this. And it was kind of just a good old college try, right? It was a swing. I remember one of my brothers, he was in prayer and he was very convicted in prayer that we need to pray the rosary in public together, gathering people together to pray the rosary publicly. And so it was really a fruit of that prayer where then he said, well, how do we do this? What's the best way to do this? Because like we mentioned earlier in our conversation here is like it's so intimately tied to us as Dominicans that we kind of need to lead the charge in this and provide an opportunity and an example and kind of lead the charge of praying the rosary as a body of Christ together in public with each other. So this is where it started last year. I was like, well, we will just try it. We booked the Basilica Shrine and said, we're going to have a day's pilgrimage and invite anybody and everybody. And we really kind of spread it through our own networks as Dominican for Iers and invited many Dominicans to participate in their own strengths whether as professors or preaching or singing and canters and try to draw the entire province together with our own strengths to pray the rosary in public. And we saw such an amazing response from the faithful. We had thousands of people show up and we filled and packed the Basilica out. And this was just, we're going to see what happens with no expectations. And we saw such an amazing beautiful response from the church herself praying for healing and mercy for herself, but also praying for the conversion of others that maybe don't know the Lord Jesus and how we can imitate the Blessed Mother and helping Christ be known in other areas of our life. And so drawing from that experience last year, we're like, okay, we're going to do this again and we're going to do this again. And however many times we need to do it, but that's what's motivating us is this deep, deep need to have the people of God come together in devotion to the Blessed Mother who draws us closer to Jesus and to do that in a very public way and to be unafraid of that. And so that's kind of the motivation, the push behind it. And here we are one year later and doing it again, doing more invitations. And yeah, we can talk about this as promo, but it's honestly, it's an invitation. It's, you know, come and join us. And I know you keep saying if you're on the East Coast, yes, hop in the car and drive down to DC and join us. If you're not on the East Coast, hop on our live stream and join us. This is the great gift that we have in living the contemporary context that we can, is that we can do all of this and be united in a very public way, both in person and spread throughout. So we want to invite everybody to join us. If you're able to get to DC, it is an unbelievable and fantastic experience. We talked about the beauty of being physical, right? The gift and the joys of being physical. So if we do want to invite you to join us in person, but at the same time, we're going to have a lot of resources for those that, for a variety of reasons, have inhibited from being there to join us digitally as well. You know what comes to mind? We're going to take a break in a couple of minutes, Father. You know, everybody's out there and everybody's worried about, like Joe just mentioned, it's going to be crazy going in towards September, October, November. This country's going to get a little nuts. And the reason why I bring that up is this, is that if you look at, let's say, if you look at history, to me, nothing was more nutty than the Protestant Reformation. Okay? In other words, we're a third of Europe, fell off and left the Catholic Church. And what did the Lord do? He sent his mother to Mexico. And 10 million people were converted to the faith, through devotion, through the message that our lady brought to them. Why are we so prideful? Father, to think that the Lord won't do it again, perhaps through us, perhaps through our public. Like you said, praying the Rosary publicly, asking our lady, you know, for her intercession, for our wellbeing, because quite frankly, whoever I pull the lever for, in November, is not really going to change this country at its root. All right? But Jesus will. And our lady exists with that. Father, I'll give you a minute with that comment. Yeah. I mean, this is the reality, is that we have one savior, and it's Jesus Christ. And he's the savior for every nation, every culture. And we have to really rediscover that. And as you mentioned earlier, like it's, it is our lady who has been kind of this, this scout, if you will, to start to initiate those conversions in, in a tremendous amount of nations and cultures. And so do we think that that, that power, quote unquote, was exhausted and is not still available? No, we're talking about redemption in the divine mercy of the Lord. That he has entrusted to his mother and she shares with abundance with all of her children. And so that power still exists. So are we going to be bold enough to actually trust that in the here and now? And I think we should be. And so to not be afraid of that and to like, yeah, maybe we should ask very boldly and not just ask for, let's take one step, you know, well, maybe we should ask for total conversions of our own hearts first and foremost, but also everyone else. And I'm excited for that. And I think that when we start to gather together in our faith, and especially in our devotion to the blessed mother, then bold things will happen. Grand things will happen. And it starts with the interior hearts. I mean, one of my favorite places on earth is Lord's France. And that is one of the most profound places because our blessed mother showed up in a trash heap, right? And yet this dump, this, this, you know, city place of trash has become a beautiful place of healing and pilgrimage, but it's a place of faith. I remember, I think it was Fulton J. Sheen said, Fatima is a place of penance and Lord's is a place of faith. And so to see how the faith can come from the rubble of a trash heap and to not be afraid that maybe I feel like my own life is a dumpster fire. My own heart is just a trash bin. Well, when our lady shows up in that place, she brings the healing power of her son and directs us in deeper union with him. And so if we look around our society and our nation, we think, God, it's all burning. What are we to do now? Well, let's look at the pattern that has been presented to us in other areas and other times of history. Why not let's dive into that wholeheartedly and that's supposed to be mother. Father, I've got to cut you off. I apologize. We've got to go to a break. Understood. Father Joseph Anthony Gressus joining us here at the Frontline with Joe and Joe. We're discussing the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage that's going to take place on September 28, early in the morning. National Shrine in Washington, D.C. If you can make your way there, please go there. We have another great segment for Father. Don't go anywhere. We'll be right back. Catholic Radio Works. And now we have it here in Connecticut and New York. It's been seen around the country that there's no better tool for evangelization. Where there's Catholic Radio, the folks who listen, deepen their faith. Families are strengthened. Parishes and communities flourish. So, let people know you're listening to Veritas, tell your friends to tune in, and let's make an impact here for Jesus and His Church. This is Steve Lee for Veritas Catholic Network. Welcome back everyone to the Frontline with Joe and Joe, Joe Priscilla and Joe Ressinello. I'm Steve Briech with Father Joseph Anthony Gressus. We're discussing the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage that's going to be on September 28, early in the morning. Make your way if you can't please it in the National Shrine in Washington, D.C. It's going to be an all day event with adoration, confession, procession, all of it. And it's just very important. If we really, truly care about our country and the direction we're going in, we need to publicly play the Rosary. Father, I will tell you this, before I left New Jersey a couple of years ago, Joe, and he doesn't like when I say this because he's a humble guy. I'm not, but he is. Joe started and got men together in North Jersey, where I was living also, and a public men's rosary. First Saturday, as our lady asked us to do, here I've been blessed to be involved with people in Arizona. Do the same thing first, well, they get together every week and pray, but publicly the first Saturdays. Very important. It's so important that we avail ourselves of all the graces that the Lord wants to give to us as individuals and as a nation through our blessed mother. So let me, that's a long-winded way of saying, Father Kress, thank you very much for doing this procession. I'm going to hand it over to Joe. You know, it's funny that you mentioned that because you said that your brother, priest, felt that like intention in prayer. That just affirms actually what we're doing. It's truly a movement of the Holy Spirit. I think there's no question in my mind. I mean, I see it on social media. It's going on in all over Ireland, Australia, Poland. There's a cry. And I believe that God is basically rising up these type of movements, and there's a reason for it. I want to talk about outside of this pilgrimage, and obviously we want everyone to go in September 28th. Talk about the confaternity of the Rosary. My wife and I belong to it. A lot of people don't know about it. You guys, the email that we sent to join it is in Portland, Oregon. Talk about that because it's a way that all families and all people who pray the daily Rosary can unite around the world. Yeah, absolutely. Confaternities of the Rosary are extremely important and kind of part of our history and maybe one of the more like unsung heroes, if you could say that is like it's definitely undervalued or under known in that sense. And what a confaternity is is when you join that conf fraternity, you know, you're committing to praying the Rosary on a frequent basis on a daily basis. But you're doing so in union with others. And so you can do it on a local level, and a lot of confaternities are based out of a local parish, where there's a group, a small group of parishioners who are going to commit and say we're going to pray the Rosary daily for these intentions, you know, local or national international intentions. But then what you end up doing is by committing yourself to that conf fraternity, you also receive the graces of the prayers of the other members. And so it's not just this moment where this is my little shot and I'll kind of roll the dice. There's a kind of a strength in the numbers in that sense that then I'm united to the prayers of the other members of this conf fraternity. And just as with prayer, graces are received. Well, then I'm receiving the abundance of graces from not only my own personal prayers, but from the other members. And when we join those conf fraternities, there are local chapters to it. But then you're also put into this beautiful network and fabric of conf fraternities throughout the world. And so you're, you're receiving and asking and strengthening the graces throughout that entire network. So the beauty of a conf fraternity is the fact that you are placed into the deep waters if you want to call it that of such a robust experience of prayer and graces that you can rely on the prayers of others. So there may be a point where, you know, things that we do on the daily, we don't always bat a thousand, right? There are certain times that we were a little more, we're better at those prayers than days that we're not. Instead of feeling the weight of all that on my individual shoulders, I get to shoulder that burden with other members in that conf fraternity receive their help and their assistance their graces that they've received and share that the abundance of graces from my own prayers with others as well. So it's a conf fraternity is an important way to not only increase the devotion to the rosary, but also to increase the graces and mercies of the Lord in individuals in local areas but also internationally as well. Thank you for that father. Let me ask you this. Now with this particular pilgrimage, is there an indulgence attached to it? Yeah, so I mean, like you said, it's happening at the Basilica shrine and there's an intentional reason that we chose that location. It's a, it's a place of pilgrimage itself, right? So it's a very known, beautiful place of pilgrimage. And so the, I'll pause before I dive down that road. We don't have a very good culture of pilgrimages in the United States. It's just not something that's part of our fabric of an American Catholic experience. Now, if you go over to Europe, there, there are pilgrimages all over Europe as part of their culture, right? You know, the very famous ones, the, the Camino is a, is a major pilgrimage, right? And there are a bunch of local pilgrimages, you know, I know in Poland, they do pilgrimages to the shrine of Chester Hova every year and things like that. I think part of it is that we as a nation are so large and spread out that we don't have, and honestly we're very, very young, especially the American church is relatively young in the whole kind of history of things. And we just don't have a strong culture of pilgrimages. So we're utilizing one of the few locations that is very identifiable as a, as a location of pilgrimage and introducing a unique style of pilgrimage, which is rosary pilgrimage. And so the reason that we chose the basilica is for those reasons is to think about the reality that each and every one of us as Christians, we are pilgrims ourselves. This life of ours is a pilgrim journey. So what we do on this one random Saturday in September in Washington, D.C. is supposed to help us to focus on the reality that we too are on pilgrimage. And that our destination is a sacred one. It's in the presence of God, just like the destination for this pilgrimage is in the National Basilica. So we're going to utilize that and there are, you know, different graces and indulgences attached to visiting a pilgrimage site. And there are definitely graces and indulgences attached to praying the rosary in public. Now we're just doing it with thousands of people. And so the graces and indulgences will be in abundance as well for that. Thank you for that. Father Joseph Anthony cressus joining us at the front line with Joe and Joe, please make your way to the national shrine or the basilica national basilica in Washington, D.C. on September 28 for the Dominican rosary pilgrimage. It's going to start early in the day. And it's going to go on throughout the day. And as we're having this conversation, just trying to relay to our audience out there, the importance of devoting ourselves to our lady. Like you said, father, I mean, if you look at, you know, you look at, you know, social media or anything, you look at the big pilgrimages in Europe, you know, there's one thing that goes to chart, like you mentioned the Camino. But I will say this, we could find them in America if we really looked for it. I mean, yours is for you. Yeah, Joe, you mentioned our lady, Chestova, Joe, a few years ago, told me there was one from New Jersey to Doyle's town, Pennsylvania, to the, what is it, Joe? That's not a shrine of a chest to hold them indoors down. So you can find in America, you, if you want to go on a pilgrimage, you can find it. There's a beautiful one in Kansas. You mentioned Father Emil Capen, the army chaplain who was killed in Korea. They do a great men's pilgrimage through Kansas, which is as a hiking pilgrimage and things like that. You're right, they're out there, and we have beautiful shrines throughout the nation, you know, there are shrines in Wisconsin and Oklahoma City, in definitely in California, and then things like that. So they're out there, but it's not just as not a normal, common experience or expression of faith in the United States like it is in Europe. So I think part of it is to increase this whole concept of pilgrimage. Now, it does not always have to be a walking pilgrimage. And I think that's something that we're trying to introduce that. Yes, you may be able to walk to these places. We don't have a walking element at this time, but to make a sacrifice and travel to a place of pilgrimage for specific intentions and prayers and things like that. That is a true pilgrimage, and it helps us to remind ourselves of our pilgrim journey as Christians. Absolutely, Joe or Cinello. Father, I want to talk about miracles that were attributed to the rosary. When I used to teach or CIA, I always used to talk about the one miracle in Brazil, just to give everyone a little insight into it. A particular individual who was a communist was elected and the people, because Brazil was the largest Catholic country in the world, probably still is. Particularly women took to the streets, 500,000 people took to the streets with rosary beads, and the president fled the nation without a bullet shot. Led the nation, 500,000 people. I'll be honest with you, if 500,000 women wanted me out of the country, I'd leave too, to be true. If 500,000 women commit to a single cause, like, watch out. But talk about miracles attributed to the rosary, because again, we alluded to this earlier, but they're real. That's real. That happened in the 20th century, a real deal revolution, bloodless, and it happened. It's, I mean, I can't express it in a number of miracles, and most of them are the conversions of individual hearts, right? You know, we have, we have the great history of the rosary. We talk about Lepanto, right, the miracle of the battle of Lepanto, because the Holy Father asked every sailor to pray the rosary as the battle was beginning, that they would carry the rosary as the sailors were on their ships, and it defended. It defended all of Europe from an invasion of a heresy. And so, you can see those kind of grand elements and those grand gestures, you can look at all of that, but what we see repeatedly is a conversion of heart. I don't want to overlook that and think that that's just not a miracle, right? That is a true miracle. And we know those people that, and they sit in our pews, and they're in our Bible studies, and they're in line at the confessional, and we see them going through the beads in those lines. But the ability for our lady who can untie any knot, and she can help prepare oneself to receive the fullness of Jesus Christ, is unchallenged. She's the best way to do that, and the number of miracles that you find, and the number of individuals who have just unbelievable personal moments of conversion that are attributed to our lady's work through the rosary is unprecedented. So, there are a number of large-scale miracles as well, but I'm radically convinced that the number of untold miracles that are just as real, which are personal conversions attributed to praying the rosary, are much, much greater. They're over top of 500,000. I can assure you of that. They're a greater number than that. Father Joseph Anthony Crest joining us here. Make sure you make your way September 28th to the National Shrine in Washington, D.C., and that's where you're going to be the Dominican rosary pilgrimage. Father, we know from our lady that the final battle, which is to be waged, is against the family. If you can't see that the family's under attack, then whoever, if you take that view, then your head's in the sand. We see it in so many ways, not just in America, but all around the world, particularly in Europe. And we know that statistically, the one statistic that Joe and I bring up on the show all the time, is that just look at the case of divorce, that, let's say, Catholics have as high a divorce rate as any other group, whether it's evangelicals or atheists or anybody else. Except when you look at the divorce rate amongst Catholics who are praying the rosary every day, going to mass every week, and frequent confession, the number drops to about 3%. Okay, so I think there's a little correlation there. Talk about the need for families to pray the rosary together every day. Yeah, you know, I think it was Father Peyton, who very much promoted family rosaries, he says, the famous line, the quip, the family that prays together stays together, and it's absolutely true. And when we talk about praying the rosary together as a family, why that's important, it helps to educate the youth on a style of prayer that is accessible and familiar to them. So it helps young children gives them things to work with their imagination on to talk about the mysteries and to imagine that into visualize some of these moments of the life of Jesus and how they can engage with that. So it helps to form the youth well, and it helps to form their intellect and their imagination to think about the realities of the fact that we do have a Savior who took on our humanity, and to help them enter into that. It helps them to experience in the different mysteries of the Lord, whether that's his mercy, his love, or his passion and death, or his glories. And so it can help kind of rear the children and form their imagination their intellect in a sacred way. Now the other thing that I think is really important too is as a family, right, you're praying the rosary, which is helping us to look at the life of Jesus through his mother. And we talk about St. Joseph, we're big fans of St Joseph here. So it ends up allowing us to enter into our own redemption in a familial context. Why is that so important? Because the Lord took flesh and entered into this earthly existence within the context of a family himself. He had a mother and father, and he entered in as a family. So redemption entered the world as a family, and so to take that understanding, pray the rosary as a family, recognizing that what we are doing is involving the entirety of the Holy Family at this moment. And is the beginnings of redemption for the world, but also can be the beginnings of redemption for each individual of that family member. So I do believe that the rosary actually is a very familial prayer because it is involving the Holy Family in helping the family as a unit to model and imitate the Holy Family as well in a unique and domestic way. Absolutely. Thank you for that, Father. Joe Ressinola. Father, you boiled it down to a very micro cell, basically the redemption of hearts. I want to, I want to stay on that level for a moment because you mentioned on the other side of the break that the rosary is the weapon. Well, I absolutely agree with that. I have my rosary in my hand, and I never leave my house without a rosary in my pocket. Ever. And when I walk, I work in New York City. When I walk through the streets of New York City, I always have my rosary in my hand. It's a good place. Also, if I'm tempted, I put my hand on my rosary. It prevents me from being tempted or going into temptation. That's at a very local level that Catholics, I mean, I don't have a fancy rosary, it's plastic. But I always have it. Like, before I leave the house, I put my rosary in my pocket. I put it in the same place on my dresser. Every night goes in my pocket, I walk out the door. Talk about that. It doesn't get more basic than that. You have a rosary, you're a, you know, consecrated religious. Well, I'm baptized. I'm not. You're a consecrated as well. Yes. Different vocation, but we're both going in the same direction. And we can do that. We should do that. Yeah, I mean, I'm also convinced I've, I've carried rosaries with me there in every single one of my bags or luggage or things like that, even though I wear one on my hip, like, yeah, I have a bunch of them. And I'm convinced my purgatory is to pray through all the rosaries that I've lost. Like, whenever I die, like, praise, like, I'm hoping that I'll get to purgatory and there's just going to be this stack of rosaries that I've lost over the years. And I think my purgatory, I have to pray through all of them. But I think your expression of like, okay, reaching your pocket and grabbing that rosary, and when you are tempted or when you are in transit and things like that, or maybe you get distracted from something you're like, I need to refocus and reset myself in that region and grab that rosary. What's more human than that? Right? Like, that's just, that's part of our humanity that we are this body soul unity, right? And we need physical things to help remind our souls of this reality. And so it's not just looking at a rosary, like, it's a talisman or this kind of magic thing that we can use. It's actually even more basic than that. We are addressing our humanity and recognizing that, yes, my flesh is weak and it's frail and it gets distracted and it gets tempted. And so to touch a rosary, to work through the beads to hold that crucifix in your hand is a human thing, recognizing that Christ redeemed me in my humanity. And so to do these human things and to recognize that, yes, I am very much affected by physical things, physical pleasures and physical sufferings. And so to hold on to a rosary isn't me just trying to look for a magic talisman that gives me comfort, but it's actually helping to call my body and my soul together into the mysteries of Christ, which is where our redemption is. So I don't, I think there's nothing more human than doing what you just said is to touch that rosary to work through those beads to hold that crucifix, reminding yourself that it's in my humanity that Christ took to himself in his passion and crucifixion, but also his resurrection that he brought about my redemption. And so I'm not going to deny that and try to just force, force myself into a Zen moment, but no, I'm going to hold this rosary in my hands and remind myself of my humanity that is united to Jesus in my baptism in which he experiences the redemption of his love and mercy. I'm one of, I'm glad you talked about that. Father Joseph Anthony, Chris, joining us here at the front line with Joe and Joe, because I think a lot of times one of the criticisms you hear out there about Catholicism is that they equate, let's say, sacramental, you know, I guess you call this rosary a sacramental just to give it a statue or holy water or whatever with superstition, if you imagine a talisman and say, no, no, it's the power of God. I mean, well, you know, I would love for you just in a very basic way, very briefly explain to our audience that the what a sacramental is so people understand that it's not superstition Right, a sacramental is anything that is assists our devotional life and brings brings us to encounter the grace and mercy of the Lord. A sacrament is those types of things that actually communicate sanctifying grace. And so that's, you know, all of the big seven sacraments are that which can communicate sanctifying grace to us, and the sacramental help us to maybe live in a deeper union with those sacramental graces. And so they can be things like a rosary objects, holy water that create a deeper devotion and greater disposition to receiving the sacramental graces, the sacraments in that way. So it's about kind of both maintaining and preparing ourselves for the fullness of sanctifying grace in the sacraments themselves and living in the fullness of our baptism living in the fullness of our forgiveness and mercy that we've received from the confessional. So prayers like our Bibles or crucifixes or icons or rosaries that are sacramentals are these things that are blessed for the purpose to help prepare ourselves with a greater disposition in grace and living out the state, the state of grace that the Lord has called us to in our baptism. Father, let me ask you this. What are we have a few minutes left so we could take our time. Let's go. What are some of the promises of praying the rosary that our that our lady tells us because to me, it's when I when I read some of those promises so they make me so hopeful. Talk about that with our audience that there are promises attached to a rosary devotion. Yeah, I mean, the promises is that we will, it's simple, right? I mean, I think most people will look at the rosary is just a formulaic of wrote prayers and you just say the things check it off the list and move on with your life, but it's actually a deepening of our meditation on the life of Jesus. And so the more that we are able to deal with that and actually meditate on the life of Jesus by repeating these prayers, not just like as a mantra, but truly repeating the prayers in a vocal way so that we can meditate on the Lord's life. The promises is that we will actually grow in a deeper union with them. We will see those mysteries that first took place in the Lord's life as he walked on this earth. We'll see those effects and those graces in our own life. And so it's about a union with Jesus. And so the promise is that the more that we pray to this rosary that we will be united to the Lord. And thus, what are the, what are the byproducts of that, right? Well, then we will become less anxious of this life. We will be able to have the graces to endure suffering just as the Lord did. We will be unafraid of the trials and the tribulations of this life. Ultimately, we will be unafraid of death and that we'll have a confidence in the one who's on the other side of this great mystery of death because he has shattered the grave. And so the promises is that, like, not only by meditating on the Lord's life, but we will become to live in those mysteries as well. So the promises, like I said, a lot of it for me is important to look at the trajectory of our life and that the fact that, you know, the one thing that is that does not discriminate and that is applicable to every single one of us is that we will experience death. And so the Blessed Mother has promised herself to be faithful and to defend those who have prayed the rosary in devoted ways that she will be there at our death to make sure that we will be defended against those final temptations of our life and truly be united to her son in his resurrection in his glory at those times. So there's a number of, you know, kind of promises and things, but it's mostly surrounding the fact that the more that we utilize the prayer of the rosary, the meditation on his on the mysteries of the Lord's life in union with the Blessed Virgin means that we are uniting ourselves to the Lord, and we will be in the depths of his life and unafraid of any of those experiences, particularly death, that will happen in our own life here on Earth. Father, just to wrap it up, where could our audience listen to more of your stuff like you have a podcast, you have things going on, give us some info. Yeah, so as mentioned earlier, I'm in Charlottesville, Virginia, I'm the chaplain to the University of Virginia, so I work with college students mostly so we deal a bunch of things there so, you know, make sure that you're rooting for the Virginia Cavaliers whenever you see them. But some of the other things they do is I host a podcast with other Dominican classmates of mine, the podcast is called God's Blaining, you can find it on YouTube spotify Apple podcast wherever you get your podcast and you can follow us on social medias at God's Blaining. And then more information on the Dominican Rosary pilgrimage can be found on our website, which is Dominican Rosary pilgrimage.org. So that's Dominican Rosary pilgrimage.org is for more information on the pilgrimage, and then you can continue engaging with us Dominicans through through those portals, but also with our God's Blaining podcasts and on all the different social media and podcast platforms from there. Absolutely. Thank you for that father. So everybody out there listening to us at the Veritas Catholic radio network make your way to Washington DC on September 28, early in the morning go to the National Shrine. And let's let's get involved in praying the Rosary. Now, if you can't make it to the National Shrine, we've been talking about it for an hour. Pray the Rosary every day. Yes, there's there's there's there's graces that are going to flow from Jesus through our lady. Let's avail ourselves of those graces as Catholics as Christians for our own salvation for for the betterment of our society and and the defeat of evil basically in the modern world. And Joseph Anthony Cress, thank you so much for coming on the show and needless to say, you are welcome back here anytime for anything you'd want to talk about. Well, thank you guys. It was a joy to spend the time with you and I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you this morning. Absolutely father. And thank you a lot there for joining us to the Veritas Catholic radio network 1350 on your AM dial 103.9 on your FM dial spreading the truth of the Catholic faith to the New York City Metropolitan area download the app share it with your friends. We have access to all of our stations content and wherever you see Joe and I on social media, X rumble Facebook YouTube please like subscribe share do all that fun stuff that's where we really get in trouble over there so you're going to want to get involved in that. And remember until the next time that our conversation is your conversation and that conversation is going on everywhere. We'll talk to you soon. (rock music)
