“Intoíbo ad altáre Dei./ad Deum qui laetíficat juventútem meam.”
“I will go to the altar of God./To God, who gives joy to my youth.”
By Mary Powers
These opening words of the Mass would have been said by Franciscan Father Francisco Palóu on June 29, 1776, at the first Mass in the little chapel at Misión San Francisco de Asís.
From a secular perspective, this first recorded Mass sets the location of the mission, beginning the mission period of San Francisco history and setting the stage for the future city and archdiocese.
From a spiritual perspective, the Mass sets off a revolution—providing a home for the sacramental life of the local Church, fulfilling Christ’s command to the apostles to preach the Gospel to all nations.
The Mass is the source and summit of our lives as Catholics. It makes the sacrifice of Calvary truly present on the altar. It makes Jesus present to us—body, blood, soul and divinity—allowing us to come into full communion with Him, participating in His divine life through grace.
The liturgy is also the key to evangelization. It conforms us into an image of Christ, giving thanks to the Father. This new home base for the missionaries provided the opportunity for the liturgy to be celebrated and lived.
Robert Cardinal Sarah, in a talk delivered to the Fons et Culmen Liturgy Summit at St. Patrick’s Seminary in July 2025, said, “The heart of the Eucharist is the sacrifice offered by Christ to His Father with His whole being, which for us becomes the sacrifice of whole being.”
Through the liturgy, we participate in our telos, or final end, as human beings, entering into the trinitarian life, becoming, like Jesus, a continual offering to the Father in thanksgiving.
“Ontologically, the human worship of God consists in a deifying inclusion in trinitarian life to the extent that the Father sees the form of His Son in the worshiping human being,” said Cardinal Sarah.
The action within the liturgy then continues after the Mass ends, transforming the world around us.
“The deeper we, members of the Church, partake of the sacrifice of thanksgiving, the more our own life becomes Eucharistic, the more our attitude is that of Christ….Those transformed by the Eucharist…learn to see life with the mind of Christ, and understand that sincere thanksgiving is the only path to peace,” said the cardinal.
The self-sacrificial love and constant thanksgiving of the Father that we then embody in the Mass leads to service of others, acts of mercy, and a desire and effort to work toward peace and unity. The joy and zeal of those truly transformed into Christ attracts those who do not know Him and desire to live a life of freedom.
The Franciscan friars brought the liturgy with them in their evangelization of the New World converting souls through their own transformation into Christ.
