Thursday, December 1, 2016
Exsuperius
Who? A fellow named Exsuperius lived in the 5th century. He was a bishop so concerned about the poor that he sold off the church's fine vessels to obtain more money to help the poor. He carried the consecrated host in a willow basket and the consecrated wine in a common glass vase. Why would God want to dwell in expensive gold while God's people suffered hunger, homelessness and nakedness? I think that maybe he has a point? I like it that our Paulist Church here in San Francisco does not have much in altar finery, and that we inconvenience ourselves so that the hungry might be fed through a feeding program that is organized and distributed from here. Our finances are scary, but we seem to hang on. Maybe God wants us here?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
The Paulist was invited by San Francisco Archbishop Wm Patrick Reardon in 1894 to staff the "old" Cathedral Church of the Immaculate Conception. In addition to fine preaching, the Paulist witnessed the Corporal Works of Mercy with the donations collected on the poor homeless with meals and even nightly housing [now called 'shelters']; evangelize the Chinese who enlarged Chinatown on Grant Ave [originally Dupont Street] by operating a Chinese Mission and School; and provide meeting place for WWII servicemen and women to socialize, from which many enduring marriages emerged. The parish library was later converted to Evangelization and AA meeting place, besides today a religious gift and gift store. May these fine religious men continued in the tradition of their founder, the Servant of God, Rev. Isaac Thomas Hecker, CSP, to preach and witness Christ in the American cultural medium of "To give the Word a Voice" . // Ray Lew
ReplyDelete