The Churches of San Francisco

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Saint Paul Church, San Francisco

One Man’s Odyssey through the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches

of God’s Favorite City

by Ikaros, The Angel who Crash-Landed

PART V

Church of Saint Paul

1660 Church Street; mailing address: 221 Valley Street (Noe Valley)

Visited Saturday, 25 Jan, 2014, Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul (vigil of Third Sunday in Ordinary Time) 4:30 mass

ARCHITECTURE:

Gothic Revival

Strong Point: Franz Mayer Stained Glass, Gothic Spires and groin vaulting, Lighting Fixtures

Weak Point: Not a Trace of One.

LITURGY:

Liturgical Style – Folksy and Friendly

Music – Folk Guitar

Homily – H4, (see homily ratings below)

“Sister Act”

Lost in my usual morning stupor and throwing articles of clothing randomly at my body in hopes that they’d land in the appropriate places (and why NOT wear an old shoe as underwear? Who’s to notice?), rushing to be ready by the time my sister showed up at the door to accompany me on the Walk for Life West Coast. I was lacing my shoes when she showed up. We shuffled to Civic Center Plaza, where fifty thousand people (they estimated) were gathering to walk in support of our weakest and most vulnerable ones: the unborn babies. These littlest ones live in their own eerie underwater world, womb to some; tomb to others. Our laws have legalized their slaughter. I would walk to save their lives. And possibly, I would die to save their lives.

The first “picket Sign” we saw belonged to Christiana, who graciously permitted me to use her photo and name in my blog. Her sign made me cry (one of the great gifts of my Italian half is the ready and cathartic tearfall).

Other signage made equally poignant statements exposing the farce of legalized abortion for the heartless infanticide it really is. My favorite speaker was an agnostic, who used science and simple facts, the “New Testament” of the biology textbook, to expose the murder incognito of abortion.

The Orpheum Theater pays unwitting tribute to Motherhood at the beginning of the parade route.

The walk ends at the Ferry Building, whose recently-completed clock tower was halted by the seismic convulsions of 1906, freezing in time the moment of 5:12 a.m. on 18 April. Refurbished a century later, it has recovered its place as vibrant hub of transportation and culture. Milling about the plaza, we passed a local hero, on the scale of a Hercules or Agamemnon (my Greek half blushes with pride), who has the unmitigated courage to defend marriage, family, and the unborn, in a city which has criminalized the nuclear family as the enemy of our cherished “diversity”, thereby narrowing the very diversity for which we claim to stand. And this hero defends the family without uttering a word of accusation against the communities of “diversity” which have mysteriously labelled him a hater. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone (my Italian half blushes with pride), paraded by in the midst of his retinue of Knights of Columbus without making eye contact. I made a subtle bow to my hero as he passed, and continued with my sister to the BART station, which whisked us in a few short stops to the vicinity of St. Paul’s parish on this, the liturgical feast of the Conversion of St. Paul.

Is it considered tacky in the blogosphere to use the same photo twice? So sue me.

The Church of St. Paul is locally famous as the set for the Whoopie Golberg movie “Sister Act”; chosen, no doubt, for its quintessential neo-gothic interior, dramatic marble altar, and the exquisite stained glass from (once again) the Franz Mayer studios in Munich. I made my best attempt to capture the beauty of this photogenic church with only the help of a wee tabletop tripod, providing less than perfect results, before squeaking in a quick rosary before Mass.

Today's feast: The Conversion of St. Paul, in Stained Glass

Mass began with a cringe. “Sing a New Song unto the Lord” is not my personal taste in music, (but at least it was nicely executed by talented piano, guitar and vocals). Furthermore, there was no procession. The priest appeared at the altar with none of the fanfare of Christ on Palm Sunday, which is what every processional symbolically represents to me). I felt gypped out of one of my favorite parts of Liturgy.

In the a cappella opening of the Glory to God, once again the cantor’s beautiful voice briefly took center stage.

The homily, given by Jesuit Father Michael Kotlanger (on loan from St. Ignatius High School), was a thoughtful and studious reflection on Christ’s fulfillment of Isaiah, bringing the Old Testament to life in the New. Seeing through father’s eyes how Christ relocated to Capernaum, to begin his ministry in the path used by the Syrians on their invasion route into Israel, Father illustrates how Christ poised himself for God’s recapture of the Temple. I was inspired by his exhortation for us to become the new apostles of Christ in our own time, and spread the gospel with our acts and words into the world in which we live. It made me think of how our own church, in so many ways, has been attacked from inside and out, and sits in need of God’s re-conquest through a new generation of saints.

Thank you, Father, for your beautifully-constructed message.

At the offertory, the cantor’s voice sparkled, and despite my musical tastes, I remained impressed with this liturgy until the ending note, when the Holy Sacrament of Communion left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Awkwardly, four women, who I took to be plain-clothes sisters, distributed communion (which is fine with me, of course) while the priest did NOT (which was unsettling to me). To assist the priest is commendable, but to replace him, in any context, bothers me. Had these women co-opted the sacrament, wresting it from the hands of the priest in an act of political posturing, or had the pastor assigned them this duty? Without knowing the details, I'll refrain from passing judgment. The mass then ended, again, with no recessional: our good, thoughtful priest disappearing like the Wizard of Oz behind his curtain. Perhaps I’ll re-visit this church when the pastor is celebrating and ask him a kindly-worded question or two, but the overall impression I left with was that of an under-empowered clergy being partially eclipsed by an over-empowered ministry team, and I wondered if this parish had, in fact, become the living metaphor of a “Sister Act”.

What?!?! No Recessional?

Tailgate:

Try this place some time - GREAT Pizza!

My sister and I headed for Rustic Pizzeria, where we were joined by a second sister to cap off the evening with some of the best pizza in San Francisco, at the recently-opened Rustic (a few long blocks’ walk from the fringe of Noe Valley to the Mission). And thus completed my own personal "Sister Act", as I bade the two farewell and enjoyed the evening trek home.

Barbie drinks here? Our Lady answered a prayer here?

I'm sorry, folks, but I'm afraid your "Vegetaurian" isn't quite explicit enough.

* * * * *

My “Hurricane-System” of Homily Ratings

H5: Transformative

The priest said or demonstrated something which altered my perspective, so profoundly, that I leave the church a different person than when I entered, and remain so. The priest has not only challenged me toward growth but provided me with the tools or information I needed to accomplish and sustain that growth. I have heard just a few such homilies in my life, so don’t be surprised if there aren’t (m)any times you see this rating come up.

H4: Challenging

The priest has made it clear that we are not complacently at the end of our journey, but in need of Christ to bring us closer to where He is calling us. I feel challenged and encouraged to move beyond where I am now.

H3: Inspiring

This is a category of many beautiful and moving homilies, in which the priest has painted with words an image of spiritual fulfillment toward which we are all striving, but not necessarily mapped out the process for me to get there.

H2: Feel-Goodie

Everybody wants a homily that makes us leave Mass feeling good about who we are, but how will we ever grow in faith if all we get is a spiritual pat on the back and a candy bar? Typically, these homilies ignore our church teachings, blithely side-stepping them, rather than outwardly contradicting them. They can be harmful “Pharisee-makers” in boosting our smugness and self-righteousness when what we need is a stern correction. Happily, I have heard very few homilies of this nature in the city of San Francisco.

H1: Negative

The only thing worse than a priest making me feel good about being the unrepentant sinner that I am is a priest who makes me feel bad about it. Gladly, I have heard so little fire-and-brimstone negativity in my lifelong practice of Catholicism that I can honestly expect not to use this rating at all.

H0: Heretical

Let’s hope that this is another category I can safely expect not to use. I have, in my travels, heard views from the pulpits of Catholic churches which contradict Catholic teaching, but I don’t expect to happen across any contrary teaching here in my City and County.

Sunday, February 16, 2014

Saints Peter and Paul Church, San Francisco

The Churches of San Francisco

One Man’s Odyssey through the Catholic (and Orthodox) Churches of God’s Favorite City

by Ikaros, The Angel who Crash-Landed

PART IV

Church of Saints Peter and Paul

666 Filbert Street (no, really) at Columbus Avenue (North Beach)

Visited 19 Jan, 2014, Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, 11:45 mass in Italian

ARCHITECTURE:

Somebody’s fanciful idea of Lombard Romanesque

Strong Point: Towered Façade, Marble Altar, Stained Glass Windows

Weak Point: None, really.

LITURGY:

Liturgical Style – Dignified and serene

Music – Choir chanting from the loft

Homily – H5, Off-the-Charts (see homily ratings, end of page)

“The Most Beautiful Church in San Francisco”

I woke up this morning after a late night at a family birthday party, not exactly hung over, but not not hung over, either. It was 10:30, and my ambitious plans for today had involved a long trek across town and back-to-back visits to a few different churches, the first mass of which was starting as I lay groggy in bed. I looked again at the clock, breathed a sigh of disgust with myself, and came up with a Plan B. ALWAYS have a Plan B.

“What’s nearish and noonish?” I wondered to myself as I pored through my directory of parishes, settling on an 11:45 mass, in Italian, at the Italian National Parish of Saints Peter, Paul and Mary. Okay, its real name is SS. Peter and Paul, but I grew up in the Puff-the-Magic-Dragon era of San Francisco, and have called it that ever since I was a teenager, driving by with my family, when my sister’s high school bff pointed out the window and exclaimed “Look – it’s Saint Peter, Paul and Mary!” I still laugh about that.

But I digress.

A lifetime ago when I worked in the area, I would attend the Italian Mass which, at the time, fit snugly into the hour before my Sunday shift. The priest would mumble his way through mass so unintelligibly that, even if he were speaking English, I would have understood little. This will be my first time back to the Italian Mass since, maybe, 1994, IF I make it in time. And I’m running late. Dragging my not-quite-hungover kiester over and around the hills of my Great City, bumping into unsuspecting buildings and lamp-posts at every turn, I finally reach the SIM-card shaped lawn of Washington Square, and glancing across its verdant midwinter green, I could see the green vestments of a priest in the vestibule, waiting for his cue to begin mass. I glanced at the time: 11:42. I made it!

The priest greeted me with a warm, firm handshake and a “Good Morning”, followed a moment later by a “Buon Giorno” (as he realized which mass it was that he was about to celebrate?). My Italian half was enthusiastically awaiting this Mass, in the language of my great grandparents, in the parish of my great-grandparents, in the neighborhood of my great-grandparents on that side of my family. I took one quick photograph of the impressive altar (attracting that condescending “tourist!” look from the other locals) and took my seat near the pulpit.

Mass began with Father Alberto’s welcome to “The Most Beautiful Church in San Francisco”, and an apology for all the empty seats, which he blamed on those staying at home to warm up their TV sets for this afternoon’s 49ers game. (I’ll spoil the surprise: the Seahawks won, and the red-and-gold floodlights on City Hall will revert to plain white lights by tomorrow).

The music was hauntingly beautiful. This is the first church I’ve been to in DECADES which makes proper use of the choir loft, so that rather than watching “performers on stage”, we are treated to the angelic chants emanating from a point invisibly above and behind us, embellishing the liturgy without detracting from it. This was, as every mass is intended to be: heavenly. What I wouldn’t give for my OWN parish to trump the agendas of its world-class choirs and make use of our choir loft at mass!

When it came time for the homily, Father Alberto repeated his welcome to San Francisco’s most beautiful church (I would argue that 5 or so churches in this town rightfully vie for the title), and begins his four-point homily, synopsized from the notes I not-so-furtively took at mass.

Point One: What a beautiful day; pray for rain (we’re in the grip of the worst drought on record; thank you, father, for reminding us to pray for water).

Point Two: Let us remember, on this weekend of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, that every race, creed and color is God’s creation and deserves our love and respect.

Point Three: Christian Unity. Let us remember the divisions which have divided the once-wholeness of our Holy Church. That’s when Father Alberto held up a chartreuse-colored sheet of paper with the numbers ‘1054’ and ‘1560’ magic-markered onto the right side of the page. One day at the onset of the last millennium, Father reminds us, the Patriarch of the Roman church went on a rampage of excommunication and severed our ties with the Eastern Patriarchs. As I listened, the Greek half of me cried tears of ouzo. Father tore the ‘1054’ quadrant from his chartreuse visual aid as my cheeks were striped with tears. Then one day in the 1960’s, Father reminds us, Pope Paul VI made the first-ever papal airplane visit to Jerusalem, where he voiced an apology to Athenagoras, Patriarch of Constantinople, for the sins we have committed against our brothers in the Eastern Church, in a sincere gesture of reunification. My Greek half cried again, this time with joy. Then Father reminds us, on the occasion of this holiday weekend, that long before Martin Luther King, Junior, there was an earlier Martin Luther, whose reaction against the pope had separated untold numbers of the faithful away from the Church. The German half of me cried (are you keeping track of how many ‘halves” I’ve recorded? I may be Two and a Half Men by the end of this blog). Fr. Alberto poignantly tore away the ‘1560’ quadrant from his chartreuse paper, and showed us a sloppily-torn metaphor for our sloppily-torn Church, exhorting us to pray, not for a “unity” of compromise, but for the True Unity of reconciliation and return to wholeness. It was interesting, moving, that in his homily he accepts the blame on the side of our popes for the Great Schism of 1054, while on the part of the Reformation he prays for their conversion and return to the Sacraments. Unity without Compromise: preached, perhaps, for the first time I've heard in San Francisco, by Father Alberto.

Point Four: Remember our responsibility to the weakest and most vulnerable among us, the unborn, in the Walk for Life, next Saturday.

Ladies and Gentlemen: The Great Franz Mayer Stained Glass Studios, once again.

Altar to the Sacred Heart

A Gathering of Italian Saints

Father Alberto, I’ll be honest with you. I had given up hope of hearing THIS caliber of homily in the City and County of San Francisco. Thank you for restoring my hope, reinforcing my faith, and reducing me to a hot sloppy mess of tears at this mass, which has truly elevated St. Peter, Paul and Mary to the undisputed title of “Most Beautiful Church in San Francisco”. Moved by your words, Caro Padre, I have decided to include our Orthodox brothers in my church visits, if they will have me, as my ever-so-meager contribution toward the unity toward which you have exhorted us in your homily.

(Update: It is now 16 February as I finally get this blog going, and I have just returned from Divine Liturgy at the Greek Orthodox Cathedral of the Annunciation - thank you, Padre Alberto, for inspiring me to this)

Mid-January Sun-Bathing - definitely a warmer-than-usual winter here this year

Tailgate:

Sorry about such a long list of photos. The walk home from North Beach with a detour up Telegraph Hill is the most photogenic part of The City, and every picture here has a memory behind it. I couldn't resist.

There's little I enjoy more than a sunny day to wander around the neighborhood of my family’s first foothold in the Great City and County of San Francisco. But first, a beeline to fuel up at my favorite caffè, “A. Cavalli & Co”, home of everybody’s favorite Surly Barista. The guy is a gem.

The great A. Cavalli & Co

Sorry to see it closed today (pout)

I love the "Open" sign behind a very NOT open gate

Cavalli closed today; time for a Plan B. Always have a Plan B. Across the street, on the corner facing Washington Square, lies Mario’s Bohemian Cigar Store, holdout from the Beatnik Era and home of some of the best panini sandwiches in San Francisco. The barista was dressed with a certain retro flair which, accentuated by the handle bar mustache, gave him the impression of having stepped right out of one of those old 1890’s barroom photos at the opening of the “Cheers” sitcom. I wondered how many times my great grandfather had been served by a bartender just like this guy.

Twin Bulletins: One for each language.

After fueling up, I hiked the near-vertical, stair-stepping sidewalks of North Beach’s slopes, up Telegraph Hill, to revisit the homes where a dapper, bright-eyed bootblack and his solemn, stern-eyed wife had struggled to raise nine children on the nickels tossed into a shoe-shiner’s hat. Worlds apart, but no less beautiful, than the hilltop home they left behind in their poignantly earthquake-riddled corner of Southern Italy.

The home of a poor immigrant was often up the steepest hills. Imagine Great Gram hiking up this one with enough groceries to feed nine children.

Today, there's a brilliant view of Coit Tower from Gr-Gramps' old house, but back then, no tower. Just a steep hike up this street at the end of every day.

There's always an improbable-looking piece of property in this neighborhood.

In SF, this is what we call a view............................................and this is what we call a street

A lot of bloomin' goin' on for January

This is the 1200 block of Montgomery Street.

From the top, looking back down Montgomery Street, and up to Coit Tower

Looks like Coit Tower is wearing braces today

Another example of what we call a street: Vallejo Street from McGom'ry.

Garibaldi Hall used to host the Italian Union meetings. I'd rather not know what kind of club it's hosting now.

The "Wall Street of the West", a nice walk home.

My Irish half was aching for a refreshing draft after that hike, but the loud roaring of the fans kept me away. This is the quaint little block where I once got mugged with a gun to my head (to be honest, it looked like one of the kid's props from his drama class, but tell that to my shaking knees). I somehow finagled my way out of it without losing a dime (or limb). Ahhhhh, memories!

Caffè Zoetrope is Francis Ford Coppola's gift to The City, and the perfect spot for that relaxing drink I was craving. One glass of the "Director's Cut" Zinfandel and I could sing like Enrico Caruso.

The Zoetrope sits right at the crossroads of Chinatown, Italian North Beach, and the Financial District.

FFC's corner booth is kept roped off in case the Director drops in.

A Señorita enjoys the view of Chinatown and the cuisine of Italy.

The last leg of the walk home is this stretch of Market Street, looking like winter but feeling like summer.

Home at last, through the Sunday Produce Market.

* * * * *

My “Hurricane-System” of Homily Ratings

H5: Transformative

The priest said or demonstrated something which altered my perspective so profoundly that I leave the church a different person than when I entered, and remain so. The priest has not only challenged me toward growth but provided me with the tools or information I needed to accomplish and sustain that growth. I have heard just a few such homilies in my life, so don’t be surprised if there aren’t (m)any times you see this rating come up.

H4: Challenging

H3: Inspiring

H2: Feel-Goodie

Everybody wants a homily that makes us leave Mass feeling good about who we are, but we’ll never grow in faith if all we get is a spiritual pat on the back and a candy bar. Typically, these homilies ignore our church teachings by blithely side-stepping them, rather than outwardly contradicting them. Happily, I have heard very few homilies of this nature in the city of San Francisco.

H1: Negative

H0: Heretical