Watch the discussion between Mary Rose and Father Illo on this blog.
Today is Gratitude Day. It is the feast of Corpus Christi, the celebration of “Thanksgiving,” the solemnity of the Holy Eucharist, a Greek word that means “thanksgiving” and a divine liturgy that expresses man’s supreme act of gratitude to our Creator and Savior. In the traditional form of the Mass, which I offered this morning, the priest prays these words from Psalm 116: Quid retribuam Domino pro omnibus quae retribuit mihi? (“What will I give to the Lord in return for all that He has given to me?”). And the answer is: gratitude. Just thank Him. Learn to say “thank you” to others, and especially to the Father from whom all blessings flow. Carl Trueman wrote a stirring article about gratitude today, perhaps not knowing that it would be posted on the Solemnity of Corpus Christ, the Catholic Feast of Gratitude.
We had planned a Eucharistic procession tonight that will take the Eucharist into the streets. After the morning Mass, however, the sacristan told me that our sidewalks are spotted with rotting piles of human feces. I went out to have a look, and what I saw made me angry. I marched up to the vagrants sprawled out in the nearby public parking lot. “Did you crap on my sidewalk?” I demanded of a mild-mannered man. “Not me,” he said sheepishly. I’m fairly sure he was either lying or mentally unaware. A masked man in a beat-up pickup, which had “City Street Cleaners” painted on the side, was sweeping up the garbage around the vagrants. I marched up to him: Do you get paid to clean the streets?” I demanded. “Yes,” he replied sheepishly. “There are several piles of human feces on the sidewalk on which our schoolchildren have to walk every day to school. The parents complain. We all complain, but the city does nothing. Can you clean it up?”
He said he could and went over to scoop the poop. I was angry at the vagrants, angry at the street cleaner, and most of all angry at wealthy San Francisco politicians who have made our city a “socialist paradise.” But I remembered, at the last minute, to thank the poor Filipino man in his beat-up pickup truck who is getting paid $35 an hour to clean up the mess.
It’s easy to be angry at the obtuseness, the greed, and the irrationality of those who currently rule our culture. It’s easy to be angry at God, actually. But today is a day to look up, not down. To look up at the sky, the clouds, the trees, the sun and the moon and the stars; to look up as the priest lifts high the Holy Eucharist, which will bring us to the highest heavens. “Give thanks in all circumstances,” the Apostle Paul urges us.
Thank you, Lord, for the poor Filipino man with the mask in his old pickup, thank you for the vagrant man in the parking lot, thank you for my school, and my friends and my brother priests, and for the Mass I just celebrated. “What return shall I make to God who has given everything to me?” Certainly not anger or resentment. I will thank the Good God; I will try to thank the Good God, for everything that he has given to me!
From the May 30 episode of Father Illo blogs
Watch the discussion between Mary Rose and Father Illo on this blog.
San Francisco has been deemed by many experts to be the worst-run city in the U.S., with a very questionable, problematic future.
A terrible problem. But this priest is too crude. Especially on the Feast of Corpus Christi.
About 25 years ago, I and several friends saw a poor, elderly priest severely chastising several homeless men who looked like disheveled dope addicts, in a similar situation. Several churches were serving the homeless– and these homeless men had no respect, and didn’t bother to use the bathroom facilities available. They acted “worse than animals.” My friends and I were very shocked, horrified, and also, afraid for the frail, elderly priest. We worried that this situation was far too horrible for him, and he might end up in the hospital. Anyway, the poor, elderly priest used decent terms like “human feces,” “went to the bathroom,” “defecation,” “bowel movement,” etc. Pretty soon, the priest in charge came out, and handled the situation sternly. A couple of other priests came out and took the poor, elderly priest inside, to rest. We felt so bad for him! That was so awful! He died about a year later. People need to be raised with good morals, good manners, decency, and respect.Especially, respect for a church, which is the holy house of God. Those who cannot care for themselves, should be legally mandated to be off the streets, and in a hospital, for responsible, proper medical care. That is a responsibility of a good and decent society. The SPCA and other animal welfare agencies always compassionately pick up and help poor, homeless animals, and properly care for them, and try to get them adopted to good homes. Streets full of irresponsible, sick, addicted, uncared-for, homeless people– just like the poor, homeless animals– are places of irresponsible disease, filth and death.
If you remain in San Francisco, you deserve all the crap you get. I hope it doesn’t reach the point where I conclude that about the United States as a whole, but it might. Probably, though, if it does reach that point, that’s when the Chinese and the Russians will invade. I bet the Chinese and the Russians don’t have poop on their streets. Only Democrat cities in America do.
Remember that California cleaned up San Francisco for the visit of Chinese dignitaries. The Chinese were not fooled. It was Democrats’ version of a Potemkin village to impress the Chinese and convince them that all is well in San Francisco.
They won’t invade and take us over in the usual sense. They’ll conquer by trade practices, including ownership, piracy and cyber attacks; and the destruction of marriage and family. And, we’re already in the process of surrendering our nation. In some places in our country, an American flag is now seen as offensive.
The American Flag is considered offensive by almost all of Archbishop Mitty High School’s religion teachers. They refused to display it in class. One woman, in particular, hated any expression of American patriotism. Mrs. Walker, as I recall. She wore a National Organization for Women pin to class one time, I remember.
Sweet Jesus have mercy on San Francisco and especially for California. Pray, Pray, Pray!
Democrats are letting cities, states, and the whole country fall apart because it isn’t affecting them personally yet. It’s not affecting the quality of life of Democrats in elected office, so they don’t care about the harmful effects of their policies on the little people. Democrats in office detest the American people. If you live where Democrats are in control, you are a fool. If you live there *and* vote for Democrats, you are a fool who has brought it upon yourself.
🤬🧹💩🫧🚶🏻😊
Are you a gen Zer?
I’ve been amazed at how much the young people prefer to communicate through emojis instead of words. Even the words they use are distorted and abbreviated into letters or numbers.
Like they would type:
CU at 3
in a text to confirm a meeting and the recipient would reply with 👍🏻to indicate agreement.
It’s all so weird.
I don’t know how they make sense of a doctrinally complex and liturgically ancient religion such as Catholicism.
I don’t know how they can learn a programming language if they don’ t want to be bothered with complex technical text.
I do not blame them. Texting is slower than molasses. Even Morse Code is faster. I hate texting and shorten it too.
I might attempt to convey a message using a sequence of emoticons one day. I plan on waiting for a suitable article to present itself. I do realize that I can not hope to be as good as those who have done it for most of their lives.
OT Maybe. But think of all the young men with no hope for a job, buy a house know the security and love from his wife and children. Fentanyl is turned to and massive OD. SF makes me sad. I pray for young men. Pls don’t say they voted for poo, drugs, and despair. This is satanic.
I see this story as an allegory. The City of SF can’t or won’t clean up the crap off its sidewalks, nor can or will the Church clean up the crap in its own house.
People living in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. The pot shouldn’t call the kettle black.
The solution to homelessness is NOT housing. The solution is addressing the mental-health and substance-abuse issues that caused the homelessness in the first place. Homelessness is down nationwide but is up here in California. This is because the prisons are being emptied, mainly because of the passage of Proposition 47, of mentally-ill inmates and those who have no skills with which to get jobs. Stop focusing on housing, and deal with the individual person instead. Putting these people into decent housing will not resolve the problems. It will only make them worse. Putting people with disordered habits into orderly housing in the hope that this will change their ways will not work. Unless the homeless commit to reform, they will bring their disorder into the new housing and even damage it.
There are so many homeless people because they do not have homes. HOMES, not housing, are what is missing. A house is a physical structure that shelters someone from the elements. A home is a social unit formed by a family living together in a place. The home holds the relationships that tie one to another in times of happiness and misfortune. It is a giant safety net that prevents the proliferation of the homeless plight.
Of the mentally ill that are homeless, they would be far better served by getting institutionalized care to ensure that they take prescribed medication. Expecting a crazy person to take prescription medications while living in a homeless encampment is doomed to failure.
Homes keep people from becoming homeless. A healthy family is always the best place to turn in times of trial. Every homeless person is someone’s child, someone’s sibling, or someone’s parent. This vital social unit is the only real solution to the scandalous legions of homeless found all over the nation. If we want to get religious about it, 1 Timothy 5:8 tells us, “Whoever does not provide for relatives, and especially family members, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.”
This is a human problem, NOT a housing problem.
The problem of homelessness is too big to solve. Some areas will just become shantytowns, as has happened in Oakland and some blocks in LA. At one time it was manageable. Now it’s out of control. You can solve it for your personal life by moving away from it and not going into shantytown areas.
We need maps to help us stay away from the shantytowns.