Time and Eternity

We are coming to the end of the liturgical year, which points to the fact that there will come a day that will be the last in human history. The fires that have burned so much of our State in these two weeks also remind us of how frail our lives and property are, and how in the end it will all burn. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” the Lord tells us in today’s Gospel, “but my words will not pass away.” We also come to the last of our stewardship commitment Sundays. Two weeks ago I asked how we are using God’s gift of time, those 168 hours He gives us each week. How many hours are we spending with him in quiet prayer? Last week it was God’s gift of talent: how much of our creative energies do we spend on serving others? And this week it’s treasure: how much of our wealth are giving to build up God’s Kingdom in readiness for His return?
 
The wildfires have brought communities closer, but they also show a pervasive social isolation. We all feel a sense of isolation, of homelessness, especially in urban or suburban areas. We have little in common with our own neighbors and have lost much of the local community feel that used to sustain main street America. Parishes and Catholic schools used to play a major role in building social cohesion, but many are now little more than museums. At least some of us must commit to building the community to regain that feel of “home,” but in a culture of isolation we resist commitment. I moved to San Francisco four years ago but only last month did I begin contributing to the local classical radio station which I listen to several times a day. Now that I’m a part of KDFC, the music sounds better! The radio hosts are talking to me, and I want to know them by name now. Is Star of the Sea your home station? Are you ready to make it your home by investing in it?  

Investing in the Future

The world will end someday, or at least my world on the day I die. “Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake,” we heard from the Prophet Daniel. “Some shall live forever, others shall be an everlasting horror and disgrace.” Hard words. Frightening words. Real words. In the end, there is only heaven or hell for all of us. Have you invested in the future? I mean, the real future? What do you spend your time and money on now? Do you spend it only passing things like food and drink, travel and clothes, toys and devices? Money spent on temporal needs and wants is money well spent, but do we put at least a portion of our wealth toward eternal needs? Even your children’s university education, a most important investment, will pass away when they themselves pass. Will your children have the one thing necessary—faith in God—when they enter eternity?
 
I hope you are all putting away some money for the future. I have two investment accounts. One account accrues interest (I hope) for my last 20 years on earth. The other account accrues interest (I hope) for eternity. My first investment account transfers money every month from my bank to a mutual fund firm. My second investment account transfers money every month from my bank to this parish (and other charities). Both accounts are vital to my future, but which account, do you think, is more important?

A Need to Give

Your commitment of “treasure” to our parish is between you and God, but we have commitment forms in the pews this week to help you make it real, planned, and consistent. It’s a simple worksheet: “From a heart full of gratitude, I pledge to give $_______ weekly or monthly to my parish.” Most of us give what happens to be in our pockets on Sunday. That’s a poor way to give to God. Love is thoughtful and consistent. Love prepares the gift and plans the giving. It was a married couple that convinced me to give in this way. When I came to this parish I filled out a form that sends my gift electronically every month to our parish. Doesn’t matter if I am here or away, if I am healthy or sick, if I feel generous or stingy that month. My gift arrives at the parish through thick and thin. Only about 30 of us in this parish of 1000 registered households are giving electronically. We could do much better, but thanks be to God for the thirty!
 
When that married couple convinced me to begin tithing 15 years ago I was broke. In fact, I was in debt for the first time in my life, having just bought a new car. But God gave me far more money than I gave him and I was able to pay that debt back within three months. Priests have very few financial obligations, so most years I give 30% of my gross income back to God, and you know what? I have more money now than when I was giving almost nothing back! Maybe it’s the way we think about money, or how we spend it, that changes when we tithe. Or maybe God just won’t be outdone in generosity. So make your commitment to this parish, if not for any other good than your own. We don’t give to a need so much as we have a need to give. Return a portion of God’s blessings and see if He can be outdone in generosity. 

Our prayers today are with the nation’s veterans, and indeed all men and women who have served their countries in the armed forces. This week I’ve noticed quite a few red buttonhole poppies (the British and Canadian tradition for “Remembrance Day”) around town.
 
My father served in the US Army at the end of the last world war, arriving in Manila just after the Japanese had been politely escorted off the Island. My uncle Frank served in the Marines much earlier in that war, and it was his photograph that I placed on our “November Altar” in remembrance of the Faithful Departed (Dad at 92 is still very much with us but Uncle Frank died in 1993). This November Altar is the closest we have to a camposanto at Star of the Sea. That word in Spanish and Italian means “holy ground,” which best describes a cemetery or graveyard. The relics of our forebears render a burial place holy because their bodies were temples of the Holy Spirit. Until the last few decades, most larger parishes would have made room for a kirkyard for their deceased loved ones, or perhaps interred their dead within the church itself.
 
In this month of November we have at least dedicated Our Lady’s altar to the Holy Souls. Every day this month I kneel before these pictures and light a candle for my Nana and Uncle Frank, and for every person remembered there. Seeing these beautiful faces has brought the entire parish into deeper communion with each other. We cannot help but love the living as we pray with and for the dead.
 
Every person portrayed on our November Altar is a miracle of life and gift of God. I cannot help but thank God each time I kneel before these images of His beauty. The November Altar, however, provides us with something even more sacred than remembrance. Contemplating those who have died brings us to anticipate our own final end. Our society both obsesses over the dreadful aspects of death (think of the zombie and vampire movies) and at the same time avoids death’s deeper significance. Death is in fact life, as St. Therese observed on her deathbed: je ne meurs pas; j’entre dans la vie. November prayers for the dead to restore Christian courage and fill the heart with joyful gratitude.
 
Seeing these beautiful images of individual lives, and knowing that they are now with God, reassures us that the purification of the body is relatively quick and painless. Images of the deceased placed on an altar changes hopeless dread into joyful hope. A November Altar infuses our parish church with a depth that only sister death with her, pointing to our first principle and final end. We know where we have come from and we know where we are going. “The souls of the just are in the hands of God,” wrote the sage in Wisdom 3. “For grace and mercy are with His chosen ones, and His care is with His elect.” He has chosen every one of us.

​I had been looking forward to a Thursday morning kayak paddle all week. After morning prayer I quickly checked the tide charts, which seemed propitious. We are enjoying “summer” in San Francisco—warm, cloudless, windless days. But as I lifted the kayak onto the roof a stiff wind almost blew it over. Down at the Bay the gusts were stronger, whipping the boat about as I hauled it to the water. How much effort should one put into following his plan when nature opposes it? With a sigh I plunged into the white caps.
 
The prudent man balances the opposing virtues of tenacity and flexibility. As wind and wave tossed my little craft about the Bay that morning, I struggled to find my balance. Should I stick to my plan of reaching Alcatraz Island? Winds and waves were both smacking me from the northeast such that I had little hope of even getting near the island. I decided to paddle for one rosary (so as to get in my exercise and my prayer) and then head back to shore.
 
The San Francisco Bay is a map of life. Its currents and winds and tides toss you about, changing every hundred yards and every ten minutes. You have to think on your feet. Two decades into the rosary my arms were giving out and salt spray was blinding my eyes. “Maybe I should turn back.” I said. By the third decade I had hit a flat stretch of water, and by the fourth decade I had entered a current that flowed northeast, toward Alcatraz. The island soon blocked the wind so that I made landfall before even finishing the rosary.
 
When you enter San Francisco Bay, you don’t know where the tides and winds and currents will take you. Your paddle affords some control, but the Bay reveals little until it is actually upon you. I entered Star of the Sea parish four years ago. You entered your marriage ten years ago. She entered motherhood twenty years ago. He entered a career twenty years ago. God asks us to follow a path, but he declines to reveal more than a hundred yards or twenty minutes at a time. We have to paddle on blindly at times.
 
My advice is that we stay the course as best we can, a hundred yards at a time, a decade at a time. God will bring us to landfall at last, and probably sooner than we think. He will bring our little boats to safe haven if only somehow we can steel our wills to keep paddling (at times) blindly through the stinging spray.

​

​To mark All Souls Day, our 3rd Grade teacher set up an altarcito in her classroom with pictures of students’ deceased family members. Inspired by her devotion, I set up flowers and candles around our Lady’s altar in the church, inviting everyone to place photographs of the faithful departed from their families. I led the way by placing a photograph of my Polish grandmother, Helen Kaminska Illo. We called her Nana. I will light a candle at this altar and say a prayer for her every day this month.
 
My Nana immigrated from Warsaw to New York with her mother and younger sister in 1905. Her father, a Polish military officer, followed later. As they were quite poor, especially during the Great Depression, my Nana learned how to live well in simplicity. My Nana died in 1988, but she had passed this wisdom on to her son, and both my father and my Nana taught us children how to live well with little.
 
All my life I’ve heard people complaining about the economy. The real problem with our economy, however, is not too little money but too much. We live poorly because we have too much disposable income. Let’s take cellphones as an example.
 
My Nana and my Dad taught us children to use things until they are truly used up. I’ve had my phone for six years, but the other day it finally bit the dust when its screen shattered. I went down to Verizon where a nice young man helped me. He showed me about a dozen phones that ran between $800 to $1000. He politely explained all their features, which impressed me. “Do you have anything a bit less expensive?” I asked. We do, he said. He brought out two phones from the back room, second-tier models which looked just like the others but at a third the price. I got one for $250, and it’s ten times better than my last phone.
 
I was showing this sleek new device to a friend, who mentioned how expensive phones have become. You have to buy a new one every year, and they are over $900 these days!” I could see Nana waving a finger at my friend. Who says you need a new phone every year? And why do you have to buy the top of the line? Nana had an old car with no bells and whistles. “It gets me to the supermarket and the church. It has four wheels and a honker horn. That’s all I know about my car,” she would say.
 
Every day I light a candle in front of my Nana’s picture and say a prayer for her, and she says a prayer for me. Thanks, Nana, for helping me save all that money on my phone, and for living more simply than they say is healthy for me!

A blessed and Happy Feast of All Saints and All Souls. The Church has done a marvelous thing in linking these two commemorations, showing us the straight line between the Holy Souls in Purgatory and the Saints in Heaven. Yesterday in my parish we offered two particularly beautiful Masses. First our children sang Gregorian Chant at the school Mass, having been trained all week by the renowned Mary Ann Carr-Wilson. She taught the first diocesan school Chant Camp of its kind in California. Teachers and staff have been keeping their windows and doors open all week to catch the ethereal tones of what sound like angels. The second extraordinary All Saints liturgy was a Solemn High Mass with our superb adult choir, at which we welcomed Fr. Cassian from the Contemplatives of St. Joseph as subdeacon. Excellence is possible in the Church’s sacred liturgy, but it takes time and money. On Tuesday night we also welcomed the Nigerian Cardinal Francis Arinze, who spoke on the sacred liturgy from his many years as Prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship in Rome. Dedicated parishioners prepared a first-class dinner for him and twelve priests from the Archdiocese, including our Nigerian fathers, in a fraternal and instructive convivium following his talk. What a wonderful parish we have!