August 7, 2020
Editor’s note: This essay was originally published on the Facebook page of Old St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco.
How did I first hear about Old St. Mary’s? From Fr. George Johnson, C.S.P. Fr. Johnson wasn’t just any Paulist Father—he was my novice master.
The first year for students seeking to becoming Paulist priests is called “the novitiate.” It’s a year without academic studies spent learning about Paulist spirituality and mission while beginning to live the community life of a Paulist. In 1966, when I entered, our novitiate was located on 1500 acres of woodland and a pond called Mt. Paul. We had no contact with newspapers, television or any other outside distractions(all the others hadn’t been invented yet!). We—Fr. Dick Chilson and myself were among them—lived this monastic-style life for one year and two days.
Fr. George Johnson was 62 years old. He did not want to be novice master. He had arrived at Mt. Paul the year before to assist a younger priest, Fr. Thomas McCormick. No more than a month later Fr. McCormick died of a completely unexpected heart attack. Fr. George was the man on the spot, so he became the man in charge.
Fr. George was shy and anxious, suffered from ulcers and lacked natural skills for communicating with energetic and restless young men––our oldest novice was 29! He did his best––for one year and two days.
Fr. George gave us a one-hour conference five days of the week on some aspect of theology, scripture or Paulist life. He read from carefully prepared notes in a high nasal voice. He had many nervous mannerisms, repeating certain phrases over and over again, like “course again” or “consequently therefore.” We restless, housebound novices would add up the repeated phrases and after a conference would argue “I counted 29 times—no, 27.”
We knew that Fr. George was awkward in his meetings with us but sensed that he was kind. He certainly fed us well—a blessing we appreciated when visiting priests related horror stories about the more ascetic novice masters in times past. And beyond the pieties of the time he was refreshingly practical in his advice, once devoting his conference to the best ways to wash our socks while on the road for a mission.
But what I remembered more than anything else about Fr. George was his love for Old St. Mary’s! As we shivered through a New Jersey winter Fr. George told us stories of San Francisco as though it were Shangri La. He had been ordained in 1930 and after two years at Newman Hall in Berkeley he came here to serve the Chinese Mission. The eight years he spent here, despite being in the depths of the Great Depression, had clearly been the happiest of his life.
Young priests often develop a special relationship with the people they encounter in their first assignment or two. Fr. George was 28 years old when he arrived at Old St. Mary’s, not too much older than we novices were as we listened to his stories with perhaps half an ear. But when he talked with a special enthusiasm and even affection about those Chinese boys and girls he had mentored in basketball games and marching bands this now old man fired up in us an excitement for the future ministries we dreamed of having.
As we came to the end of our year and two days at Mt. Paul we were soaking up enthusiasm at the thought of leaving behind the isolated woods for a new life as seminarians in the big city of Washington, D.C.
Fr. George was even MORE excited than we were. After doing his best at a job he didn’t like and felt little gift for he was being assigned back to Old St. Mary’s as an associate pastor. Since leaving San Francisco in 1940 he had spent a quarter of a century pastoring faith communities in other cities. Now he was returning home.
I only saw Fr. Johnson once after that joyful day when my classmates and I became Paulists and we went our separate ways. Of course, our meeting was at Old St. Mary’s.
I was a recently ordained priest when Fr. George gave me a tour of the church and reminded me how excited he was to be celebrating his 50th anniversary as a priest among the parishioners he loved. Sadly he died just before that anniversary would have arrived. He is buried in the Paulist plot at Holy Cross Cemetery in Colma, not so far away from where he spent those happy years of ministry at the beginning and at the end of his priesthood.
In 2016 Fr. Eric Andrews, the president of the Paulist Fathers asked me if I could consider coming to the parish staff of Old St. Mary’s, I immediately thought of Fr. George Johnson. I knew it would be a good place. I said yes.