Twenty-six years ago, Robert D. Putnam published a book entitled Bowling Alone. We still bowl alone, but now we do almost everything else alone. This morning, on my bike, I passed three Waymo self-driving Jaguars waiting meekly at a red light. In each a lone passenger was sitting beside an empty driver’s seat, staring vacantly out the windshield. How lonely and passive they looked! The Jaguar Waymos that line up for business here in San Francisco have a little ad printed on the white flank of each vehicle: “Ride Today.” What they mean is “Ride Alone Today,” because their ads promise a taxi without a taxi driver, so you can be completely alone if you wish.
 
During my morning ride, I stopped at a favorite park bench to catch my breath and check my texts. As I was staring into my screen, a tall and lanky man with his female consort approached on the dirt path. I glanced up at their approach and called out a robust “good morning!” He returned the greeting and then added, with a big smile, “I hope you have a beautiful day.” His smile warmed my heart and made me think how much we need the human touch. The human heart needs to love and be loved, to notice and to be noticed, by other human hearts. Robots can do lots of cool stuff, but they can't smile at us.

The only thing worse than staring vacantly out a window of a driverless car is staring into a little screen with flickering blue light. Produced by very clever people, the beguiling media on our screens tell us what to think, how to feel, and what to do. Like the driverless cars, our devices are controlled by faceless agents for those who surrendered at least some of their human agency. We would rather sit back and let the cars the do the driving and the screens do the thinking.

Unlike others in the animal kingdom, human persons are endowed with intellect and will. We can think and act for ourselves. As the menagerie of autonomous devices grows, however, we think and act less. But, in the long term, we are generally happier driving than being driven. We were designed to be in the driver's seat, exercising our gifts of intelligence and free will.
 
As with any new invention put up for sale, the old Latin dictum applies: caveat emptor.

​The other day I was sitting quietly in the chapel, looking at some striking poinsettias on either side of the altar. A lovely Filipina grandmother (“Lola”) placed them there, as she does all the church flowers every Friday afternoon. Lola's poinsettias reminded me of my Polish grandmother's poinsettias. My Nana would place enchanting poinsettias about her New Jersey hillside home every December. Their deep green and brilliant red leaves, so wondrously complementary, painted an enchanted forest in my imagination. Growing into adolescence with these poinsettias every Christmas, I began to marvel at how God fills the world with contrasts that manifest His burning glory: fiery red sunsets over cool blue oceans, blazing summer days following frozen winter nights, men from Mars marrying women from Venus, quantum particles describing quantum waves, yin and yang, red and green.
 
The intense red flowers that crown dark green leaves between Christmas and Epiphany, from St. Stephen’s Day to Holy Family Sunday, between the Baptism of the Holy Innocents in blood and the Baptism of Christ in water, manifest splendid opposites working together. The poinsettia’s deep green leaves, almost hidden in the bottom of the plant, remind me of my Nana’s dreamlike home in the woods, including her mysterious little brown refrigerator containing frozen eclairs, and of my own mother, whose quiet love afforded us peaceful security throughout childhood. The poinsettia’s flaming red leaves, on the other hand, convey energy and fire, risk and adventure. They portray my grandfather’s life in the traveling circus (before meeting my grandmother) and of my own father’s two years in the Second World War, his return to New Jersey, and the sprawling house he procured for his family. Dad built us a house, and Mom made it a home.
 
The woman nurtures the family’s interior life, while the man leads his children outside the home, teaching them to engage the wider world. The contrast between the poinsettia's hidden green leaves and its prominent red leaves portray the Christian home with its paired interior and exterior dimensions. The family is meant to be both ad intra and ad extra, both private and public, formed by both the mother and the father. A healthy family forms a balance of both inner-facing and outer-facing dimensions in a child's life. The tragedy of broken families, and their failure to impart both of these dimensions, partly explains the “failure to launch” of so many young people today. This is the problem, and the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph is the solution. Let the mother be Mary, and the father be Joseph, and families will build a civilization of love.

​It is a new year here in San Francisco, and the sun is shining between storms. I paddled out to Alcatraz yesterday in the driving rain and found it deserted for New Year’s Day—what a wonder to see the island inhabited only by seagulls and cormorants, as if God had just created it! Every time I get on the Bay in my kayak it’s as if I’m on the water for the first time. Life is ever new, and we must bravely resist the old man’s illness of world-weariness, of becoming a has-been, of succumbing to cynicism and boredom after a life of disappointments. With every dawn God creates anew the world, and all the waters, the heavens, and the earth that is within it. That includes world-weary travelers like you and me who must never tire of exclaiming with Jeremiah the prophet, through his tears, “God's mercies are renewed each morning” (Lamentations 3:22).
 
Twelve years ago I bought a new car, my first hybrid electric, a Toyota Prius. From the day I drove it off the lot with four miles on the odometer, it has not ceased to be a "new car.” It had that new car smell, along with bells and whistles I had never dreamed of. As the dealer said, “basically it’s a computer on wheels.” We have to give it to the Japanese: I’ve had no major problems over the last twelve years, and with all its dents and scratches (mostly caused by throwing kayaks on and off the roof), the car is still “new” to me. It’s funny how a man and a new car can grow old together but continue to regard each other with the same delight as on the day they met.
 
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob commanded his children to save themselves for marriage. We are to marry a virgin and be faithful to her through thick and thin. The Messiah went further, elevating marriage to a sacrament for life, even declaring that by the power of God the two would become one flesh. In His great love for us, God established the unbreakable bond of matrimony, in which we find our true home, both here and hereafter. More than anything else, the human heart longs for “home,” found within the irrevocable bond between husband and wife, and their children, if God so blesses them.  
 
For many in a “throw away culture,” a new year means a new woman or a new man: a resolution to get out of a troublesome relationship and find someone “better.” For others, a new year means a renewed marriage: a resolution to find God’s grace even in the troublesome aspects of an existing relationship. I recommend the second approach.
 
The Bible commands virginity before marriage. The Church teaches that God has made the human heart monogamous, happiest when we discover life and grow old together, faithful to the wife of our youth. Many, if not most, do not marry virginally, and for them there is “second virginity,” godly dedication to a second spouse. But for my eight-graders, who have not yet been disillusioned, I say: start with a brand-new car, and it will always be a new car. Be that unused vehicle for the woman you love, and she will love you all the more for being only and all for her. She will trust you, and you will grow old together, never having known anyone else. You will love each other more with each passing year. That is why God commands us to lie with no woman until we have committed ourselves, for life, all and only to her.

Yesterday was what they call “Boxing Day” in England (on St. Stephen’s Day), and tomorrow is the Feast of the Holy Family. I’ll submit some thoughts for your consideration on the Holy Family tomorrow, but today some thoughts on “Boxing Day.”
 
In the Middle Ages, the name referred to the alms boxes into which Christians would put gifts for the poor the day after Christmas. "Boxing Day" also came to mean the gift boxes employers would give to their employees on St. Stephen’s Day. In the Consumer Age, however, Boxing Day refers to the Christmas gifts that need to be “reboxed” after we return them. Big Retail guilts us into getting something as proof of our love for friends and family at Christmas, and so packages of socks, books, scarves, sweaters, sweatpants, and various other products began piling up at home. The day after Christmas is a paroxysm of “returns and exchanges” for something that might actually fit our needs. Have you seen the parking lots at shopping centers after Christmas, and the exchange lines at department stores? Boxing Day has outpaced Black Friday as the most congested day of the year!
 
One dear friend gave me a pair of gloves and five pairs of socks for Christmas. With genuine gratitude, I opened the vacuum-sealed plastic packaging (which had itself been boxed over with cardboard packaging) to discover the gloves were the wrong size and the socks were the wrong color (only black for priests, please). She took them back, which meant driving to the store again and activating shipping, repackaging, and reshipping from the main distribution center. She presented me with new vacuum-packaged socks a week later, which were not of the needed thickness (some old men have precise sartorial requirements). I told her I would just wear two of them at a time, but she insisted on returning these socks too, and a few days later I received a large box from Amazon. Within this box was a brightly-colored plastic gift bag, within which was a cardboard box, wrapped in tissue paper, within which were five pairs of socks with plastic and cardboard packaging on them: five layers of packaging from a company that proudly trumpets its care for the planet!
 
Christmas originally proposed simplicity: just a baby in a manger. God didn’t require a five star hotel or even a Motel Six: just a stable with some straw to sleep in. The greatest became the least, and He was happy, because He needed only the love of Mary and Joseph. He didn't need a quintuple-boxed package with products fabricated in Thailand and shipped across the Pacific from China, freighted across the United States in big smokey trucks from distribution centers worked day and night by wage slaves, and delivered in shiny Amazon trucks by people of color working three jobs. Next year, try not to buy into Big Retail. The best gift you can give those you love is not found on the internet or in the mall. It doesn’t have to shipped from across the planet. Just a card, handwritten with love, goes a lot farther than a piece of plastic ordered online.
 
But, dear friends, if you insist on giving your priest something at Christmas, may I suggest making a donation to my parish school? Stella Maris Academy spends a million dollars a year educating San Francisco’s poorest children, shoulder to shoulder with the city's most gifted students, and they become best friends. I am so edified to see the wealthier families  of my school supporting the poorer families without a hint of patronizing. Even with this magnificent generosity, however, our annual shortfall is still around $500,000.

​If you want to make me happy at Christmas, buy a table or a ticket to our School Gala, which is on January 31. Fr. Donald Calloway will be our keynote speaker, and a renaissance music group will provide lighthearted entertainment. If you can’t attend that night, buy a ticket or a table for parents that cannot afford a ticket. You can get tickets or tables HERE. You won’t feel guilty for having shipped a triple-boxed piece of plastic from China (or gorgeous merino wool from New Zealand) to a man who already has everything. You can help save the planet by helping educate our future leaders, right here in San Francisco, at the City's finest elementary school.

I began the day with a 6am Rorate Caeli, the traditional Advent sung Mass of Our Lady, with the altar illuminated by a hundred candles. I couldn’t see the hundred pilgrims in our dark and cavernous church behind me, but at Holy Communion a second priest appeared from the shadows to help administer the Sacrament. God sends assistance when and where it is needed, often without prior notification, and that has certainly proved true for our parish school.
 
By 8:30am, our school choir was preparing for the next Mass with Hassler’s Dixit Maria. I could hardly believe our rag-tag second and third graders could deliver one of the world’s apogees of Christian beauty with such precision! I wondered if I were in heaven or on earth.
 
Hassler put to music the words of Luke 1:28: “The Angel said unto Mary, behold….” And Mary said unto the Angel, “let it be done unto me according to every word God has spoken.” Christmas is the annual remembrance of that moment in history, when God stepped into time at the invitation of a maiden from Nazareth. Thus did Mary conceive a child and, after some months, bring Him into our world.
 
On Wednesday night our two classical schools—primary and secondary—sang their annual Christmas concert. Again, one can scarcely believe that poor children from the barrios can deliver the best classical music to our little school stage. The preschoolers, however, with their somewhat off-key lisping’s, legs and arms twittering about, got the most robust cheers for their guileless enthusiasm over the baby Jesus. The school Christmas concert must be the most delightful hour of the entire parish year, attended tearfully by atheists and believers alike, captivated by the gift of their own children.
 
Seven years ago my parish school closed, as have not a few in San Francisco over the years. I had to decide whether to let the school remain closed or try to restart it with a new vision. To reopen the school, after the trauma of its closure, would cost unknown hours of planning, marketing, and hiring, not to mention several construction jobs. It would cause me and others many sleepless nights and associated health problems. It would cost the parish, and ourselves personally, millions of dollars. I had to decide whether a Catholic school was worth all of that, and whether I was able to make a parochial school the single most important work of my parish. My closest advisor argued against it, saying simply “can any pastor or parish be expected to put this much into a project that will mostly benefit people from outside of the parish?” I began to think of the parish school as a missionary project, not unlike drilling a well in Burundi or building a road in Patagonia. Yes, I decided, my parish had the resources and inspiration to build a classical Catholic school in San Francisco.
 
By God’s grace, Stella Maris Academy is flourishing in its fifth year, but really, in its 116th year. When Fr. O’Ryan (from County Tipperary) opened Star of the Sea School in January of 1909, he was so discouraged by the initial enrollment (50 students) that he almost left the parish to become a miliary chaplain. But some convinced him to stay the course, just as some convinced me seven years ago to restart the school in 2021 with fifty-four students. Both Father O’Ryan and I have come to see that a Catholic school, after the sacraments themselves, is the parish’s most important apostolate. After teaching my first theology class on Wednesday to the seventh and eighth graders, I felt so elated that I wanted to leave the parish and become a teacher! But, of course, it is precisely in this parish that this school flourishes.

The patron saint of priests opened a boarding school for poor girls in his parish, which he called La Providence. St. John Vianney had not the necessary funds, but he trusted in God’s providence and named his school accordingly. That has been my experience as well: God has provided the money and energy to continue Fr. O’Ryan’s original inspiration (he opened Star of the Sea School within eight months of his arrival in 1908). The parochial school is simply the best project a parish can accomplish, the joy of its priests and parents, and we should not give up on our Catholic schools.

Most of us over age 50 have watched in fascination as a younger person, deprived of his or her mobile device, begins to tremble and shake. Thankfully, "lost phone syndrome," also known as nomophobia ("no mobile phobia"), does not last long. A person quickly recovers, and the students at our Catholic schools here in San Francisco, who have to surrender their cellphones each morning at the school office, have adapted quite well to a phoneless school day.
 
I lost my phone the day after Thanksgiving, before I could reply to the dozens of texts from friends wishing me a happy holiday. Today is my birthday, and for all of you who may be texting good wishes on the anniversary of my mother’s great labor, I’m sorry that I cannot respond. My phone is somewhere in the great beyond, and I’m awaiting a replacement.
 
God took my phone from me, no doubt, to detach me from my screen addiction, even if only for a week or so. But the occasion also prompted my liberation from Verizon wireless, into which I’ve been putting $85 a month for the last ten years. I’m finally declaring my freedom from Big Cell and going with a smaller company. I’ve already switched to Charity Mobile, which provides the same data, talk, and text for a third of what Verizon charges. Charity uses the same cell tower network as Verizon, so why does Verizon charge so much more? The answer: Verizon spent $4 billion on advertising last year, and this year it will spend $12 billion in “customer investment” worldwide (according to Google’s AI). How accurate that is I do not know, but I do know that I’m paying two thirds less for the same service. When I called Charity Mobile’s helpline I talked with a real person on the third ring, a nice young man who ended our call with “God bless you.” Compare that with Big Cell’s 20-minute wait times and endless artificially-generated voices redirecting you to other artificial voices and various promotions. Then there is Verizon’s heavy financial commitment to transgender and other woke ideologies….
 
I’m glad I lost my phone, although I wouldn’t want to do it every month. Life has been a little more quiet, at least for a few days, and I’m sorry I cannot respond to the texts and calls of the many kind people who wish me well.

“Religion” has a bad name these days, but since it’s my life’s work, allow me to defend it. The word religio in Latin means “to reconnect,” from the root word “ligare.” The word we use for our “ligaments,” those essential bodily connections between bone and muscle, comes from the same root word as “religon.” We wouldn’t be able to walk without healthy ligaments, and without healthy religion, we would not be able to walk to heaven, or even to a neighbor’s home to bring a bit of good cheer.
 
Most people think of today’s holiday as a “civic” or “secular” holiday, and that it certainly is. It was established by George Washington, a decidedly civic leader. But he who was arguably our best president and the father of our country established this national holiday as a holyday, a day of religious observance and prayer to God. Let me cite his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789:
 
WHEREAS, It is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favor; WHEREAS, Both the houses of Congress have, by their joint committee, requested me “to recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to establish a form of government for their safety and happiness:” Now, therefore, I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be … and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech Him to pardon our national and other transgressions….”
 
Not only does our founding president direct us to give thanks to God, but he also urges us to supplicate His mercy for our sins.
 
Every year the President of the United States makes a Thanksgiving proclamation. How about this one from arguably the second greatest president, A. Lincoln. In his Thanksgiving proclamation of 1863, he directs us to beg God’s mercy even as we thank Him for our manifold blessings:
 
In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, … needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plough, the shuttle or the ship … population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege and the battlefield.… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People….
 
And then there are these words from the presidential proclamation of 1925, Calvin Coolidge’s Thanksgiving address 100 years ago:

The season approaches when, in accordance with a long-established and respected custom, a day is set apart to give thanks to Almighty God… Now, therefore, I, Calvin Coolidge, President of the United States, do hereby set apart a day of general thanksgiving and prayer…
 
The “long-established and respected custom” is for the leader of this nation to “set aside” (which comes from the Latin verb to sanctify) a new Thanksgiving Day each year by presidential decree. Joe Biden did that in 2024, and Donald Trump just did it in 2025. The presidential proclamations have become less overtly religious since Washington, Lincoln, and Coolidge, but they remain essentially “sacred” in the literal sense of “setting aside” a day from work in order to give thanks (to whom?).
 
Contrary to popular legend, Americans do not in fact pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. Someone else gave us the boots, along with the straps, and someone else helps us lift ourselves up. The early presidents called that Someone “God” or “The Almighty,” and Thanksgiving was certainly established as a religious holiday. It is a civic holiday, yes, but it is religious too, because the best of our presidents were smart enough to know that we did not make ourselves. All we have, we have been given, for which we are grateful.

Every so often I should show you, my good readers, what is transpiring in my corner of San Francisco. Some say Star of the Sea parish and school is a delightful Catholic bubble in a City mostly expunged of religion. In fact, there is a good amount of right religion flourishing in my City, even if the Narrative Controllers (may I adduce the usual suspects in our mainstream media?) don’t speak about it, God bless them!


​Our annual Walk for Life West Coast, for example, draws 40,000 people to joyfully celebrate God’s gift of human life, all along Market Street from City Hall to the Ferry Building.
​
Two weeks ago about a hundred of us followed five SFPD cruisers and five SPFP motorcycles along the City’s second biggest thoroughfare (Geary Boulevard) from the Cathedral to the parish. Fr. Javier and I held aloft the Blessed Sacrament, which brought smiles and bows from onlookers on streets and in apartment buildings. The police officers were no less joyful to be protecting such a procession.

​Last Wednesday 250 young professionals met in debate on the question “Will Christianity Destroy the West?” One of Silicon Valley’s finest, Aditya Prathap, set up this Hamiliton Society to bring in speakers from across the country who debate the Bay Area’s brightest in social and philosophical conversations, which meets in our school auditorium monthly.

Earlier that same day, I had journeyed with our 8th graders through the Presidio praying the rosary for the souls of veterans who have lived and died in the service of our country. We prayed at San Francisco’s only remaining public cemetery, presiding serenely above the Golden Gate Bridge.

Every two weeks, a group of young adults brings food, coats, and prayers to the poorest of the poor on our streets, and, let me tell you, they are very well received! The homeless of San Francisco love to pray, and we love to spend time with them.

In February, a young Croatian who had been part of our young adults ten years ago was ordained to the priesthood and offered one of his first Masses at the parish, assisted by our school’s altar boys.

In March, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke preached at the 25th anniversary of a Hong Kong Cardinal (Ignatius Kung) who spent 30 years in prison for resisting government suppression of his church. In March of 2000, he had lain in state at my parish before being buried in Santa Clara. The last picture below is Cardinal Burke blessing one of our larger and more … ahem … winningly energetic Asian families, the redoubtable Dumlao clan.

Those are a few of my favorite things from this past year, all bright and beautiful blessings from the hand of the Almighty. The faith is alive and well here!

That word—“codependence”—is a boogeyman, a Halloween ghoul that lurks in the shadows of every friendship. “Is my friend edging into a codependent relationship with me?” we worry. “Is she using me, manipulating my freedom, abusing my generosity, controlling me?”

The magazine Psychology Today defines “codependency” as “a dysfunctional relationship dynamic where one person assumes the role of ‘the giver,’ sacrificing their own needs and well-being for the sake of the other, ‘the taker.’” Hmmmm. That sounds a lot like motherhood to me, or caring for an elderly parent, or for that matter God’s relationship with me….

To be fair, Psychology Today clarifies further: “Healthy relationships are mutually beneficial, providing love and support to both parties.” That is usually true, but there are situations where, at least for a time, one party simply cannot contribute anything to the other party. What can a newborn provide for his mother? What can an infant give to anyone, except the simple gift of his or her own being? God puts into parents a love for their completely dependent child, such that the newborn’s sheer act of existence is more than enough to provide Psychology Today’s “mutually beneficial” requirement. So it is with God and the creature: I can provide nothing for God, but He loves me simply for what I am rather than what I do.

Leah Libresco has a new book, The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto, in which she argues that dependence on another is fundamental to our humanity. To be absolutely independent is not only inhuman but impossible, when you think about it. Females generally understand this better than men, and women naturally engage the great good of—I don’t say “co-dependence,” but--mutual dependence. We call this mutual dependency a relationship. Most women are more “relational” than men, understanding and delighting in interpersonal dynamics, human emotions, and self-giving. The female body and the female psyche are wired to engage and help others flourish, from their own children to an orphaned kitten. Parish priests, who work closely with thousands of people over their lives, see women doing this kind of thing day in and day out. It is the women of the parish who cook meals for others, who drive the elderly to Mass and doctors’ appointments, who babysit others’ children so their parents can go to the symphony, who listen patiently to young people’s problems, who bandage a child’s scraped knee or clean up after a homeless person has an accident in church. Men, on the other hand, have other gifts….

The Catholic Church, in her 3000 years’ experience in human and divine relationships, understands how mutual dependency works. Catholic “logos” or “trademarks” communicate this. The Church’s primary symbol is the cross, which is the intersection of a vertical and a horizontal bar, heaven and earth, God and man. The point of contact between these two independent bars, the vertical and the horizontal, marks the heart of Christ, his love for humanity. But the Church uses another symbol of human co-dependency, more immediately obvious and heartwarming than the cross: Mother and Child. The most compelling and consoling image of the interpersonal dependency of love is that of Mary with her little Boy. To the secular world, which prizes and strives for absolute independence and free choice, the Church holds up the Mother and Child: Jesus depending on Mary, and Mary depending on Jesus. Ultimately, this will become the pietà, a woman cradling her dead son beneath the Cross. Only the Mother and Child fully portrays an accurate anthropology: that we are made for relationship with others, in mutual dependency. Solitary confinement is the worst of all punishments, as every prison warden will tell you.
​





​Next week my parish will hold a “Eucharistic Rosary Conference,” spending eight days in prayer with Jesus and Mary. The centerpiece will be a Eucharistic Procession from the San Francisco Cathedral to Star of the Sea Church, praying the rosary along the way. The Archbishop will offer a Solemn High Pontifical Mass upon our arrival at the parish, uniting heaven and earth, Jesus and Mary, in one sacrifice of praise. The procession and Mass will be the highest and fullest expression of our humanity, in relationship to God and each other, Jesus and Mary.

Ten years ago I got into hot water for arguing that Catholic altar server programs can be restricted to boys only. I was excoriated for excluding girls from altar service, even for “hating” the female sex, and I replied with the Vatican statement itself that first permitted girls to serve the Mass. The 1994 document from the Congregation for Divine Worship allows altar girls, but then says “at the same time, however, the Holy See wishes to recall that it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar. As is well known, this has led to a reassuring development of priestly vocations. Thus the obligation to support such groups of altar boys will always continue.” This vague statement is a lamentable example of more recent “Vaticanspeak:” communicating uncertainty, at best unclear and at worst maintaining two contradictory positions to keep everybody happy. Should we reserve altar service to boys or not? Are boys-only programs good or bad? This document clearly says, even while allowing altar girls, that the Church is also obligated to support altar boy-only programs because it is “a noble tradition” and “as is well known” fosters priestly vocations. But if a priest actually does what the Vatican recommends, he will be marginalized by most of the Church, which has been my experience and that of many other priests.

Anyway, we developed a flourishing altar boy program at Star of the Sea parish, while also providing other programs for girls. And, “as is well known,” many priestly vocations have come from the parish since then (most of them going into religious orders). Until we opened a Classical Catholic School at the parish, most of my servers were young men rather than boys, many of them tech professionals looking for a more traditional parish. With the opening of a Classical school, however, many more young boys are serving at the altar. Some of them even serve the 7am Mass, making Latin responses in cassock and surplice before most of their classmates have even made it out of bed. God bless them.

As I watch these young boys, I begin to understand why putting boys at the altar from the third grade leads many to the priesthood. There is narrow window, say between the ages of eight and ten, when boys are full of wonder. They want to know everything, captivated by every mystery life presents. This wonder is the essence of the priestly vocation: to peer into infinity through finite sacramentals, to glimpse eternity in a half hour Mass. Boys of this age want to see everything that I’m doing with the chalice, the books, the wine, the water, and the incense. If I purify a ciborium near the sacrarium, the boys will rush over and stand on tip toes to see how I do it. When I set colored ribbons in the missal before Mass, they are right beside me asking why. If I bless the incense in Latin they want to know what the words mean. If I choose one chasuble over another they inspect the other colors and ask why gold and not green. I am filled with wonder at how these boys begin to grasp the intricacies of liturgical splendor. Their fascination for the Holy Mass will lead those who are called to the priesthood. For those who are not called to the priesthood, altar service gives them an irrevocable love for the Eucharist as fathers of families.

​Good fathers are in short supply these days, and service at the altar is exceptional training for fatherhood. The boys need this fraternity, this focus on higher things, to become the men God that has called them to be. It is the wonder in these boys’ faces that convinces me of the necessity to continue the “noble tradition of having boys serve at the altar.”