A few days before I was ordained to the priesthood at age 29, I spent a night in prayer at my home parish of Our Lady of the Visitation in Shippensburg, Pennsylvania. It was something young men used to do before becoming a knight, and I certainly wanted to become a knight of Our Lady, for Christ.
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Today, the last day of May, we celebrate the Feast of Our Lady of the Visitation, recalling that Mary, just after she had conceived the Redeemer of the World, “set out and traveled to the hill country in haste” to her cousin Elizabeth, who was with child. She became, in Mother Teresa’s words, “a carrier of Christ’s love.” God gives every woman a womb, a fist-sized muscle that “carries” a child for nine months, and as the child becomes quite burdensome, the muscle stretches and grows stronger. Our Lady carried the Redeemer of Humanity over rough roads and steep hills to her cousin Elizabeth, and she bears the burden of her Son still, from heaven. In sculpting his famous pieta, the marble figure of Mary carrying the body of her crucified son from the Cross, Michelangelo made Mary’s dimensions larger than life (she would be six feet tall if she stood, much taller than the Christ in her lap). He also depicted her at about age 25, youthful and strong enough to bear the burden of Redeemer, who said “take my yoke upon your shoulders, for my yoke is easy, and my burden light.”
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The Collect for today, as I pointed out to Mother Teresa’s sisters at morning Mass, echoes her command to the Missionaries of Charity to “be carriers of God’s love.” The prayer begins “Almighty, ever-living God, who, while the Blessed Virgin Mary was carrying your son in her womb….” A woman carries her children physically in the strong muscle of the uterus, but for the rest of her life, she carries her children in her heart, helping them bear the burdens of the day. We men, we priests, must help the women in our lives carry those burdens. We must be knights of Our Lady, and knights for all ladies.
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One June 29th I will mark 30 years of my priestly ordination. It will also be the 70th year of Pope Benedict’s ordination. But closer to home, my parish will celebrate two other ordinations: Fr. John Chung is ten years ordained, and Fr. Mark Taheny is 25 years ordained. We will celebrate all three of our anniversaries together, on June 26th, at the 4:30pm Mass in the parish, at which the rector of our seminary, Fr. Mark Doherty, will preach. A reception will follow in the hall, a potluck. I’m inviting you, if you can make it. There is no cost, but folks must reserve at our parish website (www.starparish.com) and as a bonus, we will celebrate the first week anniversary of the first man to be ordained from Star of the Sea in 30 years. Cameron Pollette, who grew up a few blocks from the parish, will be ordained on June 19, and will concelebrate the anniversary Mass on June 26.
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In lieu of the customary gifts to priests on their anniversaries, we three priests are asking folks to make gifts to Stella Maris Academy, our newly-opened school, at which 75% of students in our inaugural year will be on tuition assistance. I hope to see some of you on June 26—see our parish website for more details.

One of my favorite contemporary authors, Sohrab Ahmari,, has just published a book he originally wrote for his son, entitled, The Unbroken thread: Discovering the Wisdom of Tradition in an Age of Chaos.
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Like JRR Tolkien, who wrote The Hobbit for his own children, this book speaks a delightful wisdom for all ages. 
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One of the chapters explains humanity's traditional approach to death.  Covid has revealed how fearful we are of death, but Ahmari quotes the Roman philosopher Seneca, "Whoever doesn't want to die doesn't want to live."  I would read this book just for this chapter, because only in losing our fear of death can we begin to really live.

A few years ago (it seems like another era), Pope Benedict established May 24, today, as “A Day of Prayer for China.” Mother Teresa would always ask us to “pray that we be allowed to enter China,” but even before Xi Jinping, the CCP never permitted Mother Teresa to bring Jesus into China. So the sisters pray every day to Our Lady of Sheshan for the “beloved Chinese people.” All over San Francisco I see signs “Stop Asian Hate.” The greatest amount of hate against Asians is coming from the Chinese Communist Party. The best way to stop hate in Asia is to allow Jesus into China.

Many of my parishioners come from Hong Kong. One of them asks me, frequently, “Father, pray for Hong Kong.” My friend Fr. Raymond de Souza posted a good analysis on the First Things website today: “Last week, Father Stephen Chow Sau-yan was named the new bishop of Hong Kong. He is so reluctant to take the job that he will not assume office until next December, even though the usual canonical rules require him to start in four months. The Church can set the date of his ordination. Beijing’s communist regime will set the date of his imprisonment.”
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We must pray for Hong Kong, and for all of China. Our own government, and our own Church, is at best appeasing, and at worst cooperating with, Marxist totalitarianism. I pray not only for Hong Kong, but for my own President and my own Pope, that they may begin defending the beloved Chinese people rather than, apparently, throwing sheep to wolves.

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​The first day of this month, the Month of Our Lady, we turned to St. Joseph the Workman. Work is good and holy and pleasant, when it is offered to God. I love my often arduous work as a parish priest, building up God’s household here on Geary Boulevard. Our Lord defines “work” in John 6:29. “The work God demands of you,” he said to the crowds “is that you believe in the One He sent.” Believing, and helping others believe in a God beyond themselves, is hard work!
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Joseph the Workman believed before he put his hand to any project. You can imagine him bowing his head to recite the Shema Israel before putting his powerful hands to shape wood and stone. The work that St. Joseph does now is to bring us to Mary, who brings us to Jesus, who brings us to the Father. That is why the Month of Mary begins with the Feast day of St. Joseph. God, apparently, loves mediators. He chooses others to share in His work, and He “sends” them. He sent his Son from heaven to earth to complete the mighty labor of the Redemption. He likewise “sends” Mary, and Joseph, and you and me, to assist in this mighty task. The Father loves his children by giving us all a role in managing His household. The greatest poverty, Mother Teresa observed, is to be unwanted and unneeded. God needs us!
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Long Overdue
The Catholic Church in America has needed clarity on the Holy Eucharist for some time. The pastoral letter  my Archbishop issued on May 1st was “long overdue,” as he himself says, but it represents a great labor undertaken as yet by no other prelate. The luminous text is clearly the fruit of much work, over many months. The media, and one or two other bishops, are misrepresenting his letter as an attack on Nancy Pelosi over abortion, but a closer reading of the text reveals its core purpose: to define the inestimable gift of the Holy Eucharist. Archbishop Cordileone has often pointed out how the Church’s essential weakness at this time is ignorance about the Blessed Sacrament, the Holy Eucharist, the Church's source and summit. The vast majority of Catholics do not do the one thing necessary to be Catholic, which is to “eat the Body and drink the Blood.” A great number of Catholics who do attend Mass receive the Eucharist “unworthily,” which is a technical term in Catholic theology meaning they don’t “recognize the Body and the Blood:” they don’t know what they are receiving, or with what disposition a person must take into themselves the infinite power of God Incarnate. Taking the Body and the Blood “unworthily” is not medicinal but toxic, like giving insulin to a person suffering from diabetic shock. Nancy Pelosi is not the only Catholic who receives Holy Communion while denying the Body. Any Catholic who receives Holy Communion while denying any of the natural laws of God eats and drinks condemnation unto themselves (1 Cor 11:29).
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A Parish Named for St. Joseph
Back to St. Joseph. There used to be a parish named for St. Joseph in downtown San Francisco, but it was sold to a developer after the 1989 earthquake for “lack of interest”—not enough parishioners willing to repair it. It was acquired by the “St. Joseph Arts Society,” a wealthy club, which graciously restored the building’s exterior to its former glory. But what goes on inside this former Church of St. Joseph? In a Dec 17, 2018 article by Tony Bravo, the San Francisco Chronicle  describes it: “Inside the church where religious statues once gazed out, papier-mache bear sculptures by the society’s first featured artists in residence, Dutch taxidermists-photographers Jaap Sinke and Ferry van Tongeren, watched over a VIP crowd. Guests drank at the new bars, inspected the art installations by Carpenters Workshop Gallery and took in the night’s entertainment, which included a performance by drag queens Juanita More and Glamamore on the former altar.”
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Does it matter to the Catholic Church in San Francisco that wealthy elites are paying to see unnatural acts on the altar once dedicated to St. Joseph, the poor carpenter? I propose a partial remedy: name another parish for St. Joseph, placing the entire archdiocese under his mighty protection. St. Joseph is co-patron of the City, along with St. Francis and St. Patrick, but there has been no St. Joseph’s parish in San Francisco for 30 years. This is one of the reasons San Francisco is suffering social decline. We all feel the increasing tension on our streets, within our families, and among our colleagues of a society struggling to order our lives together without God. I think that giving St. Joseph a more prominent role in the Church would strengthen all of us, but especially us clergy, with greater prudence and courage. Sensing this need, Pope Francis has given us the Year of St. Joseph.
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A Pastor’s Plea
Archbishop Cordileone, whose middle name is Joseph, released his pastoral letter on the Feast of St. Joseph the Worker. He will need Joseph’s fortitude and protection, because his enemies cannot tolerate a clear teaching on the Holy Eucharist. Moreover, his watertight argument from embryology, law, psychology, and theology leaves only one conclusion: no Catholic in good conscience can support abortion. Nevertheless, he writes,
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​Addressing Catholic political leaders, he writes:
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​​The powerful Speaker of the House falls under our Archbishop’s pastoral jurisdiction. Through the intercession of St. Joseph, may she surrender her heart and will to the Good God, who loves her infinitely. May she use the power God has given her to believe, and to bring others to believe.

​​​​A Gift on Mother’s Day
Early in the morning yesterday, I called my mother and prayed the rosary with her. “It’s the best Mother’s Day gift I could have received!” she said. The cell signal was not perfect, and, at 88, Mom's hearing and enunciation are not what they used to be, so our rosary was a little ... irregular. It made me think that even our most articulate orations are “lisping children's humble pray'r,” but graciously received on this day by our Beautiful Mother. What a grace to still be able pray the rosary with her who taught me to pray it 50 years ago. In light of eternity, in God’s perfect time, it’s never too late.
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Long Overdue but Never Too Late
On May 1st my archbishop released a pastoral letter, his first, on “the human dignity of the unborn, Holy Communion, and Catholics in public life.” The letter is precisely articulated, “following the science,” but also a heartfelt plea from a loving shepherd. He will suffer much from this prophetic utterance, but love proves itself through suffering. It is a clear beam of truth spoken into a world engulfed in falsehood, truth spoken in love. The letter, he concedes, is “long overdue,” but as Mother Teresa would say, “yesterday is gone, tomorrow is not yet here. We have only today. Let us begin.”
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​Dad’s Confirmation
The same could be said for my dear earthly father, John Illo. Somehow he had never received the Sacrament of Confirmation, something my mother had often lamented to us children. When I called Dad a few weeks ago to offer him the Sacrament, he simply said “yes. It is time.” God’s timing is always mysterious, but always to be received with joy. I called the local pastor, who obtained delegation from the local bishop, and on Friday good Fr. Ben administered the Sacrament of Confirmation to my father. At age 95, and 68 years married, my father finally completed his Rites of Christian Initiation. I mentioned this to the good folk of my parish, both in the weekly email blast and in my Sunday homilies, and was delighted at how many people congratulated me and thanked God. One friend described Dad as a modern-day Simeon, who received the child Jesus into his arms as a very old man with the words “Now, O Master, you may let your servant go in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation.” This friend put “sero te amavi” as the subject of his email, quoting St. Augustine: “Late have I loved you, O Beauty ever ancient ever new. Late have I loved you.” The people of my parish wonder at this, with me, that goodness, truth, and beauty come to us “long delayed, but never too late.” It is good to hope in the Lord, to wait for Him. As the Children of Israel expressed in Psalm 27, “I am sure that I shall see the Lord’s goodness in the land of the living. Hope in Him; hold firm and take heart. Hope in the Lord!” 

Welcome to the month of May, and Buona Domenica, as we used to say in Rome. “Happy Sunday.” We have made it through another week, sinners that we are, and have come to the First Day again. It is the day God separated the light from the darkness, the Christian day of rest on which our Savior rose in the early dawn, scattering the darkness of death. I often go out early on Sunday to do my morning prayers in the park or by the ocean. I watch the sun rise, because, despite everything, God makes the sun to rise every day.
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Here is a link to an excellent five-minute video by Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix. Over the last three generations the world, the flesh, and the devil have been progressively stealing our Sundays away from us. Now very little of the Day of Rest remains, and it seems the pandemic has put the final nail into Sunday’s coffin. We work from home now, seven days a week, and we shop from home, without rest, and we don’t gather together in houses of God, because we are afraid.
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Be not afraid. The Risen Christ awaits you in your bright churches. He calls you apart to give rest to your souls. Many souls are trickling back into my parish, although some still keep apart through fear. Overcome the isolation of fear, and rediscover the First Day again, the Eighth Day, the Day of a New Dawn. It presages the eternal dawn of the life of the world to come!
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