St. Philip The Apostle, Pasadena, CA

When I was a boy, my dad would stop at this church in Pasadena on Hill Street directly across from PCC, called St. Philip The Apostle.  He'd park against the curb in front and run in and pick up a Tidings, dab his finger in the Holy Water, enter quietly into the apex and kneel at the back to make his quiet, sacred prayers to his mother, father, and sister. I don't know why he picked this church.  And he didn't stop here often.  But he certainly was compelled when he was in the neighborhood. 

Did he attend mass here?  I can't recall.  He may have lit a votive candle if they were available.  But he mostly stopped here on off hours, either just after a Saturday morning mass or stopping in mid-afternoon on our way home from the Police Academy.  Regardless of when or what he stopped for, the occasion was always reverent and sacred.  Was a friend, relative, or workmate married here?  Was someone he knew baptized here?  

I think my dad loved the Catholic Church, the history of the church, the personal lives of the Saints and their histories, but I think what was a challenge was answering the call to a sacred life in modern times.  I don't think he was a fan of business accounting.  He could do plenty of calculations in his head.  He often worked a second job on Saturdays delivering for Good Will at least a few times that I recall.  1960s and 1970s inflation being what they were, he relied on charge cards--the Sears card, Montgomery Ward card, the Texaco card, and others.  Two of his biggest accomplishments were, one, paying off his mortgage, and, two, paying off the balance on his Sears card.  

But how could he reconcile the days of undeveloped days of 1930s Los Angeles, where his dad worked construction and drove a truck in the building of Los Angeles' art deco City Hall in 1932? He wanted the love and adoration of saints in beautiful raiment as opposed to the tactless communist garb.

ut the old days going back to his days and his father's days but also going back to the to the lives of the Saints that was that was his world to be to live out there be part of that history not a modern history not the 1960s you know where the craziness was competing for attention from of all of his kids