Remembering St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, Altadena, CA

(which burned to the ground in the Eaton Canyon Fire yesterday, January 8, 2025)

I remember:

*January 1963. I attended St. Mark’s for first time with the Key Club of Pasadena High School. We visited a different house of worship each month. The next month we visited The Pasadena Jewish Temple and Center on Altadena Drive, which also burned to the ground yesterday.

*Sitting in a front pew with our advisor John Stewart. As a Presbyterian at that time, I learned that I had no clue about standing, sitting, and kneeling in the service, but Mr. Stewart, an Episcopalian, quietly coached us.

*Meeting the Rector, Father Bob Cornelison, at St. Mark’s. He was handsome, thirty-four-years old, jet-black hair that matched his cassock. Little did I know that this man would change the course of my life and shape my ministry as a priest.

*Returning to worship at St. Mark’s with my high school girl friend. It was a way I could be with her more often. I will always be grateful for her introduction to St. Mark’s Church

*Transitioning from my Presbyterian roots to the mystery and ritual of the Eucharist, God awakened in me a deep longing for the presence of Jesus in that liturgy.

*Witnessing Father Bob’s announcement in 1965 that he was going to Selma, Alabama to march with Dr. King after the violent assaults on Bloody Sunday. I was afraid for him, but off he went. Two weeks later he returned and shared his experience of marching with Dr. King, and his own visceral feelings of fear and dread, as they marched through taunting, rock-throwing crowds. And my life changed forever; something stirred within me. I wanted to live my life like Father Bob.

*Estranged from my parents, St. Mark’s became my family. I taught two-dozen third graders in the Sunday School. There was an open window in the back of the classroom. I had to be vigilant, because the boys were always trying to escape the class out that window.

*Singing in the choir. I had a weak voice, but that experience deep within the action of the liturgy fed my love for this congregation.

*Learning about the Pepper Project, the low-income housing project sponsored by St. Mark’s in the historic Black neighborhood of northwest Pasadena. The parish transitioned from being a traditionally white congregation to being a welcoming and inviting parish to the Black Community.

*Leaving for seminary in Berkeley, CA, in 1967, encouraged by Father Bob and sponsored by St. Mark’s for ordination.

*Grieving the death of my mother, who died on Easter Day 1989, and celebrating her Requiem at St. Mark’s Church.

We are reminded that a church is more than a building; it is the people of God who worship there. At the same time, when I would visit St. Mark’s in later years, wherever I looked within the church: the pulpit, the choir stalls, the memorial windows, the Blessed Sacrament, conjured precious memories and deep gratitude for how St. Mark’s drew me into the loving arms of Jesus and sent me forth as a priest into the world.