Welcome to
Old St. Mary’s Cathedral
& Chinese Mission
Welcome to our vibrant Catholic community,
where we together celebrate
faith, hope, and love of God.
Join us in sacred worship, building community,
and sharing the Good News of Jesus Christ.
Weekend Mass Times
Saturday 5:00 pm
Sunday 9:00 am & 11:00 am
Weekday Mass
Tue-Fri 12:05 pm
Adoration
1st Friday of the month after the 12:05pm Mass
Confessions
by appointment (Contact Fr. Ivan
415-288-3830 or e-mail;
or contact any of the other Paulist priests)
Ash Wednesday
Wed, Feb18 at 8am, 12:05pm, and 5:15pm
Come join us as we embark on the Season of Lent. We will celebrate with Mass and the distribution of ashes, as we take yet another step into the 40 day journey of purification and enlightenment. May this year’s journey fill us with abundant graces and help us to turn our hearts and minds and souls to the Light of the World, Jesus Christ.
Lenten Activities
at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral
For 40 days, we have the opportunity to follow Jesus’ command to repent, to turn and change our lives, that we may be moving in the direction of the Kingdom of God. Don’t waste this opportunity of grace. Don’t settle for mediocrity. Come out of the Lenten Journey a better version of yourself.
Some offerings at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral to help you this Lent include:'
Daily Mass at 12:05pm - or consider reflecting on the daily readings
Practice Lenten Disciplines of Prayer, Fasting, and Almsgiving - not out of a Lenten habit, but with prayerful accompaniment of the Holy Spirit and with intentionality to the fruit of openness to the graces of God
Stations of the Cross after Friday 12:05pm Mass or virtually on Friday’s at 6:15pm - Walk the walk of Jesus that demonstrates His obedience, His love, His trust, and His being the captain of His ship in horrible environments.
The Forgotten Way by Matthew Kelly - Pick up, read, and reflect upon this year’s Lenten book. Consider joining our Lenten Book Discussion group on this book. Stay tune for more details.
The Chosen Discussion Group - Throughout Lent we’ll host a discussion on one of the episodes of The Chosen.
Lenten Reflections with Fr. Terry Ryan, CSP (9am, Feb 28) - Join Fr. Terry online to explore Lent.
Radiate Love - Pick up a copy of Radiate Love and work with your spouse or significant other on how you as a couple can better radiate God’s love in the world and to each other.
Volunteer - Share the gift of your time to promote greater justice in the world.
Go Deeper in Lent - Explore the spiritual resources we’ve identified or find your own spiritual resource to deepen your spiritual growth this Lent.
World Marriage Day (Feb 8)
World Marriage Day is celebrated the 2nd Sunday of February when we celebrate the beauty and richness of the sacrament of marriage and how our married couples are channel of God’s wonderful love and blessings to the world.
Marriage is not easy, requiring all the virtues of a saint - patience, sacrifice, generosity, forgiveness, trust, faith, and love. All married couples need our love and prayers. This day we remember that and call upon God’s blessing on married couples at all our Masses the weekend of World Marriage Day.
While supplies last, we are providing the book, Radiate Love, to married and engage couples to help them better live out their vocation of marriage and be God’s blessings for the world.
Original window before restoration
Installing the new window
Unveiling our Restored
Conversion of St. Paul
Stained-Glass Window
the weekend of 2026 Jan 24 & 25
After over a year of working on our time stained window, on January 25rh weekend, we unveiled the restored version. Time had blurred the image and knock out pieces of the stained glass. Through careful matching colors and enhancing colorings, our Conversion of St. Paul window has been restored to her glory days.
On Friday, Jan 23, the refurbished window was installed and the following weekend, at all the Sunday Masses, we blessed this image that had inspired pilgrims to Old St. Mary’s Cathedral over the decades.
As Catholics, we use images to help remind us of our heroes of the faith and how God is ever faithful in blessing them and using them to inspire deeper hope, deeper faith, deeper love across space and time.
The conversion of St. Paul reminds us God can use us, no matter how dark a history we have written. God’s grace can shine light across any darkness and bring forth new and exciting things. We just need to be open to God’s loving and transforming grace.
Thanks to Fr. John Ardis, CSP who spearheaded this project when he was pastor here. Thanks to Vincent Ho, who gave a grand gift in honor of his late wife MJ (Mary Jean) to restore this particular window. Thanks to Margaret Pederson (Sea of Glass Studios), whose expert training in stained glass windows, enabled her to restore our window to last another 100 years. Thanks to Rick Riley who carefully removed the window and has now carefully reinstalled the restored window.
As part of your pilgrimage to Old St. Mary’s Cathedral,
consider spending some prayerful time
before the image of the Conversion of St. Paul.
First Friday Adoration
after the 12:05pm Mass
After the 12:05pm Mass, on the first Friday of the month, we will have adoration and benediction. Come spend some quiet time and meditative Taize chants with our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament. In our busy and chaotic world, we are in need of the peace and presence and wisdom of our Lord. We will conclude around 1pm with Benediction and the Divine Praises.
Parish Info & What’s Coming Up ...
OCIA - A Journey of Faith
Wanting to explore the Catholic Faith? Considering becoming Catholic or receiving sacraments
of Confirmation & Eucharist?
We have a process called the OCIA where the church accompanies folks ionn their spiritual journey to discern God’s call to become Catholic.
To become a Catholic disciple of Jesus Christ is more than just knowledge. It’s all about realizing how amazing our Lord is and to fall deeply in love, so as to transform one’s life and tap into the blessings, sacraments, and companionship of our Lord and His Church.
Contact Fr. Ivan for more information.
After-Mass Hospitality
(After the 9am and 11am Mass)
Everyone is invited to our after-Mass hospitality after the 9am and 11am Sunday Masses. Each Sunday, the parish provides tea and coffee and various parishioners bring treats or make something delicious to share. We are following the Master who did his best ministry around food,
In this we start to fulfill our Mass dismissal charge to “go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life.” We glorify the Lord by making people feel loved. We glorify the Lord by allowing others to help us experience God’s love through their friendship and affection.
Our parishioners and visitors often spend an hour after Mass in our auditorium getting to know one another, sharing our week, or finding needed connections, laughter, or prayers. Come an entertain angels without knowing it through your presence and hospitality. (Hebrew 13:2).
Bible Studies
Come join our online Bible Studies to deepen your appreciation of the power and wisdom of God’s Word. As St. Jerome says, “Ignorance of Scripture is ignorance of Christ.”
Fr. Tom leads an English Bible Study on Thursday at 6pm (ZOOM ID: 819 3641 0160; Passcode: 016304).
Deacon Simon leads a Cantonese Bible Study on Friday at 8pm (Zoom ID: 758 223 4347)
Lenten Reflections
with
Fr. Terry Ryan, CSP
Sat, Feb 28, 2026
9am PST
ZOOM Event
Have you made any Lenten resolutions yet? How is it going over the last ten days since you received your ashes? We will reflect on some things you might look at in prayer and in life with others, either family, shopping and general commerce as we go through our routines and to do list. A clue: do you start the morning with gratitude or “God help me?” The human condition is our transformation point.
The format is a talk, break, Q&A, and then some quiet meditation together.
The Forgotten Way
by Matthew Kelly
This year’s spiritual reading for our parishioners and visitors is “The Forgotten Way” by Matthew Kelly. Pick up a copy at Old St. Mary’s Cathedral.
We live in a world where insulting others has become the norm. It is so easy to be critical and let others know our disappointing and caustic opinions. Church people can be the worse when we feel we know the mind of God and when we think everything is of utmost importance.
However, we forget that being in the image of God, our words have immense power to lift up or tear down. The simple way of practicing the virtue of watching our words and using them to be lifegiving, can be the catalyst for an abundance of other virtues to be part of our life. This is one possible Lenten practice to focus on this year.
World Marriage Day (Feb 8)
World Marriage Day is celebrated the 2nd Sunday of February when we celebrate the beauty and richness of the sacrament of marriage and how our married couples are channel of God’s wonderful love and blessings to the world.
Marriage is not easy, requiring all the virtues of a saint - patience, sacrifice, generosity, forgiveness, trust, faith, and love. All married couples need our love and prayers. This day we remember that and call upon God’s blessing on married couples at all our Masses the weekend of World Marriage Day.
While supplies last, we are providing the booklet, Radiate Love, to married and engage couples to help them better live out their vocation of marriage. This booklet has prayerful reflections on aspects of marriage, saints to inspire radiant marriages, and prayers to tap into and be the blessings of God.
Also check out the Radiate Love resources on the SF Archdiocesan website.
2026 Archdiocesan Annual Appeal
It’s that time again when each parish is asked to help support our archdiocesan. Our goal this year went up to $44,762. It is set at 20% of our ordinary income from the previous year.
Your support helps our archdiocese support Bay Area ministries like Catholic Charities, Catholic Schools, Faith Formation, Marriage Preparation, Ethnic Ministries like to Chinese Catholics, care for retired priests, formation of future priests, continuing formation of catechists and parishioners ministers and priests.
Spirituality Resources
We are now in the season of Ordinary Time. For us baptized in the power of Christ and living in the age of the Spirit and of the Kingdom, we know its roots and foundations comes from the gift of the Son of God. Click here for some resources to help you celebrate well this season of growing in the Spirit.
2026 Annual Paulist Appeal
The religious order, that has been serving Old St. Mary’s Cathedral & Chinese Mission since 1894, is the Paulist Fathers. We are the first men’s religious order founded in the US. We were founded to evangelize the US, then considered mission territory, with the large number of non-Christians and Protestants. Our founder, Servant of God Isaac Hecker, felt the energetic spirit of America was fertile ground for the richness and vibrancy of the Catholic faith.
Your support of the Paulist Fathers help us continue our missionary efforts in the United States. We have active ministries in evangelization, communication (through books (Paulist Press), movies and documentaries (Paulist Production), radio (Busted Halo Show)), young adult ministries, reconciliation, ecumenism, lay ministry, etc. These ministries all need your support. The funds also help us to take care of our senior Paulists and to form our future Paulist priests.
** Visiting Old St. Mary's
** Visiting Old St. Mary's
If you are planning to visit Old St. Mary's, we look forward to welcoming you. This 172 year old church has seen a lot of history and a lot of lived faith.
We have a self-guided tour pamphlet you can pick up at the church. At our church entrance, we have historic pictures of the church and tower that amazingly survived the 1906 SF earthquake. That earthquake destroyed over 80% of the city.
Our church is normally open
Mon: CLOSED
Tues-Fri: 10am-4:30pm
Sat: 11:30am-6pm
Sun: 8:30am-Noon
(until 3pm during the summer)
Who Are We?
Welcome to our community, where warmth and faith come together
to create a sense of belonging for everyone.
Join us as we share in life's journey,
celebrating and supporting one another every step of the way.