Just a chapter a day
Three years ago my spiritual director asked me to begin reading scripture every day. I was surprised and replied that I already read scripture every day at Mass and five times a day in my breviary. “What I mean,” he said, “is to read a chapter every day straight from the Book itself.” So I started doing that—actually, it took me a year to develop consistency. But now, almost without fail, the first thing I do after brushing my teeth in the morning is to open my bible and read a chapter, beginning with the book of Genesis. The bible, straight up, has so blessed my life with light, peace, and joy. Reading a chapter every day transforms me by renewing my mind to think like God.
 
The saeculum
St. Paul in today’s second reading, to the people of Rome, urges them to “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may judge what is God’s will, what is good, pleasing, and perfect.” Have you wondered why Americans talk past each other these days (as in the Democratic and Republican Conventions last two weeks)? We don’t seem capable of understanding each other’s way of thinking. Some call it identity politics, where we simply accuse each other. The way we are attempting to order our lives together is certainly not good, pleasing, and perfect, and certainly not the will of God. “Do not conform yourselves to this age,” Paul writes to the people of urban Rome, “but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.” We renew our minds by reading God’s word. Scripture transcends “this age.” In Latin the word “age” is saeculum, from which we get the word “secular.” Secular thinking limits itself to the here and now, to what human beings can make with their own hands (techne in Greek). Secularism does not consider the past (indeed, it tries to “cancel” the past) and does not consider anything beyond the material. Anything we cannot see, anything spiritual or religious, for secularists, is just a cute fable at best or, at worst, a toxic means of control, an “opium of the masses.”
 
“Life”
​St. Peter gets in trouble with Jesus in today’s Gospel for thinking “not as God thinks but as man thinks.” Peter has limited his imagination to the secular, to the political, and to earthly life. Jesus had announced that he would be put to death in Jerusalem but then raised on the third day. Peter can’t imagine what “rising on the third day” might mean, but he certainly will not let anyone kill the leader of his messianic movement. “Get out of my sight, you satan!” Jesus cries out against Peter (ouch!). “You are thinking not as God thinks, but as human beings think.” Peter has unconsciously conformed himself to “this age,” to thinking of physical life and health as the greatest good. But certainly the greatest good is eternal life. Now, I would bet most people in San Francisco or New York, like most people in pagan Rome, do not believe in eternal life. You die, and that’s it. Mot to believe in life after death, however, is illogical. We all naturally desire endless life, endless youth. But is there any other natural desire that is impossible to fulfil? I desire air, because there is air. I desire to eat, because there is food. I thirst, because there exists an object that can fulfil my thirst. I thirst for endless life, because there is endless life.
 
And how does Our Lord define “life” just after having rebuked Peter for limiting his concept of life to this world? “What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life?” Clearly Jesus and Peter are defining “life” in different ways. “Life” for Peter is secular—physical health and flourishing: eating, drinking, sex, making and spending money, going to work every day, political power, etc. Jesus offers a fuller concept of life. “Life” is everything earthly, but infinitely more: it is eternal, and the perfect fulfilment of all that you long for on earth. Which life do you want? I want both, but if I am conformed merely to “this age,” I lose both. If “life” for me is just the material, then my life on earth is reduced to mere power politics rather than love, and in the next life I have nothing more than what I’ve chosen on earth: a feeble grasp for control.
 
As for me, I’m throwing my lot with Christ here, with the hope of being with him forever hereafter.

On Sunday San Francisco saw some spectacular weather. It all began around 3am with pounding rain and thunderous lightning strikes. The rain posed interesting complications to our sixteen Sunday outdoor Masses: how could we offer divine service under a heavens that had opened its floodgates? We limited the first two morning Masses to those altars we could move under canopies, but would anyone come?
 
People did come. Some brought umbrellas, and some just stood in the rain with smiles on their faces. Mr. Weatherman promised the skies would clear by 9am, but he was wrong. By 11:30am, however, it did seem the clouds had mostly parted, just in time for our four Latin Masses. So we powered up to our full four altars, two of which were under the open sky. But just around the consecration, thunderous clouds moved over us and again opened up. The two priests at open altars tried their best to cover the sacred species with their ample vestments, but some hosts did get a bit soggy. The priests did not run for cover, but stood at their posts, seeing the Mass through to the final blessing.
 
What about the people? They stood in the rain, smiles on their faces. One of them told me the next day, “Father, that was the best Mass I’ve attended! The Eucharist has become so real, now that we too are making sacrifices to attend Christ’s sacrifice.” A bit of a sacrifice, to sing alleluias in the rain, but after all, we aren’t made of sugar. We melted only a little bit in the deluge; our frozen hearts melted a little to see our priests and fellow Christians getting wet in order to stand with Christ as He offered Himself for the world. As one of our young adults beamed, “this is so exciting!” 
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I want to report a curious phenomenon here in San Francisco. The city’s strange restriction on religious worship (services can be held only outside, limited to 12 people) has actually strengthened our community. Draconian social distancing has brought us closer together. Instead of Mass in a massive church, I’m now offering Mass on the deck of our rectory. Instead of 100 people sitting as far as possible from each other in a 1000-seat church, 12 people are now sitting six feet from each other. I don’t have to use a microphone. Before starting Mass, I ask the names of those I do not know, and even a little about them. I have become friendly with some I’ve seen at Mass for years but who normally leave immediately after Mass. They are now “trapped” into talking to me and their fellow congregants, and they are rather enjoying it. It feels like Mass in the catacombs, especially in the cold fog of a San Francisco summer. We are making a real sacrifice, as one body in Christ, to attend Mass. We feel that we are all in this together, and that God is with us. Thank you, Board of Supervisors, for providing the means to strengthen our faith!

Today is the feast of St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests (or, as one of my Latin Mass attendees pointed out, August 4 is the feast of St. Dominic—but on August 8 in the older calendar it will be the feast of St. John Vianney, but in the newer calendar the feast of St. Dominic. They do the old switcheroo).
 
After two years as a young “curate” (associate pastor), Fr. John Vianney was assigned as pastor to a very poor parish in a miserable little village in southern France called “Ars.” The year was 1818, and he would stay at St. John the Baptist parish in Ars for the next 41 years, until the day he died on August 4,  1859. He grew up in the aftermath of the French Revolution, which had attempted to “cancel” Europe’s Christian culture in 1789. It was the first time people had actually unleashed the practical consequences of secular philosophies that had been developing in Europe since the fourteenth century. This line of thought has driven other revolutions such as in Soviet Russia and Communist China, and it is driving the “soft” revolutions against Judeo-Christian culture in the world today.
 
The little village to which Father John Vianney was assigned in 1818 was typical in a France recovering from social chaos. People would spend weekends drinking and hooking up for sexual experiences, and they had very little hope of anything better or deeper out of life. “You are going to Ars,” the bishop told his young priest. “There is little love of God in that town. You are going to bring it there.”
 
Over the next 41 years he worked 18 hours a day, seven days a week, and towards the end so many people were flocking to Ars from all over Europe that the French railway had to build a dedicated line to accommodate them. My favorite story is of a woman whose husband committed suicide. She tried to get to Fr. Vianney but the confessional line sometimes took days to reach him. He saw her in line and cried out “He is Saved!” People looked up and wondered by the priest was crying out to a woman in line. “I tell you he is saved,” Fr. John insisted. “He is in Purgatory, and you must pray for him. Between the parapet of the bridge and the water he had time to make an act of contrition.”
 
Through the intercession of St. John Vianney, I pray that we, your priests, will help free you from the fear of death and judgement, and any other darkness, by witnessing to the goodness of God. May we be found worthy of the trust God has placed in us!

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Following is my pastor’s message for this Sunday’s bulletin
 
Le Curé d'Ars
This Tuesday is the feast day of St. John Vianney, patron saint of parish priests. Please pray for your men on the front lines, through his intercession!
 
Covid
Some have been saying that I trivialized the pandemic in my bulletin column last Sunday. It was not my intention to make light of the disease or the suffering it is causing. I have always taken the safety of our people seriously, and have gone to great lengths to make sure our church is distanced and sanitized at all times. In a letter to priests last week, Archbishop Cordileone asked us to “please regularly remind people to follow the safety practices necessary to curb the spread of the virus. This is real, it is dangerous, and it has to be taken seriously.” I am committed to his directive, and am truly sorry that some were scandalized by what they felt was a priest’s insensitivity toward their suffering.
 
Body and Soul
The pandemic, as some have pointed out, can lead to other serious ills such as suicide, alcoholism, depression, and pornography, especially among less advantaged classes. Our parishes are uniquely able to safely provide for the whole person—body, soul, and spirit—through human community, sacraments, and prayer. This requires an immense amount of work from staff and volunteers, to whom we are all grateful. In his letter last week, the Archbishop urges priests to celebrate three Masses each on Sundays for the people, and to generously provide the sacraments of penance and anointing. He hopes churches will soon be able to reopen, and points out that church services can be operated at least as safely as retail stores. All of us are suffering in many ways in this pandemic. I can say that I’ve been able to keep my peace in the current turmoil by spending at least an hour a day in silence before the Blessed Sacrament, and by reading my Bible every day.
 
Powers of the Air
Our struggle, wrote St. Paul in Eph 6:12, is not with flesh and blood but with the “powers of the air.” My dear children: our earthly lives are relatively short. I am sorry, in my imprudence and pride, for speaking glibly about the pandemic. Despite my mistakes, however, I want you to know that there is nothing more important in this life than the next life. “What does it profit a man,” Jesus said, “to gain the whole world but to lose his soul?” It is terribly easy to fixate on this life, forgetting the things of God. The Archbishop concluded his letter with these words: “In addition to adoration, we have to reclaim an authentic and serious spirit of fasting.… I am asking you to join me in observing Friday as a day of fast (unless your health condition cannot allow for it): please abstain from at least one meal on Fridays....” I have not been fasting enough, but last Friday I noticed one of our priests giving up a meal. So I gave up a meal, and it was not as hard as I thought. We can live on a lot less than we think, and once we offer even a little thing to God, it becomes infinite. We do what we can on a human level, but I urge you also to fast and to pray. God is with us, and we must be with Him!