Old Saint Mary's

When I live in San Francisco, my home is Old St. Mary's Church, the crossroads of Chinatown and the Financial District.  What anyone can see of our ministry does not look like much.  Few parishioners, few people in our convert classes, our adult ed classes and few people from the area in our daily masses.  Are we failures?  No.  There is an anonymous ministry there.  Every weekday at noon, we provide space for AA meetings.  About seventy five to eighty people show up at this meeting.  In other parts of the complex there are other meeting for other recovery issues.  We give people what we  have.  We give them space and hospitality.  Old St. Mary's has become "Recovery Central" for the Financial District of San Francisco.  We have location, space, and the wisdom to do what we can and not what we cannot or should not.  There recovery meetings are very spiritual, filled with humility and gratefulness.  Shattered lives are now being restored and even better than before the shattering.  Catholics upstairs in the church pews believe that they find Jesus in the tabernacle.  Yes.  But he is also at work and dwells in other surprising places.  I have found it so.