Veil + Armour: Catholic Feminine Genius in Motherhood, Family & Holy through One Another

23. The Gift of the Rosary and the Heart of A Saint is coming to Ontario! with Father Peter Turrrone

Season 1 Episode 23

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For this episode, Laura Salem, Videographer/Photographer/Owner of In His Image Photo & Film Inc. is our special correspondent. Laura spoke with Father Peter Turrone, Pastor of Holy Rosary Parish in midtown Toronto.

Today, Oct. 31, at Noon (ET), there will be Holy Mass to start events related to the relic pilgrimage stop of the soon-to-be canonized Blessed Carlo Acutis in midtown Toronto at Holy Rosary Parish today.

The relic tour is being organized by Catholic Christian Outreach, Throneway music arts ministry, Holy Rosary Parish in Toronto (Oct. 31), St. Josephine Bakhita Parish in Missisauga (Nov. 1) and Notre Dame Basilica Cathedral in Ottawa (Nov. 2)

For more details, please visit:
https://cco.ca/2024/10/blessed-carlo-...

My article about the relic pilgirimage in The Catholic Register is here:
https://www.catholicregister.org/item...

You can reach Laura here:
@inhisimage_@laurasalem (Instagram)
https://www.instagram.com/@inhisimage

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Sheila Nonato:

Hello and welcome to the Veil and Armour podcast. This is your host, Sheila Nonato. I'm a stay-at-home mom and a freelance Catholic journalist, Seeking the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the inspiration of Our Lady. I strive to tell stories that inspire, illuminate and enrich the lives of Catholic women, to help them in living out our vocation of raising the next generation of leaders and saints.

Co-Host:

Please join us every week on the Veil and Armor podcast, where stories come alive through a journalist's lens and mother's heart.

Sheila Nonato:

Hello friends, the heart of a saint is coming to Toronto today, October 31st, on the eve of All Saints Day or All Hallows Eve. Let's make Halloween holy again. We have an exciting announcement today, which I recently reported on for The Catholic Register newspaper in Toronto, and it is appropriate that the relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis is coming during the month of the Holy Rosary, because Blessed Carlo Acutis was very close to the Eucharist and to Our Lady. Let's listen to Laura Salem's interview with Fr Peter Turrone, pastor of Holy Rosary Parish, which will host a relic, starting today with a noon Mass and there will also be veneration and then an evening Mass and for more details please check out Catholic Christian Outreach's website and the relic will then travel on November 1st for an All Saints' Day Mass at St Josephine Bikita in Mississauga, in addition to public veneration and a youth event at 6.30pm in the evening.

Sheila Nonato:

The parishes also have a website with information and I will link my article if you needed that information as well. And yes, I'm just excited to bring you this interview. Thank you to Laura Salem, videographer and photographer of In His Image, Photo and Film Inc. And I really appreciate your help on this one. Thank you again, Laura, and let's hear what Father Tronis has to say about the rosary and about the special relic. Thank you and God bless.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Come, Holy Spirit, and fill the hearts of thy faithful and a kindle within them the fire of thy love. Support thy spirit and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, jesus.

Laura Salem:

Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Saint Michael the Archangel pray for us. Blessed Carlo Acutis pray for us. Saint Cosmas and Damian pray for us. Canadian Martyrs, pray for us, father.

Laura Salem:

Son, Holy Spirit, amen, All right, well. Well, thank you, Father, for sitting down with us again. Um. The last time that sheila and I saw you, it was for Tammy's confirmation, and so I think it's very fitting that the theme for today is also the Holy Rosary, which most of the questions are about holy rosary. So the first one is what is Holy Rosary Parish doing for the month of the Holy Rosary this october?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Very good, okay, so well, the rosary is part of our devotional life 365 days a year, but for the month of October what we're doing is we are praying the Navina to Our Lady of the Holy Rosary and because the parish patronal feast would fall on a Monday, which is the 7th, we have the bishop's permission to be able to move it to the 6th. So on the Sunday, october the 6th, we're going to have our patronal feast, so all the masses will be Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, and then we'll have a parish celebration afterwards and Agape, which takes place in the parish hall.

Laura Salem:

Oh Wow, oh beautiful. Is there any activities that are associated with the school for Holy Rosary?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Well, there will be the blessing of all the classrooms. So I go visit the classes, I see the school. I would see the whole school every two weeks for catechesis, so we'll have something on the rosary then, and then they'll have the blessing of the different classrooms. So I'll go by with Holy Water and bless the children in the rooms oh, that's so beautiful.

Laura Salem:

That's awesome. Do you receive a lot of comments about the rosary from young kids?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Um, they want to know, uh, basically like, why we pray the Rosary and it's a very important prayer. Um, it's, it's a ladder to heaven, right, it's what links us to God and to the Virgin Mary. So they've had the blessing of having some women from the Rosary League that have gone there, so they've taught the children how to pray the rosary. And I have to say it's quite impressive when you're in a gym and you have the entire school there and each one child is praying a Hail Mary and then placing a flower Right, so they make this big rosary in the center of the gymnasium.

Laura Salem:

It's quite impressive. That's so sweet. I think it's very powerful too when you have little voices saying Hail Mary all together, yeah.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

There's something special about the prayers of children. They have a special way of touching god's heart. In fact, whenever there were crises in the in the world, in the church, the popes traditionally would ask the children to pray. So so and that's something, and god knows, we're in in many crises in the world today, so it's very important that always encouraging them to pray, that's the rosary, yeah.

Laura Salem:

If a young person came to you and said oh, the rosary, yeah. If a young person came to you and said, oh, the rosary is so long, it's so boring, what would you say to them?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Okay, you know what St Therese of Lisieux. She struggled with it as well. So it's okay to struggle praying the rosary. I think that once you realize that you're praying with the Virgin Mary and you're praying to a woman who loves you deeply, who's your mother, and she's praying with you to the Lord, I think that explaining it in that way it's helpful. And then also, I find that having a scriptural basis is also helpful, because otherwise you can be saying the prayers but you don't have a specific passage to anchor it in. So I find that that's helpful for children and myself as an adult. When we pray the rosary, for example, for we have the daily rosary, but on Sundays, when we have like a special mass again, for for october, we have the scriptural Rosary, so there's a scriptural passage after each Hail, Mary and stuff.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

So yeah it takes longer. It takes longer, but at least maybe read a passage at the beginning of the mystery. I think that's helpful.

Laura Salem:

Especially with the visual visualizations as well. It's probably helpful for the kids.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

They'll put, they'll put a PowerPoint. I've seen people put up PowerPoints with images and things and the kids really like that.

Co-Host:

I mean, I don't like it too.

Laura Salem:

Yes, we're, yes, we're, we need to see things. Yeah, we're incarnate beings, so it's good to see something. Yeah, very tangible, very tangible and relatable, exactly exactly, oh, awesome. Could you tell us about what the holy rosary means to you personally?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

to myself. Well, coming back to the Church, one of the first things I was introduced to was the rosary. So a good friend of mine has a strong devotion to our lady and so I didn't know how to pray the rosary. So so a good friend of mine has a strong devotion to Our Lady and so I didn't know how to pray the rosary, so she patiently taught me how to pray it, and then I realized that the rosary, again, is a very biblical prayer. It's the gospel, it's an abbreviated form of the gospel. So you're meditating on the life of Jesus, from the incarnation all the way up to the resurrection, and then what awaits all those who love him.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

So I find the Rosary a powerful prayer, again, because I'm reflecting on scriptures every day when I do that and I'm talking to my mother, my spiritual mother, the Virgin Mary, and I find that it's a great way of bringing all the prayers of the needs of the community, of the universal church, specific intentions, what's happening in the world. It's a way of bringing all these prayers together collectively and then again presenting them to God through his mother. So I find it, I make an effort every day to pray the full rosary. I may not be able to pray it all together, but I'll pray one mystery in the morning and then try to pray the rest of the mysteries in the afternoon or evening.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Oh, that's really good yeah so I find it very important and I've recognized, I've seen with my own eyes many graces coming from that. So I would recommend it if you can do it, especially when you're driving. I find that before I used to get stressed out when I was driving. There's so much traffic in the city, but I try to turn my car into a little place of prayer. So I'll pray the rosary, or you can also go on YouTube and you can pray the rosary with others. So one of favorite is benedict the 16th, when he um, there's all of the mysteries, all four sets of mysteries, in latin. So it's a way also to practice my latin oh, that's good yeah so there's all different types dual purpose.

Laura Salem:

Yeah, there you go. That's awesome, that's really cool. So did you so? Holy rosary, parish was not your first assignment as a priest.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

No, my first assignment was our Mother of Mercy parish in Mongolia, in the Gobi Desert.

Laura Salem:

So not even in Canada. No, it was a tent.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

That was my first. I was the associate pastor For 12 people and then 50 people. The majority were Buddhists that were coming there. They loved the church so they would come and pray.

Laura Salem:

So was this your first parish in Canada.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

No, my first parish in Canada as a priest. So I was helping out at St Andrews and then from there I was appointed associate pastor and that was at St Clair in Woodbridge. I was there for two and a half years beautiful parish. I was responsible for 10 schools, so thousands of kids and then from there I went to the Newman Center. I was there for five years and then I've been here just over three years.

Laura Salem:

Okay, did you find it providential when God called you to specifically Holy Rosary Parish and I was given this

Fr. Peter Turrone:

beautiful statue which was made by three artisans over the course of one year in Portugal, and so I was given the statue as a gift years ago, and so I placed Our Lady's statue in the sanctuary just off on the side. And so when I'm praying and I see a lot of people coming in, I see that there are many people that like to go and very reverent, so they'll go to the Lord and then they'll go to the statue of Our Lady and there's a sense of closeness to her. There's something the statue seems almost alive. You know it's a statue but it seems alive, and so, seeing the people and the devotion, especially when they're praying, they'll look at the statue of Our Lady.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

We have another beautiful one in the Mary's Chapel, but it's all the same color because it's all natural wood, so, and it's also very far away because it's it's um, there's the railing that's there, um, so having that statue there helps to kind of like redirect one's attention to what you're doing and um, so as a consequence of that, I decided to to give the statue to the parish. I did that on august, the 15th of this year.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Oh, yeah, so it was hard to do, but I. But I did it because she wants to stay here.

Laura Salem:

Yeah, this is her home, this is her home.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

And then again when you're praying and then you see the statue. It's just, it's, it's quite remarkable. Like I said, it's just a statue. Yeah.

Laura Salem:

Yeah, and I think this church, too, has the uniqueness of having the three altars of St Joseph, the main altar and Mother Mary as well. Exactly, yeah.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

And they're just beautiful. But then you have again the closeness of faithfully praying the rosary during adoration. Our Lord is there, and then we know that the Virgin Mary is present at every mass with the saints. But to be able to see that statue that's there is also very comforting as well. I think she brings a lot of consolation to many people, which is also why she's called. She has many titles, and one of which is Our Lady of Consolation.

Laura Salem:

Is that the name of Our Lady that you're closest to? Would you say?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Well, I was with an institute called Consolata Missionary, so under the title of Our Lady of Consolation, and that image is found in Turin at the Consolata Shrine. So it's very beautiful and she has this kind of very gentle demeanor, as she always does. So I would say the Virgin Mary. Is there one particular title? I think consolation is important, because where is the consolation she's giving us Jesus? He's our consolation and stuff. So she's always giving the Lord to us.

Laura Salem:

Yeah, that's really beautiful. I don't know if you kind of touched upon this, but has there been a miracle either in your own life or in a parishioner's life, or something that you've experienced that has to do with mother mary?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Um, oh, I would say there's probably many of them. Okay, so there was one one in my own life. Um, so when I was, when my mother was giving birth to me, she had serious, she was having a lot of complications, and years later I had gone to visit a priest, and so him and then this other woman, two separate people that didn't know each other, when we were praying so God has gifted them with certain charisms and they both said that Our Lady had intervened at that moment in my life and stuff. So I thought that was quite powerful. But even coming back to the Church and like as soon as I started to pray the Rosary, sensing strongly Our Lady's, like her presence in my life, and the things were kind of like coming together and then discovering my vocation through the Virgin Mary.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

So, that's how I discovered my calling. So that's one example. And then there are many people like people praying rosary, having changes in the in their, in their family life. One particular Novena that they love praying is the Undoer of Knots. So I remember one of our students had serious problems in her family and then she started praying at the third day. Um, I think everything just kind of came together like that, that that knot in her life was healed. Yeah, I think I mean there are many of them.

Laura Salem:

Many of them.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

And it's always our lady's, always trying to bring us closer to Jesus and she's teaching us how to follow her son. I mean, after all, the church. When the church uh proposes, uh, the, the ideal Christian. It's not a pope or a bishop, or a pope or a bishop or a priest, uh, it's a woman, it's the virgin mary. Yeah. So we all aspire, we look to her to see how to, how to best follow christ a couple summers ago I was a totus to his missionary with the Archdiocese of Toronto.

Co-Host:

Yeah, we had them here.

Laura Salem:

Oh, no, way, they're awesome it was such a good experience, especially, they tell you, as a missionary. They're like you know, the campus for the kids.

Laura Salem:

But it's, it's a bigger impact as a missionary because you're, I think, you receive more from the kids than they do from us absolutely, and one of the biggest teachings that we had with them was to jesus through mary, which is like the phrase that um Saint Pope John Paul II created, um Totus Tuus, and I think it was. It was just really special to see how, how easily the kids could relate to jesus when they thought about mary first, yeah, um, and I think as adults too. The same applies, where a lot of people are able to be more open to jesus when they understand, like, mary's role.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

I absolutely agree with that. There's there's the Petrine ministry, the Petrine dimension, which is the clerical state, and then there's the Marian dimension, and so St John Paul talked about this in his, in his Petrine ministry, and I think that there are a lot of people today, for for different reasons not all of them are justified where they're afraid to approach the church. Or at times, some of us priests may not have been the best reflection of the merciful Father and therefore they're hesitant to approach the church. But there's something about the Virgin Mary that Mary reveals the merciful. I mean, she's a woman, she's not God, she's not divine, but she reveals the tenderness of God, so she reveals the heart of God. And I think that many people that come to the church, they're different apparition sites or alleged apparition sites, where people are coming back to the church, coming back to God because of Mary.

Co-Host:

Yeah.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

So her role I mean I tell people all this, tell them this all the time is that her role didn't end with Christ's first coming. She's instrumental in his second coming as well.

Laura Salem:

Oh wow, I haven't used those. And I think too, as Catholics, it's easy for us to understand Mary's role in Catholicism, but for non-Catholics, I think a lot of the time they see the Holy Rosary as almost being at odds with worshiping God and it's like, well, why wouldn't you just go straight to Jesus? Why would you talk to Mary? Do you worship Mary? Like all of these kinds of things. Could you clarify and explain what the practice and traditions of the Holy Rosary is?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

to those who are not aware of it. Sure, Well, I mean, Jesus needed Mary, so if he needed her, so why shouldn't we? And, as I said, the Church has understood that Mary was instrumental in Christ's first coming, so she had to give her yes, that's not an insignificant thing. I mean the fact that she was immaculately conceived God knows who's outside of time that, because Mary's going to say "es, she was given this role and her role again is to bring Christ into the world for the first coming. But as a mother, she's constantly interceding on behalf of the church and the world, constantly interceding on behalf of the church and the world, as she was doing at the cross. I mean, the Lord was on the verge of death, so he had to put all of his weight on his feet to push himself up to speak, and what he wanted to say, as he said to Mary, was behold your son and, as he says to the beloved disciple, behold your mother. So if he's given us Mary as a mother, then we have the responsibility to understand why. So Mary, she's our mother, who continually intercedes for us.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

And even in Scripture, when you look at the Book of Revelation, the church reads scripture on multiple levels. So we see the woman with the 12 stars as the church, but we also see her as Mary. That's why very often we see statues of Mary with the 12 stars. So they represent 12 apostles, the 12 tribes of Israel. So she's constantly there and she's bringing new children into the world, right For the father. So if the had need for Mary and if she has this ongoing role again that the Lord doesn't want us to, Mary's not the end of our worship. We don't worship Mary, but Mary helps us to worship God more deeply and more authentically. So I would say I would say that, but and I mean, if we're asking our friends, members of the church who are sinners, to pray for us, why would we not ask God's mother to pray for us? Because the connection between us and the mystical body of saints is quite profound, Even if we don't necessarily, we don't see generally see those that are in purgatory or those that are in Heaven.

Laura Salem:

Yeah, I think one of my favourite things um statements I guess I don't even know if it's a statement is um potentially, I don't know, I actually don't know, but it's. It's someone that said, when you pray, like if you need something from jesus, ask mary, because jesus or mary can't. Jesus can't say no to his Mother Mary, yeah, yeah is that Fulton Sheen?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Um, you know, I don't, I don't remember, but I'm pretty sure he did say something very similar to that, because he also said that mary's the neck that connects us between between the head, her son and the mystical body.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

So she's got it. She has a very important role she's given to us. She's not we don't worship mary. Uh, the the closer. So mary wants us to be closer to her son, right to worship the trinity as she does. She teaches us humility, she teaches us obedience and trust. And Mary was a woman of profound faith. Nothing came easy for her. She had to see. When she saw Jesus dying on the cross, her heart was pierced as well. So spiritually, she suffered tremendously. And think about it. You ask a mother like I was just at the hospital and so I went to visit two kids, so, and the boys are suffering and they may not completely understand what's happening, but when you see the mother and the father, their suffering is profound to see their own children suffer so and so. So Mary's suffering on the spiritual realm is is also very profound, yeah, so speaking of Fulton Sheen, though you reminded me, um, from the book uh, world's first love.

Laura Salem:

I believe there was a chapter that talked about it. Asked the question who does jesus look? Speaking of Fulton Sheen, though, you reminded me from the book World's First Love, I believe there is a chapter that talked about it. Asked the question who does Jesus look like when Jesus was born? Who does he look like? Is it God?

Laura Salem:

Is it Mary, is it whoever? And the way that he kind of described it was he was saying how Jesus got his human qualities from Mother Mary and his divine qualities from God the Father, and so I think that was also a very tangible visual representation too of Mary's role in Jesus' life that he still got like he had DNA from Mother Mary.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

That's right. That's why a lot of the images traditionally, where you see the Sacred Heart and the Immaculate Heart, that Jesus looks very similar to the Virgin Mary because he takes all of his DNA his is, uh, human flesh from mary yeah it makes sense, so that's why they always look so similar which is cool.

Laura Salem:

You never think of it that way, because they're like such holy figures that you don't actually realize they have human qualities as well, so it's really cool. That's right, um, okay, so kind of diverting into another topic, I have heard through the grapevine that there is a special event that's happening at the end of October.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

Yes.

Laura Salem:

There is a specific relic that is coming.

Laura Salem:

That's right, could you?

Laura Salem:

describe who it is.

Fr. Peter Turrone:

It's the heart relic of Blessed Carlo Acutis. We have a strong devotion to him here in the parish. His mother came to speak to the school about a year and a half ago, and so we're very blessed to have that experience. So we're going to have his heart relic here at Holy Rosary on October 31st.

Laura Salem:

How does one get a heart relic?

Fr. Peter Turrone:

That's a good question. Well, he's buried in Assisi, so it's the archdiocese of Assisi that, at some point during the preparation for the funeral I don't know how they did it his exhumation that they took. They have the relic there, yeah. That's cool For veneration. Yeah, oh, that's cool.

Sheila Nonato:

Thank you very much to Laura Salem, videographer and photographer of In His Image Photo and Film Inc. For that interview. I really appreciate your help on that one, friends. I was on my way to interview Father Turrone and then I heard a noise coming from the car and I had to exit the highway and then go back to the mechanic and I just didn't realize it then. But one of the brakes had, I guess had failed so it had to be repaired. But thankfully Laura was able to interview Father Turrone for me For Veil and Armour and she did an awesome job! Thank you so much. We will have part two of the interview with Father Cherone and Laura about the significance of Blessed Carlo Acutis to youth and to all Catholics of any age. Thank you so much. God bless and till next time.

Sheila Nonato:

Thank you for listening to the Valent Armor podcast.

Co-Host:

I invite you to share this with another Catholic mom today. Please subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channel and please spread the word. Let's Be Brave, let's Be Bold and Be Blessed together.

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