For these local priests, the great outdoors is a saving grace
By Christina Gray
“Not all who wander are lost,” wrote the late Catholic English author J.R.R. Tolkien. That single line taken from a longer poem in his trilogy, “The Lord of the Rings,” became a bumper sticker still commonly seen on cars at trail heads and campgrounds.
The phrase could hardly be more fitting than for a group of ordained trekkers who told Catholic San Francisco that their getaways — pursued alone or with other priests — are more than just exercise or vacation; they have helped them sustain their vocation. Time away from priestly duties, especially outdoors, helps them decompress from the demands of their ministries. It can help them return to their parish “recharged.” It can also fortify their fraternal bond with other priests, something Father Joseph Illo, pastor of San Francisco’s Star of the Sea Parish, said “has saved my priesthood.”
A bike, breviary and brotherhood
Star of the Sea is a large and flourishing parish that includes Stella Maris Academy, a new K-8 classical curriculum Catholic school. Father Illo is responsible for all of it. Most weekdays, he still slips out of the rectory for a routine spin on his red road bike.
“I just need one hour,” he said, arriving at a postride interview fresh and focused after a 40-minute spin through the urban streets around the parish. He rode through nearby Golden Gate Park and the Presidio all the way to the ocean. He took a breather at the shoreline to read for a few minutes from his breviary, then cycled back to the parish to shower.
“It is my release valve,” he said, using the terminology of a cyclist. Not thinking about what’s going on at the parish for a short span of time can be fruitful, not wasteful, he’s found. “When you are not thinking about problems, solutions come to you.”
This includes both spiritual and practical solutions.
Father Illo does a pastoral blog every 10 days. “Almost every one of the ideas for those blogs come from my rides,” he said.
On weekends he may ride alone, or with a priest friend or a parishioner, across the Golden Gate Bridge to Mount Tamalpais in Marin County. He will push up its 2,572-foot peak, take in a moment of accomplishment at the top, then speed downhill to cross the bridge again on his return to the parish. All in about three hours.
It wasn’t long after his ordination in 1991 and first assignment to a parish in Lodi, California, that Father Illo realized that he felt a bit unmoored without the “strong fraternity and sense of purpose and identity I had known in the seminary.”
He did two things that helped to change that trajectory. He started an informal fraternity of priest friends. And he bought a bike.
“I was not going to make it in the priesthood without them,” he told his priest friends at the time. Members who, then and now, are from different parishes and dioceses meet to pray and play together. They still gather once a month, according to Father Illo, to celebrate a Mass, holy hour, share a meal and talk. Often it includes a sporting activity, like a basketball game, bike ride or kayaking trip. Or a multiday, High Sierra backpacking trip.
R&R as a ‘secret productivity weapon’
Father Illo began a practice in Lodi that he has maintained with modifications for his entire priesthood. He would take an hour for himself on his bike, “riding hard” for 30 minutes before stopping at a favorite spot near a lake with a view of the snow-covered mountains in the distance. He would read from both his breviary and a favorite novel, then take a short nap.
Rest was the “secret productivity weapon” of the late British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, he noted. Even in the midst of World War II, Churchill retreated to his room each day for a few hours.
“This is what works for me,” said Father Illo. There is never enough time to do all that’s required of a pastor, and a priest can burn out without downtime. “I have not burned out.”
This summer, Father Illo will take a three-month sabbatical to Ireland – his first in decades – to complete two books: a history of the parish, and a presentation on the 16 Marian apparition stories enshrined there.
His bike will go with him.
‘Concrete reminders of our efforts’
A priest of the Diocese of Sacramento, Father Blaise Berg is an associate professor of dogmatic theology at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. He’s also a longtime cycling partner and priest friend of Father Illo.
In the summer of 2023, Father Berg and his sister Grace walked the entire 500-mile Camino Frances, the most popular and traditional route from St. Jean Pied de Port in France to Santiago de Compostela in Spain. They walked for 31 straight days (their bags were carried to and from each point on the trail). Just over a month after his return, Father Berg was back on the trail again, this time the John Muir Trail. Father Illo invited him to join him and Star of the Sea parishioner Donncha O’Cochlain for what Father Berg called “his first serious backpacking trip.”
Was it ever. The JMT, as trail veterans refer to it, is a 213-mile trail through Sierra Nevada backcountry. It begins in Yosemite Valley and ends at Mount Whitney at an elevation of 14,505 feet. It passes through Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia national parks. Three students from Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula joined the men for parts of the trek.
The priests prayed the rosary “constantly” on the trail, according to Father Berg, and carried light vestments, a small bottle of wine and one Mass kit for daily Mass.
“We had Mass every morning; that was a nonnegotiable,” said Father Berg. “The whole sky becomes your cathedral,” said Father Illo, pictured on the cover shot for this issue celebrating Mass on Half Dome on a separate hiking trip with Father Mark Wagner of the Diocese of Stockton.
“The Psalms came alive for me on the trail,” said Father Berg. “It was glorious.” He recalled one day when they came upon some other hikers near a raging waterfall. “It was noon, and we were doing the Angelus,” he said. “I thought to myself this must be what the Annunciation was like, with the amount of grace coming down like this waterfall.”
When they reached the summit of Mount Whitney on the 19th day, they were hungry, their fingers cracked and bleeding. It was supposed to be a 17-day trip, but the hikers ran out of food in the final days. They were as grateful for the provisions offered by strangers and rangers as they were for the safe return of Father Berg, who took a wrong path and got separated from his friends in the wilderness for a full day and night.
Sheltered from the blizzard conditions at the summit in a medieval-looking stone emergency shelter, Father Berg, Father Illo and O’Cochlain shared a final Mass.
Father Berg reflected on the many benefits of such experiences. He said he tells seminarians that as a spiritual leader, “you don’t always see that you have produced something, you don’t always see things change day by day, and that’s normal.”
Physical accomplishments, from building a fire or pitching a tent to scaling a mountain, can help satisfy the human need to see progress and forward movement.
“Obviously the work we do in a parish or a seminary is invaluable,” he said. “Someday we’ll know if we made a difference when we make our way to heaven. But in this life, it’s good to have reminders, very concrete evidence of our efforts.”
‘It’s definitely a recharge of the batteries’
Father Michael Liliedahl grew up in rural Alaska, where “all you needed to do was walk out your back door” to do something outdoorsy and adventurous.
After serving as pastor of St. Stephen Parish for three years, Father Liliedahl teaches homiletics to first-year seminarians at St. Patrick’s Seminary & University. He is also chaplain for the San Francisco State University Newman Center.
His travels have taken him through Vietnam, Peru, Norway, Australia, Nepal, Greece, New Zealand, Germany, Seychelles, Israel and “the Stans” – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. And of course, his beloved Alaska, to name just a few places.
Unlike Father Illo and Father Berg, Father Liliedahl prefers to travel alone.
“One of the things about being a priest is that you are kind of ‘on’ all the time,” he said. Solo travel offers a rare opportunity to be unknown, to be an anonymous face in the crowd. “It’s not that I’m hiding the fact I’m a priest, I just don’t lead with it,” he said. He sees travel as a valuable tool for anyone who wants to spread the Gospel.
“If we are being called to bring the good news to every nation, wouldn’t it help to understand these nations and how God is working in different cultures?” he said.
While some people refresh their bodies, minds and spirits by sitting on a beach doing nothing, Father Liliedahl said he feels rejuvenated by going to new places and doing new things.
“It’s definitely a recharge of the batteries,” he said. “When I come back, I bring that energy with me.”
Asked whether a priest can afford not to take time for himself, his answer was an emphatic no.
“Human beings have limits, and priests are human beings,” he said. They are not immune to burnout and mental health issues.
“The question is, would we rather have a priest on duty seven days a week who’s gone in two years because he’s burned out?” he said. “Or would we rather have a priest serve five or six days a week, take a week of vacation each year and be around to serve the Church for 40 or 50 years?”
Christina Gray is the lead writer for Catholic San Francisco.
