JUBILARIANS ALL! - Holy Name Province

ish extended family in Chicago. Floyd kept
contact with them for all these years. They
substituted for his California family when
Floyd received the "Distinguished Alumnus
Award" from Marquette several years ago.
In 1967, Floyd was transferred from Santa
Barbara to the Tenderlion. He was to preach
weekend retreats at the new retreat house, San
Damiano, in Danville, and at St. Francis Retreat
in San Juan Bautista. He would live here
and work at St. Boniface during the week.
(Later he would also teach preaching at the
Franciscan School of Theology in Berkeley).
At St. Boniface he worked closely with Alfred
Boeddeker, the founder of St. Anthony Foundation
-- it was sort of an apprenticeship for
Floyd. A few months later, he was asked to
assist Fr. Alfred.
Floyd worked in the Tenderloin for over forty
years. The Gospel of Matthew which we
just read provides us the scriptural basis for-
Floyd's concern for the poor. The text could
serve as a job description of the Foundation or
its mission statement. "I was hungry, thirsty,
homeless, sick, in prison, a stranger -- a marginalized
person and you took care of me.”
The question, " When, Lord, did I see you"
gives us a glance into Floyd's motivation during
his years at the Foundation, “into what
made him tick." Frequent reflection, contemplation,
conversation about the meaning of
this text strengthened within Floyd a deep,
childhood lesson that he learned from his
mother.
11
In a chapter written by House Speaker Nancy
Pelosi in a recently published book about
politicians who are believers, Nancy described
how she once asked Floyd the secret
of his perseverance during the forty plus years
of working with the Foundation. " Don't you
wear out, don't you ever get tired, don't you
ever feel like changing jobs" Floyd answered
her: " As a child and -- yes -- even as an adult,
my mother used to tell me often, 'Son, stay
close to the poor. Love the poor because God
loves the poor!'"
During his years with the Foundation--in
many different positions--Floyd grew to know
the poor and to love the poor. Floyd had many
friends and he loved us all -- he related with
us well, but we always knew that he had preference
for the poor. He was friends of many
archbishops, bishops, other priests, religious
brothers and sisters, rabbis, ministers, government
officials --both local and national--
people of wealth and power in our society and
in our nation -- and ordinary people from all
walks of life. Yet he never lost this friendship
with the poor.
He received awards from the Church, from
U.S. presidents, from mayors, and articles
were written about him in numerous national
publications. He was an author of a couple of
books. He was interviewed and praised by
well known people, he was a friend of news
reporters, a friend of Herb Caen and other
journalists, a friend of all the policemen in the
Tenderloin, a friend of taxi cab drivers whose
cabs he blessed, and of owners of all sorts
of animals whose pets he blessed around the
feast of St. Francis. The text of Matthew 25
came to life in brother Floyd.
Allow me to finish by talking briefly about the
three pillars in Floyd's life that offered him
structure and stability... the three loves in his
life.