A Morning at Saint Albert’s

This morning, I took myself to Saint Albert’s Priory—a place I’ve passed hundreds of times. It sits just off College Avenue in the Rockridge district of Oakland on a quiet stretch of Chabot Road near where we once lived on Florio Street. I’ve always admired its calm green lawn and the small stately chapel behind the fence, assuming the large building beyond was a monastery. For years I thought, that’s not a place one simply walks into.

But today, something nudged me. I woke with the feeling that sitting in front of Saint Albert’s might clear my mind and soothe the small sorrows that had gathered lately. So I took BART to Rockridge, had my morning coffee, and walked up toward St. Albert’s. To my surprise, the gates were open—as if the place had been expecting me.

I walked up the path, shaded and winding, and noticed the chapel door slightly ajar. From inside came the sound of choral music, serene and steady. I eased the door open. The space glowed white and gold. At the altar stood perhaps a dozen men in white robes, touched with red and gold, their voices rising in harmony. A full congregation sat along the side pews, absorbed in song or prayer.

I stood quietly and listened. I was enchanted. The music was familiar—Catholic liturgy, yet reminiscent of the Episcopalian services of my childhood. The cadence, the reverence, the shared silence between phrases—it was exactly what I needed.

When the service ended, the men in robes and the priest came out front. I walked up to the one I assumed was the officiating priest—Father Raphael Mary, as it turned out—and thanked him. I told him I had passed Saint Albert’s many times but had never imagined going inside, until today. He smiled warmly and said I was welcome anytime.
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I admitted it had been more than forty years since I’d attended a church service—not as a tourist admiring art and iconography, but as a participant in worship. I told him I’d been raised Episcopalian but had drifted from organized faith in college, encouraged by a kind priest, Father Neville, who told me simply to “find the answers you can live by.” And that is how I have lived.

Still, standing there in the hush of the chapel, I felt something pure—perhaps not belief, but belonging. I left feeling cleansed.

As I stood outside afterward, words from Night Train to Lisbon came to mind. In it, Amadeu de Prado—a 17 year old confirmed atheist—delivers the graduation speech at his very Catholic school in Lisbon, at a time when the country bowed to the strict authority of Salazar.

“I would not like to live in a world without cathedrals.
I need their beauty and grandeur.
I need their imperious silence.
I need it against the witless bellowing of the barracks yard
and the witty chatter of the yes-men.
I want to hear the rustling of the organ,
this deluge of ethereal notes.
I need it against the shrill farce of marches.”
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That passage captures exactly what I felt: a yearning for beauty and silence amid the noise of the modern world—the shrill farce of politics, the endless chatter. Even without an organ, the pure a cappella voices at Saint Albert’s offered refuge from all that.

So thank you, Father Raphael Mary, for your kindness, and thank you to the universe for leading me there and opening the door.