Reprinted with permission from Westfriars, 11/95.

Bishop Weigand, Fathers Barry and Rick, parishioners, friars, sisters, and much-loved friends of Saint Francis:

It is a great privilege for all of us to be here this morning to celebrate the centenary of this worshiping community. The first services were held here on this site April 7, 1895, and this present church was dedicated October 23, 1910. Situated next to the heart of California's gold rush, constructed partially with wood from the nearby state capitol building, and emblazoned as it is with the artistry and labor of German, Swiss and Irish immigrants, St. Francis Church represents much that is best in our American Roman Catholic tradition.

It would be impossible for me even to begin to list the great Christians who have built this living edifice: the Sisters of Mercy, who were the initial teachers at the school; the long tradition and witness of the Franciscan Sisters of Penance and Charity, the generations of predominantly German, Irish and Swiss laity, members of the parish's social outreach societies, the Secular Franciscan Order established from the beginning, our Franciscan friars, and countless numbers of others. Today, for them all, we give great thanks.

For our reflection, let me try to capture a little bit of the meaning of this history in a few images.

Have you ever been to Yosemite? It is truly one of the great wonders of the world . . . If you go down into the valley and take one of the small trails leading toward the mountains, you will come across the natural landscape the locals call "Mirror Lake." Here a small pool of water reflects the majestic rock formations towering above the base; surrounded by trees and grasslands, peopled by innumerable small birds and animals, the lake is the center, responsive to the slightest rustle of a leaf, reacting to the smallest flight of a bird. Hence its name, "Mirror Lake."

At first glance, the whole scene appears to be an environment unto itself, nestled as it is in a small space between towering cliffs, and yet what occurs on the mountaintop, the rains that come down and the rocks that fall, will affect the clearness and depth of the lake for good and for ill. The clouds and flight of the birds from far, far away may be imaged beautifully or may be terribly obscured in the surface of the water, depending on what is disturbing it beneath, in its depths. A movement in one portion of the environment, the fall of a tree, the death of an animal, the drying up of a stream or river, affects every other living thing. Eventually, Mirror Lake itself will be changed. The truth is, no one part can be isolated from the whole; they are all interdependent. When all the parts are taken in their relationships, the whole is called an ecosystem. And in the context of Yosemite itself, this small ecosystem of Mirror Lake, in its life and its death, reflects the entire ecosystem of the valley, its length and breadth, height and depth. Both the small and larger ecosystems are precious and beautiful, their ecologies worth knowing and remembering and preserving. Their ability to survive will depend on their adaptability and their incorporation of all aspects of each other into an environment conducive to life.

As we look at this beautiful Church of Saint Francis, we discover something similar. Its walls are covered with a cloud of witnesses reflective of our own composition: holy men and women of the past; lay and religious; married and single; public sinners and great lights of the Church community; young, middle-aged and elderly; founders and foundresses of religious orders; popes, bishops and priests; mothers and fathers. We live and breathe in this environment. In it we are born into life at our birth and into eternal life at our death; here we are married; here we make professions as religious; here we come for consolation and forgiveness of sins. It is here that we celebrate the presence of our God; the very vitality of the environment depends on the living water of Baptism, the bread of life of the Eucharist, the fire of the Holy Spirit which binds everything together. It is here that we are meant to hear the Word of God and its call for justice and peace. All of this together we might call the ecosystem of Saint Francis in the larger ecosystem of the Body of Christ. This church has functioned generally like the small system at Mirror Lake, both dependent on and capturing the terrible beauty and sometimes violent changes of the ecosystem of the Church and society around it.

As we look at the history of Saint Francis, we can see, indeed, that its own ecosystem has been very reflective of the larger ecology of the Church and world, its clearness and its obscurity responsive to the more powerful winds of life and death in the larger valley. Within the church, the changes are well known and somewhat obvious: the German, Irish and Swiss immigrants who overcame poverty and rose to prominence, whose lives are reflected in the solidity of these walls, are mostly gone now their place taken by the "emigres of the interior," the wounded, indebted pilgrims of our society and Church, the poor of all kinds. The ordered and unified ecclesiastical "perfect society" of the 1930-1940-1950 period, painted on these walls, has given way to a pluralistic and clearly acrimonious struggle for competing visions of Church and state. Here we see the difference in our experience between the murals of Saint Francis and the twisted explosive scene of Michelangelo's "Last Judgement." Those understanding the Church Latin inscribed on the walls have also dwindled to a few, and the community and society itself needs bilingual and multicultural specialists in the language of contemporary experience. The focus on the hierarchy of sisters and priests has shifted in both parish and school to a strong local church of lay leaders.

The larger ecosystem of our society has also changed. Once dominated by an atmosphere of expansion and unlimited opportunity, our world is now largely mired in the politics of division and an economics of scarcity. If industry and meaning were the twin pillars of our ancestors' endeavors, our words seem much more tentative, the depths controlled perhaps more by fear and loss of significance. The mix of death and life is much more clear to us, the search for justice a little more obscure.

In addition to our past it is also these changes in our environment which are shaping our centenary celebration. And we need at once to take the opportunity to value ever more deeply the ecology of the Church which is so profoundly represented by this building and people; and also to relearn the ecosystem of our own small "Mirror Lake" and its place in the larger valley of God's beauty. The ecological soundness of our future will be dependent on the depth with which we can respond creatively and constructively to the changes of the larger ecosystem of Church and society.

It is in the midst of this history and these changes that the word of God is spoken to us today. The Gospel, I think, is appropriate for this centenary. Its word is the river of life which can feed our small lake, the breath of air which can fill our ecosystem with vitality and place it in relationship to everything that is, the rock of strength which can tower above us to protect us from the violence of change, and the gentle yoke which can bind us to our Lord and forgive our sins and hold us in our fears. Think only of this one image which is given to us today: "You are the salt of the earth. But what if salt goes flat? How can you restore its flavor? Then it is good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot." What does this image tell us about the ecology of the Church? I think two simple things, and with these I would like to leave you:

The Gospel today, first of all, refers to us. "Keep salt in your hearts," Mark says, "and you will be at peace with one another." Our hundred years of service as a church have been characterized in the past and today by people of outstanding faith who have guarded salt in their hearts. As Jesus says, that salt is the fire of the Holy Spirit: "Everyone will be salted with fire" (Mk. 9.49). Its presence is told by its fruits: "The fruit of the spirit," Paul writes, "is love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faith, mildness and chastity" (Gal. 5.22). In division, and for the good of its future, as it has been in the past, these virtues above all must characterize our small ecosystem of a Christian Catholic community. John Paul II puts this reality very well in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae:

"With the gift of His Spirit, Christ gives new content and meaning to the law of reciprocity, to our being entrusted to one another. The Spirit who builds up communion in love creates between us a fraternity and solidarity, a true reflection of the mystery or mutual self-giving and receiving proper to the Most Holy Trinity. The Spirit becomes the new law which gives strength to believers and awakens in them a responsibility for sharing the gift of self and for accepting others, as a sharing in the boundless love of Jesus Christ Himself."

"To all the members of the Church, the people of life and for life, I make this most urgent appeal, that together we may offer this world of ours new signs of hope, and work to ensure that justice and solidarity will increase and that a new culture of human life will be affirmed, for the building of an authentic civilization of truth and life."

People of life we have been in the past; people of life we are now. May God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, enable us to practice this ecology of the Church. The Lord give you peace.

Joseph P. Chinnici, OFM
October 1, 1995