SPEAKER_01 0:00

From the McGrath Institute for Church Life and OSV podcast, this is Church Life Today. I'm Leonard DiLorenzo. A special thanks today to our episode sponsor, Catholic Charities. Across the United States, Catholic Charities is there when you need us. When storms hit, we are there to rebuild. As neighbors age, we lighten their burdens. As veterans adjust, we ease their transitions. We serve millions each year, no matter their faith. We serve, not because they are Catholic, but because we are. We help put food on tables, unlock doors, and walk together on the roadmap. Help Catholic charities serve your neighbors in need. Join us at WeAreThere, WS. That's we are there, WS. I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me and I am him will bear much fruit. Disciples are Christ's branches. We grow from him. His life courses through us. The fruit we bear is the sign of his love. As the Eucharistic revival in the United States reaches its culmination this summer, we at Notre Dame are marking the occasion in a special way with the performance of an original three-act musical called Behold God's Love. The first of the three acts is The Roots, which draws us into the book of Exodus, where we encounter the Passover and the manna in the desert. The second act is The Vine, which focuses on the Last Supper and Jesus' meal ministry. And the third act is The Branches, where we join the early Christian community at Corinth to receive the Eucharistic teaching and gift. Today, the creator and composer of this new musical joins me to talk about what we can expect and how we will benefit in our faith and reverence from enjoying this work of art. Carolyn Purdle is program director of the Center for Liturgy here in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. She and her cast are preparing this musical now, which will be performed twice on July 6, 2024, both at 1 p.m. and at 7 p.m. in the O'Loughlin Auditorium at St. Mary's College. It is a free but ticketed event, and you can get your tickets before they run out at the link in our show notes. Carolyn, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_02 2:40

Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

So, Carolyn B. Hold God's Love, this new musical that you wrote. It's going to be performed for the public on July 6th. Many of us who have been to musicals are familiar with two acts to a musical. We get an intermission, but this musical has three acts. It's a triptych. Would you explain to us maybe the layout of the musical and how these three parts relate to each other?

SPEAKER_02 3:03

Sure. So I think some people would say there are three acts because I'm extra, but in this instance, actually, there's a deeper meaning for that. As I was tr trying to land on a structure for this story, which really encompasses a great deal of the story of salvation. Actually, we we start with the Exodus and the very finale of Act Three gestures toward the parocia. So we're covering a lot of ground here. And um, as I tried to put this structure together, the traditional two-act musical structure just wasn't working. You know, we have um the Old Testament, New Testament, or First Testament, New Testament. And um, so you would think that that would be like a really reasonable way to sort of map that on. But as I sat with the scriptures, I recognized that actually there was there were three separate kinds of stories that I wanted to tell. Um, so act one became uh the root, and this is the Old Testament prefiguring of the Eucharist. So we focus on the Exodus story and especially the the gift of the manna in the desert. That's that's how um act one really ends with the gift of the manna and the looking forward to the coming of the Messiah. And then act two is the vine. And so it takes place during the context of the Last Supper. Um, but within that, there are sort of flashbacks where an apostle will step out of the action and recall another meal that he had with Jesus. And in that recollection, that meal comes to life on stage. So this is kind of the heart of the gospels and the heart of Jesus' meal ministry. And then act three is the branches. So we get to see how the early Christian community in Corinth specifically sort of grappled with the Eucharistic teachings of Jesus and unpacked them together and lived a Eucharistic life of community and communion. Um, so I think, you know, the image of the vine and the branches with the root, because obviously you can't have a vine or branches without a root. Um, it it presented this really beautiful sort of integrated whole. And of course, anything tripartite is going to have a Trinitarian nod, which I love. So extra. There's a lot of layers. Yeah, it is extra.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

It's like an onion. There are layers.

SPEAKER_02 5:29

There are layers.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

Or a parfait.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 5:31

Yeah, everybody.

SPEAKER_02 5:31

Who doesn't love a parfait?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

We're now quoting movies, folks. This may happen at various times. Um this, you know, the titles of the three acts of root, vine, and branches. Can you maybe speak to that itself as it actually being a Eucharistic image for us? It's, as you say, the structure of the musical, but the structure itself is Eucharistic in that way.

SPEAKER_02 5:57

Yeah. Um gosh, that's that's you introduced Actress, and we're gonna go with that. I did, yeah, I did. Um so Jesus calls himself the vine during the context of the Last Supper, right? And I think there's something really significant about that. Um Jesus doesn't do anything unintentionally. And so the fact that he presents us with this image of himself during the Last Supper, where he says over and over again in John's gospel, remain in me. Um, and apart from me, you can do nothing. And a branch that is, you know, cut off from the vine will not bear fruit. Um all of this, I think, ties into the mystery of the Eucharist in such a way that it tells us to be rooted in this nourishment that Christ offers, which is his very self. We have to stay rooted in that. And and that's the only way that any of us can hope to bear fruit in this life and to be a witness and to become a fruitful branch on the vine. We have to stay rooted in the Eucharist. Um that might not be what you uh meant by the question. Well, I wasn't that is what I meant.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah, because it's what you had to say. I like that. Um, and we also, I mean, to remain rooted on the vine, for the branches that at times are cut off from the vine, in like horticultural practices, you can actually reinsert a branch to a vine. Yeah, and the vine has to allow itself to be split or is split in this case. And when we're speaking of this, and Christ allows himself to be split, so the branches can be reinserted.

SPEAKER_02 7:41

That's beautiful. Yeah, Paul speaks about being grafted onto the vine, right? And so, you know, I think that's there's something really remarkable about that too, because um it reminds us that there is no branch that cannot be grafted onto the vine. And that, you know, those of us who, you know, I'm a cradle Catholic, um, but but many people, you know, have found Christ and have found the Catholic faith in other ways. My own dad is a convert. And um, so I think about that mystery of grace that Christ reveals himself to people in so many different ways. And it's often through the branches, you know, the others who are witnesses and compelling witnesses to that love of Christ that inspire people to say, you know what? I want to be grafted. I want to become part of this vine so that I can be a fruitful branch too.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

In the musical itself, though, there are these three parts that are speaking to each other, the sort of central part in the middle of the Last Supper and the institution of the Eucharist, the prefigurements, the anticipation in the Old Testament, as you said, especially in Exodus, and then the fruit of this in the Corinthian community. Is it I having not seen this fully yet, is there a way in which each of those three, though they relate to the others, also is almost its own mini-musical? It contains its own drama?

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Yes, absolutely. So I think I think each of these three movements, if you will, or the the panels of the triptych, whichever metaphor you want to use, um, they could stand alone, right? So um there are, of course, characters that so between act two and act three, we see Jesus in both act two and act three. But uh apart from that, um, they really are their own separate stories, but they do hang together.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Um and there is this sense of a trajectory or an arc that sort of really does culminate with this vision of the marriage supper of the lamb at the end of Act Three.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

So, but the nice thing about it is, you know, there there is an arc within each of them too.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So yeah, no, I like that. And I it strikes me as like a really uh disciplined and diligent reading of scripture too. So to read the old testament well, and even in teaching, let's say, undergraduates, uh, in an introduction, introduction to theology course. I teach these sometimes. When we're in the old testament, very quick and anxious to make connections to the gospel and to see. And sometimes you just have to put the brakes on that. It's not to say this isn't open to that, but to understand and grasp what we're dealing with here in the history of Israel, in the figures, in the images, in the persons, you first have to take them on their own terms. And then in their fullness from there, they can become prefigurements, anticipations. They're clearly fulfilled in the gospel, but you don't really see the fulfillment actually unless you take the image fully on its own first. That's right.

SPEAKER_02 10:43

Yeah. You don't, so the way that we've tried to demonstrate that. Well, one way I've tried to demonstrate that um is the actor who plays Moses in Act One also plays Jesus in Act Two and Three. And so through casting, we're able to establish this typological relationship. But when you're watching Act One, you have no idea that the same person's gonna come back as Jesus in Act Two and Act Three. Um, and so it's just this it's this very subtle um nod to how we interpret the old testament um in light of the new. But there's this mutual relationship, right? Like um, you know, Jesus and Moses have some similar sung material as well. And so there are musical connections that are used to kind of strengthen the threads of the story and to strengthen the threads of those connections and interpretations. So it's a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I would like you to write an essay with the title Casting and Biblical Typology. It's what you know, a pretentious graduate student would do, right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, maybe you could offer that idea to somebody and they'll take that up.

SPEAKER_02 11:50

In my copious amounts of free time. Yeah, yeah. Somebody else can write that one.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

That's right. Yeah. This is Leonard DiLorenzo. You're listening to Church Life Today. My guest is Carolyn Purdle, program director for the Center for Liturgy, right here in the McGrath Institute for Church Life. We are discussing Behold God's Love, a Eucharistic musical, which Carolyn wrote. This musical will be performed on Saturday, July 6, 2024, both at 1 p.m. and again at 7 p.m. And both those performances will be at the O'Loughlin Auditorium at St. Mary's College. It is a free but a ticketed event. We have a link for procuring your tickets in the show notes. Special thanks to our episode sponsor today, Catholic Charities. Across the United States, Catholic Charities is there when you need us. When storms hit, we are there to rebuild. As neighbors age, we lighten their burdens. As veterans adjust, we ease their transitions. We serve millions each year, no matter their faith, serving them, not because they are Catholic, but because we are. We help put food on tables, unlock doors, and walk together on the road back. Help Catholic charities serve your neighbors in need. Join us at wearethere.us. That's weare.us. Carolyn, can you share what some of your artistic inspirations are for this work? Sure. I imagine there are some inspir inspirations. There are all good artists must rely on others.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

Absolutely. So there is nothing new under the sun, first of all. Like I just am very conscientious of that whenever I try to rent anything. But there's a great gift in that too. On the one hand, you could think, well, I'm never going to be able to do anything original, but but then you can see yourself as, you know, another link in a really great chain. So taking inspiration from things like, you know, really incredibly gifted composers like Steven Sondheim. Um but also, you know, Alan Mankin and Howard Ashman and all of the songs that they wrote for the Disney films of like the 80s and 90s. And um Lynn Manuel Miranda and Who's he? He does he wrote this little show that not many people have heard of. It's called Hamilton. Um and I think my cast would say that I probably took too much inspo from Lynn Manuel Miranda because there are so many words in the show. Um, there's a lot, there's a lot of stuff you got to get through. But um I I grew up with musical theater. I'm a Broadway kid at heart and a lifelong musician. And um, I just love the power of music to tell stories. Um, I originally wanted to be a film composer, and then I heard about Notre Dame's sacred music program, and I thought, oh, that's probably a better fit. And weirdly, and and really, honestly, uh, through my relationship with you, actually was how I first started to write musicals for the Vision program. So I this project honestly wouldn't have happened without you. So thank you for the.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Well, this is why we're having this conversation. I just wanted to get that on there perfectly. Everybody should know this.

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Letty was the first person to ask me to write musicals.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

No, that's awesome. Um, what about? So, since this musical itself is something like a triptych, um, is there some way in which like altarpieces that oftentimes are triptyched uh inform, you know, the idea that you had for how to compose this?

SPEAKER_02 15:11

I love altarpieces. I think they're so they we need to bring them back. Like, let's bring back the altarpiece because the point of them was to present different moments from the story of salvation for our contemplation. And that's what this musical does. And the altarpiece would do that very strategically, right? So you would only get to see it open on very specific feast days. Um, and so you know, you had to go to church on that day to see the thing open.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

I want to see.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

I know, yeah. And um and, you know, most of the rest of the time it was closed, right? And so I think there is great there's great wisdom in that um because you know, it invites us to contemplate things at different times in our life, it invites us to come back to them and to open ourselves up to um seeing the work of art um in a different way. You know, when we see something for the first time, there is a very specific sort of joy that comes with that. Um and then as we become more familiar with a story or with a film or a piece of music, you know, I've often thought familiarity doesn't necessarily breed contempt, but it does breed familiarity.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

And so we're we're getting that on bumper stickers.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Don't worry, they're coming. So um and and that just means that we get used to it, right? And then you start to not see it anymore.

SPEAKER_03 16:46

Right.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

And that's right when the altarpiece gets opened. Like that's that's when you see something different, and the seeing of the different thing will then inform your next viewing of the thing that had become familiar, right? So you can keep coming back to these works of art because things keep happening to us, right? Our perspective is constantly shifting just because we're human and the world happens to us. And um it has an impact on how we receive these works of art or these stories, um, the gospels themselves. There's a reason we have the liturgical year. Like I'm always gonna need to hear the story of the nativity at least one more time. And please, God, I hope I still have many Christmases left in my life to hear that story again and again. Um, because every year I hear it, I hear something different. Um, and that's that's the gift of scripture, and it's the gift of really good art.

SPEAKER_01 17:43

There seems to me something potentially quite salutary in that practice. So, first of all, of the altar piece and the triptych and not everything being available all the time, but at different periods, revelations. Because we live in times where it's become customary for us to expect to have access to everything all the time. Everything is available all the time, right? And in fact, we get frustrated if something's not available for us immediately, right? Something's wrong and it has to be ironed out. But what we lose in that, it seems, just thinking about what you're sharing with us, is that we lose what it means to wait and anticipate on the one hand, and on the other hand, we lose what it means to remember and to relive. And it strikes me that what you're observing about like the opening of a triptych, the winds of the triptych, the closing of it, different periods for different types of contemplation sort of naturally schools you in that. And we've lost something of that. Um, you know, maybe going back to your musical to think of all three of these, you know, the two wings and the centerpiece, um, speaking together, but they could also just be taken on their own, right? And you could have to recall the others or something like that. So not to make too much of that, but I'm just kind of responding to what you're sharing and thinking about the ways in which that could be healing for us in our parishes and in from our parishes in our everyday lives.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

And I think there's something too. Um you know, it's the difference between a static work of visual art and a dynamic work of a performed art. So whether, you know, a musical or a work of instrumental or choral music, it it only happens as it unfolds in time, right? And you can look at the score, you know. I I know I've talked to your Trinity class about this, but you can look at a piece of music on a sheet of paper. And that's that's basically the recipe for the music. That's not the music itself. And and so I think music and theater of their very nature as an art form teach us that patience because you can't receive the whole thing at one time. That would be ridiculous to try to try to take in an entire media.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Some musicals have attempted to do that. They've been disastrous. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 20:02

But it takes time. It takes time to tell the story. And um, you know, and it takes as much time as it takes. And there's no shortchanging um, you know, there's no shortchanging that. Um, if you were to listen to the Broadway recording of Le Miz at 1.5 times the speed, it would lose something, right? Like no one would do that in the way that we listen to audiobooks or podcasts at 1.5 times the speed.

SPEAKER_01 20:31

I mean, you're saying this to people who are currently listening to us at 1.5 speed.

SPEAKER_02 20:35

You also don't want to turn me up to 1.5 times the speed because I will sound like one of the mice from Cinderella.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

So somebody as an aside, somebody who listens uh saw me once and we don't see each other regularly, and they're like, oh my gosh, you talk so slowly. It's good you're listening to me in one and a half speed when you listen to the podcast. Anyways, as you are.

SPEAKER_02 20:54

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:55

Excellent. So this is Leonard DiLorenzo. You're listening to Church Life Today. I'm talking with Carolyn Perdle. We're talking about her new musical, Behold God's Love, a Eucharistic musical, which will be performed on Saturday, July 6, 2024, both at 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the All Laughlin Auditorium at St. Mary's College. It is a free but a ticketed event, and you can find a link for getting your tickets in the show notes. We want to offer our thanks to our episode sponsor, Catholic Charities. When storms hit, Catholic Charities is there to reveal, to rebuild. When neighbors age, there to lighten the burdens as veterans adjust, they're there to ease their transitions. They serve not because those they serve are Catholic necessarily, but because we are. We help put food on the tables, unlock doors, and walk together on the road back. Help Catholic charities serve your neighbors in need. Join us at wearethere.us. Wearethere dot us. So we spoke a little bit, Carolyn, about some of the artistic inspirations. How about biblical theological sources or inspirations? For this work, right?

SPEAKER_02 22:00

Yeah, so actually the liturgy itself um is I think really the beating heart of in addition to, I mean, uh scripture and liturgy go hand in hand, right? Um, and in fact, scripture finds its home most fully when it's proclaimed in the liturgy. And so the liturgy itself um is I think something it it just is present, it's omnipresent um in the structure. And so it's kind of baked into the musical. So in the liturgy, we have a very you mentioned memory and remembering things before. And so in the liturgy, we have a very specific kind of remembering. It's called anamnesis or anamnesis, depending on who your thought theology professor was. Um, I learned anamnesis first, so that's just how I pronounce it.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

Who pronounces it that way?

SPEAKER_02 22:55

David Vaggerberg. Okay. Yeah, yeah, the gentle giant himself.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yes, the ant, the great ant of Middle Earth.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

Absolutely. So anamnesis is a liturgical kind of anemnesis. It's a liturgical kind of remembering where a past event recalled becomes present. So when we celebrate the Mass, we recall the passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus. And as we remember that historic event, that event through the grace of the Spirit is made present here and now. And it has an impact on our lives and how we are called to live our lives. Um, and so this idea um really inspired the flashback moments, if you will. So um, you know, in in Act One, for example, we meet a first century BC Jewish family preparing to celebrate the Passover. And the youngest son is preparing to ask the four questions. He's kind of practicing with his dad. And in the course of their preparations for this meal, the grandparents and the parents share the stories of the Exodus and the wandering and then the manna in the desert. And as those stories are shared with the children, they come to life on another part of the stage. So we have kind of two simultaneous stories. So then in Act Two, as the apostles step out of the Last Supper scene to share their memory of a meal with Jesus, that meal comes to life. So we get to see the meal in the home of Martha and Mary. We get to see the meal in the home of Zacchaeus and the sinful woman in the home of Simon the Pharisee who anoints the feet of Jesus with her tears. We see the wedding at Cana. We see the multiplication of the loaves and the fishes, and we see how all of these meals um we see, first of all, how something that happened at the Last Supper sparked the memory in the first place. And then we also see how the apostles continue to reflect on those meals and connect them with what's happening right then and there at the Last Supper. Um so then in Act Three, when we're in Corinth, um, Paul has gathered uh a group of Corinthian Christians in the home of Priscilla and Aquila for a domestic church Sunday celebration of the Eucharist. And so he shares with them the story of the road to Emmaus. And that story unfolds. And then one of the Corinthians, you know, asks him, Well, what does it mean when Jesus says we're supposed to eat his body and drink his blood? So then that sparks a recollection of the bread of life discourse from the Capernaum synagogue. And Jesus basically comes on stage and sings almost the entirety of John 6.

SPEAKER_01 25:39

Oh my goodness.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

It's amazing. Like, I mean, it's a lot, but again, it's extra, but but it's so beautiful. And like as I sat with that text and that moment in scripture, um, you know, you think to yourself as a writer, well, I have to come up with some sort of clever way to like give this form and structure and rhyme and meter. And in the case of the bread of life discourse, actually, I realized that no one needs me to try to do a musical commentary on John 6. And that actually, what would be a better gift to the audience would be to just have Jesus sing the words of scripture. Um, which if you spend time with John 6, um, there actually is, there are phrases that come back again and again and again. I think at least three different times Jesus says, and I will raise them up on the last day, or him or it. You know, it's almost this refrain that's built into the scriptures. And I remember thinking, wow, this makes my job a lot easier. Because now I have something to hang the musical sort of hat on. Um, so that was a really that was really providential. But it's it really Jesus. Yeah, I know. I'm sure he had me in mind 2,000 years later when he was at the Capernaum Sylvia.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Let me lay down this track real quick. I know, yeah, exactly. Well, and as you're saying, the liturgy which inspires and informs the musical, but it also seems that uh participating in this musical and observing this musical may even have some work to do on us to prepare us better for the liturgy. So as we're seeing here on stage, something of this memory, anemnesis, if you will, um, performed in front of us. We're being prepared, maybe in some ways, for what we do in the liturgy when the priest says, This is my body, this is my blood. Yes, this is what Jesus said to them then, but it's what he says to us now. And it's not either or, it's both of these in the one mystery of the giving of his body, or, and you could probably speak much more eloquently about this, but the exult at uh the Easter vigil, this is the night. Yes. And then it's the recalling of all of salvation history.

SPEAKER_02 27:50

This is the day, yeah. And and we hear that all throughout scripture, and the church in her wisdom has put those scripture passages in our hearts on particular times. So I think about um Ash Wednesday, where we hear now is a very acceptable time, and on Easter Sunday, this is the day the Lord has made. So there is always that immediacy, even as it's a recollection of something that happened 2000 years ago. Um, and there's so much beauty and richness in that. And so as I've thought about, you know, trying to capture that in a musical, in addition to, you know, these sort of flashback moments where the memories come to life, um, for example, in Act Three, when Paul is consecrating the elements, Jesus comes, Jesus he comes and stands behind him on stage. And so it's this very vivid visual representation of this reality of In Persona Christi, right? Where Christ does come and Christ is walking among us. So when the Corinthians receive communion, he's walking among them. And in another number, actually, um, the exalted is referenced and the light that is divided but undimmed, and all of these things that have such um immense immediacy are present and accounted for really in in the musical.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

So you mentioned earlier you wrote musicals previously for Notre Dame Vision. The first musicals you wrote, and for those, you've written how many of them now? Twelve?

SPEAKER_02 29:16

Nine.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Nine.

SPEAKER_02 29:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:17

Uh based primarily on gospel parables and bringing those for the benefit, especially of teenagers and young adults for them to enter in a new way into the scriptures. Here, the occasion is, or the immediate occasion of this musical is the Eucharistic Revival.

SPEAKER_03 29:34

Right.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

Um, which was sort of the prompt for creating this and to offer it, especially this summer when the Eucharistic revival period sort of culminates. How do you hope that this musical and what people experience, both in performing maybe and in also in enjoying it, observing it, what do you hope that contributes to something of the revival of Eucharistic faith and reverence?

SPEAKER_02 30:02

Oh well, it's it's a really humbling thing to put something like this um in out into the world. Um but my hope is that um people will encounter these stories in a new and hopefully compelling way. Um hearing them set to music, um, you know, even seeing humor injected at different points throughout, I think um, you know there there are a lot of times when we um forget that the apostles were very human and that Jesus' disciples, you know, that Martha and Mary were like there's a moment where Jesus, you know, says to Martha as he does in Luke's gospel, there is need of only one thing. And her first response is to say dessert. And like that's how I live my life sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 31:06

But yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

But I think, you know, my hope is that for the audience members is that they'll they'll come into this um with with a heart open to seeing the scriptures in a way that perhaps they've never seen them before, and that they'll go away from it having had an encounter with the scriptures that is perhaps different from any other encounter they've ever had. And hopefully that encounter is also an encounter with the immense love that God has for them and the depth of love that is poured out for us in the gift of the Eucharist. And so maybe the next time they go to Mass, they will remember the scene with Paul and Jesus standing behind him. And they'll think to themselves, I can't see him there, but I know that Christ is present with my priest, that priest that I know. Um, and that Christ is present in me with me when I receive the Eucharist. And that I don't go out into the world alone. I am rooted in this mystery, and it's a mystery of love and transformation. Um and that I think, you know, to go back to the exult and the light, it that's how the light becomes divided and yet undimmed, um, is when we take it out there with us. And so the hope is, you know, that I don't want to give anything away. Right. My hope is that people will leave um with a little bit of that light to take with them.

SPEAKER_01 32:41

Wonderful. And it's gonna be in such a great venue. The Olafan Auditorium is just fantastic.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

It's gonna be a so excited about it.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

It's gonna be like a big week there. Because you know, the week weekend before is Jesus Christ Superstar. Yes. Two of my boys are in that. We're very proud of our eldest. He's Judas.

SPEAKER_02 32:57

It's the one instance where that's okay. Yeah, it's a great part.

SPEAKER_01 33:00

That's right. That's right. So yeah, it'll be Jesus Christ Superstar the last weekend of June, followed by Behold God's Love, a Eucharistic musical, and that's July 6th, right? 1 p.m. and 7 p.m. Well, Carolyn, uh, I think anybody listening has great anticipation for this now. We hope that many of you will be able to come, especially if you're in the South Bend area, or if you're not. Make yourself available in the South Bend area.

SPEAKER_02 33:25

That's why we're doing a matinee. We really hope that people will travel in for it. Um, and because it is aligned with the pilgrimage, yeah. You know, I think we're hoping that people will see this as its own kind of pilgrimage. That's the hope. So come pilgrims. Come pilgrims.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Come no football game that weekend, just Eucharistic uh musical. Great. Well, thank you, Carolyn, so much.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 33:44

And thanks as always to all of you for joining us on Church Life today. Hey everybody, before we go, I want to send one last word of thanks to our episode sponsor for today, Catholic Charities. Across the United States, Catholic Charities is there when you need us. When storms hit, we are there to rebuild. As neighbors age, we lighten their burdens, as veterans adjust, we ease their transitions. Help Catholic Charities serve your neighbors in need. Join us at wearethere.us.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Wearethere.us This has been a production of OSV Podcasts. To learn more, visit osvpodcasts.com.