Old St Mary's Cathedral

09/06/2026

Our Sunday Mass:

Mass Chinese English Bilingual atOld Saint Mary's Cathedral + Chin...

09/04/2026

Approaches to prayer

08/30/2026

Our Sunday Mass:

Mass Chinese English Bilingual atOld Saint Mary's Cathedral + Chin...

08/30/2026

Following in Jesus’s Footsteps

Sunday, August 30, 2026
READ ON CAC.ORG


Jesus told his disciples, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” — Matthew 16:24–25
Father Richard Rohr reflects on how discipleship ultimately leads to the cross and identifying with the pain of the world:
My assumption is that Jesus’s totally counterintuitive message of the “cross” had to be sent to earth as a dramatic and divine zinger, because God knew we would do everything we could to deny it, avoid it, soften it, or make it into a theory (which is exactly what we did anyway). Yet this is the message of Jesus that cannot, and must not, be allowed to be pushed into the background. We believe in a Jesus-kind-of-Christ—a God who is going to the mat with humanity and not just presenting us with a heavenly, cosmic vision. If Christ represents the resurrected state, then Jesus represents the crucified/ resurrecting path of getting there.
It is not insignificant that Christians chose the cross or crucifix as their central symbol. At least unconsciously, we recognized that Jesus talked often about “losing your life.” Perhaps the philosopher Ken Wilber’s distinction between “ascending religions” and “descending religions” is helpful here. He and I both trust descending religion much more, and I think Jesus did too. The primary language is unlearning, letting go, surrendering, serving others, and not the language of self-development—which often lurks behind our popular notions of “salvation.” Unless we’re careful, we will again make Jesus’s descending religion into a new form of climbing religion, as we have done so often before.
Although Jesus made this quite clear throughout his life, we still largely turned C mechanismhristianity into a religion where the operative agenda was some personal moral perfection, our attaining some kind of salvation, “going to heaven,” converting others rather than ourselves, and acquiring more health, wealth, and success in this world. In that pursuit, we ended up largely aligning with empires, wars, and colonization of our planet, instead of with Jesus or the powerless. It has all caught up with us in the twenty-first century. [1]
A spirituality of descent frees us to surrender our often messy lives to God. It is about honoring the human journey, loving it, and living it in all its wonder and tragedy. There is nothing really supernatural about love and suffering. It is completely natural, taking us through the deep interplay of death and life, surrender and forgiveness, in all their basic and foundational manifestations.
Authentic Christianity is not so much a belief system as a life-and-death system that shows us how to give away our life, how to give away our love, and eventually how to give away our death. Basically, how to give away—and in doing so, to connect with the world, with all other creatures, and with God. [2]

08/28/2026

This week's newsletter from the Paulist Fathers:

Meet Paulist Novices Erick Tatro and Robert Howley + Remembering Dolly Parton + Kathryn Muensterman on Deacons Pod + More!

08/28/2026

Learning how to live spiritually

08/23/2026

Our Sunday Mass:

Mass Chinese English Bilingual atOld Saint Mary's Cathedral + Chin...

08/21/2026

THE SHOW BUSINESS PRIEST: PAULIST FATHER ELWOOD “BUD” KIESER:A REFLECTION BY PAULIST FR. JOE SCOTT

Fr. Bud was a huge man, nearly seven feet tall with a massive head and shoulders. His ambition and drive were huge as well. He had great success in gathering Hollywood talent around him, but everyone worked for Bud. You were in the service of God and Fr. Bud, and I’m not sure who was more demanding.

He liked to wear a safari jacket when he was “on location,’ perhaps his reminder to all of their global mission. Bud took everything seriously. He developed the great cross of a hearing impairment, but it didn’t seem to slow him down. If he might not have always understood you, you learned to understand him.

It all started in the 1960’s, with a monthly lecture on the Catholic faith in the basement of the Paulist church in Los Angles. One of Bud’s converts, a Hollywood producer, suggested spicing up the lectures with five minute spots illustrating the subject. This soon turned into the “Insight” series, 30 minute dramas featuring top actors and written by top script writers. These films are now property of the National Film Institute, where you can watch them today. The hair styles and clothing fashions are from the 1960’s and 1970’s but the subjects of those dramas still ring true, and still hold MY attention. You got to see actors like Martin Sheen, William Shatner, Carol Burnett and Moira Kelly at the beginning of their careers. Somehow, he got many of them to donate their salaries to the cause,

But Fr. Bud was never satisfied. He had been a very hard-driving basketball player in high school, he wanted the best for whatever he did, which in this case became Paulist Productions.

When it proved to be no longer affordable to produce the “Insight” series, Fr Bud went bigger, with two feature movies with big name casts, “Oscar Romero” and “Entertaining Angels” about Dorothy Day. These were impossible dreams that lost money in America but found an audience in places like Latin America,

Fr. Bud died very suddenly in 2000. His death was hard to believe. He was always working on a new project. He left a legacy. He founded the Humanitas Foundation, which sponsored script writers to write projects inspired by human values. He was demanding of all his employees, but was a good pastor to them when they were in need. We Paulists never had anyone quite like him.

08/21/2026

To live spiritually means asking the correct questions

08/14/2026

PAULIST FATHER ED WROBLEWSKI, AND THE SOUNDS OF LOVE: A REFLECTION BY PAULIST JOE SCOTT

Fr. Ed received the gift of his Catholic faith while he was serving in the Air Force during the Korean war. He had been baptized a child but had not known a lot about his faith until then. This led him to an interest in becoming a priest, and eventually to the Paulist Fathers.

Ed had a long nourished a love of Peanuts cartoons and in the brand new media of television and radio. He created “Your Catholic magazine on the air” when he was a seminary student.

After he was ordained in 1963, he conducted an interview show on radio station for the Archdiocese of Chicago. Rather than a stand up lecture to his audience, he conducted relaxed interview sitting on a stool among all gathered like that popularized by Dave Garroway on the Today Show.

His peak television years came when he was hired by Franciscan Productions in Los Angeles. There, his gift for communicating with young children came to the fore.

At that same time, television star Art Linkletter had a huge hit with a show called “Kids Say the Strangest things.”

Fr. Ed was having his own success with the kindergardners at St Pauli the Apostle school in Los Angeles. Ed just had a gift for talking with, and listening to, children, about subjects from Jesus to friendship. Talking with Fr Ed, kids seemed to say the wisest things about the great subjects, God and love. He demonstrated that all children can show the wisdom of Charlie Brown!

These mini radio “spots” were called “love spots” from the tag “The Sounds of Love from the Franciscans.”

Later, Fr. Ed developed a similar format for Paulist Communications called “The Sounds of Love from the Paulists.”

One of the spots won a “Gabriel Award” in 1995. The Gabriel is the National Catholic Broadcasters Award for Excellence in Broadcasting.

When Fr. Ed finally left his work in radio and television, he continued his ministry with children in the Paulist parish of St. Paul and other Los Angeles parishes as well. Among his other talents, he was a skilled magician, and worked hard each day at perfecting magic tricks for the children’s delight.

Fr. Ed died in 2021, and he loved children and Peanuts cartoons until the end!