TESTIMONIALS

When Father Frank dies, give him Thy crown—better for all priests to follow Thy crown of great gifts when they follow him in Thy path of love. Don’t let visits of doubt, despair and dismay lead the way, rather, let Father Frank kindly sway all hearts until they reach the happy day of God’s majesty and God’s immensity. Don’t leave me, Jesus. Let me remember—let me remember in Spiritual life they’re always seeing God’s gifts He has given to me. Let me adore, worship and reverence Thy Solemnity, because Thou have touched the world in the hands of Thy priests. Make me courageous—joyous… I want to endure all things for Thee. Make me humble. Make my heart tremble when I think of Thee—let me come to Thee before too long. I don’t care about a place up above—just so I have Your love. Immensities, gratitude, reverence are nothing, God, just Your love to allow me to be just a speck of dust beneath Thy feet when You walk. Help me in the work You would have me do. Help me to see You in Father Frank, the road won’t be hard if from time to time I may see the crown on Father Frank. He is humble, kind, and so much like You, Jesus, he has all your qualities—what more does he need? Let Thy crown be visible on him when I’m down, let the crown be ever in his reach. Don’t embrace me, Jesus, embrace Father, for I am not worthy.

—Cora Evans, November 29, 1948

A beauty ever ancient ever new in Ordination Ceremonies—no matter how often we Priest of the Most High assist at them—is to see young men ardent with the love of God await the coming of the Holy Spirit Who is to descend upon them just as He came upon the apostles of the Divine High Priest some 1900 years ago in the upper Chamber of Jerusalem when He bestowed His Priesthood upon them and gave them His own power of standing at His Altar and offering the One Great Sacrifice. On that Blessed Night He offered His first Mass in an un-bloody manner in anticipation of the Sacrifice on Calvary on the morrow, and each of them was to offer the same Sacrifice of Calvary in His Name and by His Power. And two weeks ago yesterday in Saint Mary’s Cathedral, a noble band of some forty Deacons from the ranks of the Diocesan Clergy and from the Dominican Order and from the Society of Jesus knelt at the feet of the Archbishop of San Francisco, the successor of the Apostles of the Master, and with throbbing hearts received the Imposition of Hands the Holy Spirit (Spirit) Who made them one and all Priests of Jesus Christ forever according to the Order of Melchizedek. With the joy ever ancient there was a peculiar new joy as I saw the Holy Priesthood on thirty-two Jesuit Brothers of mine and passed along and laid my priestly anointed hands on these New Priest-Brothers of mine until I came to one, a spiritual son of mine, upon whose baby head thirty-one years ago I poured the saving waters of Baptism which made him a child of God in the humble Church of our Parish of Saint Ignatius of Loyola on Avenue 52 (Highland Park, California). It was the happy consummation of three decades of prayer and expectation as I saw him grow up in a truly Christian home under the loving and watchful care of a saintly Father who has a new joy in Heaven as he looks down on his Priest boy, and of a devoted loving Catholic Mother. I saw him pass from the atmosphere of that Catholic Home to that of the schools of the Sons of Saint Ignatius where the seed of a priestly and religious vocation sown in his home was nourished and bore fruit in the vocation which eventually brought our Dear Boy Francis Parrish to the priesthood of Christ Jesus. Dear Father Francis, we are all happy with you in your sublime happiness. We bless God for the dignity conferred upon you. We, your Brother-Priests, welcome you to the honors and to the Sacred Burdens of the Priesthood of Christ, which you share with us. We assure you of our prayers that you are ever true to your High Vocation. We beg the Great High Priest to bless abundantly your labors for many, many years in His Vineyard. Your Dear Mother (pictured) and your Dear Ones and all your Friends who have come today to honor you and to bless God with you pledge you their fervent and constant prayers for God’s abiding blessing on your labors. Tomorrow is the Feast of the Vicar of the Great High Priest Saint Peter, and of his glorious associate in the Priesthood and in the Apostolate. May their love for the Church of Christ and for your Faith burn brightly in your heart. May they fill you with their own zeal for God’s glory and the salvation of souls until at last after, with God’s blessing, a long life in His service you may be joined with them and all the Priests of Jesus, the High Priest, where you will be His crown and joy for all Eternity.

Father Frank Parrish was a priest who was devoted to the Sacred Heart all through his long life. This devotion to the Sacred Heart led him to be acquainted with mysticism and miraculous cures. For one example he was instrumental in getting Saint Margaret Mary Alacoque’s spiritual Director, Claude la Colombiere, canonized. He did this by using Blessed Claude’s relic to cure Father Houle of a terminal case of pulmonary fibrosis. And too, from his earliest years as a priest he was officially appointed director of a notable mystic, Mrs. Cora Evans. Her mystical memoires of Christ’s life are published in Cora’s autobiography and Father Parrish himself has recorded supernaturally miraculous things that happened through Cora. Spiritual direction of a mystic is something the profound theologian Adrienne Von Speyr explains well. Adrienne tells something that is exemplified in Father Parrish’s directorship of Cora Evans. Von Speyr writes, “There is one person who has a special position between the soul and God, namely the spiritual director officially appointed by the Church. He is commissioned to bring the soul nearer to God, but it is also his task to a great extent, to represent God to the soul. He stands in a special relationship to God’s omniscience… he is given antennae, as it were, to enable him to see and understand, in faith, as much as he needs in order to undertake the soul’s guidance.” Father Parrish was officially appointed by Father Provincial Joseph King to be Cora Evans’ spiritual director according to a document Father King wrote. Father Parrish as a director of a mystic is in the same position that Saint Claude had who was officially the spiritual director of Saint Margaret Mary. We should have reverence for Father Parrish because of his intimate relations with God and for 75 years of initiating works of faith for God like miracles, sermons and enthusiastic prayers (End of excerpt). In another handwritten letter (undated) Father Conneally was complimentary: “Your retreats, which plan to get individuals to Jesus, are wonderful… The Mystical Humanity of Christ is mystical; it is His Mystical Presence. God Bless you, Father Phil”

1. Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) was a mystic, medical doctor, and author under the spiritual direction of the renowned theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905–1988). A Catholic priest, Balthasar left the Jesuit order to found a Secular Institute. He was elected Cardinal but died two days before the ceremony. Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) spoke at his funeral.

Father Frank had great faith, and it was a simple faith. What was important with him was a very close presence of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in his life. They were very real. They were like his friends he could talk to. And his prayer life, I imagine, was very much like that too, there were no great theological hang-ups on anything, but rather, tremendous faith and love for Jesus and the holy family. And this carried over to things like use of relics. These relics were something real for him. They were a part of a Saint, that when used, they had meaning. That was kind of his whole life. He was the preacher at my first solemn mass in Los Angeles. He gave a very nice homily; it was very personal, talking about my parents. He could talk long and loud about a lot of things relating to the spiritual life. Over the years, we were close friends; we’d meet on occasion. When I was his provincial he was in charge of the Sacred Heart program, so our dealings were on that level, but he was always Uncle Frank and I was Terry and that was the relationship we had. So it was just friends occasionally meeting and chatting about things in general and his affection for me and my great affection and appreciation for him lasted until he passed away. We were friends, and as a youngster, a lot of it was a teaching relationship—teaching in terms of spirituality, not in terms of heavy or formal instruction, but explaining things and emphasizing prayer and our relationship with God. Between him and another priest, Father John Odou, I believe I had received my vocation to the Society of Jesus; I wanted to be like Uncle Frank. So our relationship was a very close one. My perception was he was a great guy. He was always a lot of fun. He was one who cared about you, was interested in you, encouraged you and gave you whatever help you might ask him for. Everybody loved Uncle Frank. Uncle Frank was Uncle Frank to everybody in the province. Everybody liked Frank; I never heard of anyone who disliked him. Father Bob McDevitt and Frank were close. Frank was always concerned about Bob and how he was doing. What Frank said and what he did and how he acted, how he treated you, can have a profound impact on a young person and certainly I think it did for me. My first two years when I had him in sodality and as a teacher, it was easy to be good because people like Uncle Frank would expect you to act this way. I am a better person because of Uncle Frank. He taught me to be happy. He certainly was always jovial. He taught us all to be very patient with ourselves and with others. He taught us what it meant to be a man who had spiritual foundations and who lived by them. And just his overall presence, I guess, would be that which would help you form yourself into a likeness, and that’s what sons do to fathers and fathers to sons. Good people on earth, like teachers, can help very much for a young person to become motivated in order to find a way of life that is pleasing not only to them but also to God and the world above them. And certainly Frank was one of those—a man of simple faith, who loved God above all things and in loving God, loved everybody else, too. And I think he did. I don’t think Frank ever had an enemy in the world.

I first got to know Father Frank in 1989. I moved to California to raise money for the Gregorian University in Rome, the first Jesuit university founded in 1551 by Saint Ignatius Loyola. He was the superior at the Jesuit residence and he was there carrying things up stairs and everything to put in my room, as were the other priests there. I lived there from 1989 to 2004. Then I moved to the high school in 2004 so I was there with him. My perception of Father Frank was of an absolutely extraordinary person, an absolutely remarkable spiritual leader everywhere. He was the Assistant Principal at Loyola High, the Dean of Students at Loyola Marymount, and he ran the retreat house on the east end of the valley for six years. Then he came to The Colombiere House—called The Connelly House first—until after the canonization of Claude de Colombiere. He was not just a distinguished boy scout, but a Catholic scout, and of course, the Director of the Apostleship of Prayer, the League of the Sacred Heart. It’s incredible. He just had such an open heart. He was so centered on Saint Ignatius and the Sacred Heart. He could explain it so well. Of course, that’s in his book *Sparks from His Heart*, the special dimensions of God’s love for us. He said it with such joy and emphasis that people were lifted up. First of all, he got their attention—he got our attention—then he lifted people up in God’s love for us; similar to the *Joy of the Gospel*… wasn’t that the first apostolic letter by the new Pope, Francis? He was that kind of man. He conveyed that in every setting he was in. I remember him talking about Cora Evans from time to time, about being honored to be her spiritual director. That’s a blessing—that he had all of her writings in the right place to pass on. It is a total blessing to have these things to pass on from a layperson, especially important. There are so few canonized laypeople, and for a mystic like this, to have support and people who were influenced by her and met her, is the best. It is so necessary in today’s world. Yes, Father Frank had an impact on my spiritual life and faith. To come to a new city and fundraise in a place where you’re competing with other charitable institutions—he was consistently interested in what I was doing and lifting me up. He was one of the most important Jesuits in my life. That happens with Jesuits—you can meet someone you’ve never known before and get to know them so deeply. He was saying Mass until about a week and a half before he died. When he could no longer say it, I went out and said it, but he was there to celebrate it. That was about a full week before he died. His sister was there, of course, and other people coming in at any given time. That was a total blessing. He gave it his all. Santa Teresita was very good to him. The constellation of the sisters there attending to him couldn’t have been better. He was a visionary of God’s joy.