Discover Our Lady of the Pillar Academy
Mission & Call
Consoled and encouraged by the Blessed Virgin Mary, inspired by St. James the Greater and motivated by St. Junipero Serra to persevere always forward, Our Lady of the Pillar Academy's mission is to continue in their legacy to preach the gospel on the San Mateo coast side, building abundant lives in our young children and families through classical education!
All great missions have a bell to help travelers find their way. Do you hear the ringing of this great legendary mission bell in your heart? You are invited to respond to its call, to join in our mission to equip the children and families of this beautiful coastside area, consecrated so long ago, to triumph over the nihilism and despair so widespread in our culture today, to be the next generation of saints, to lead the San Francisco Bay Area joyfully by faith, reason and virtue.
Our Lady of the Pillar Academy is an independent Catholic school in the Archdiocese of San Francisco. It is co founded with others, by Derek and Juliette Kulda who, in 2022, also co-founded the Chesterton Academy of St James, an independent Catholic classical high school in Menlo Park.
Landmark
The key landmark in the Half Moon Bay area is Pillar Point, the northern point of our bay named and christened in honor of Our Lady of the Pillar by the Spanish explorers when originally mapping the North American coast.
History
In response to our Lord's call to "Go throughout the whole world and preach the gospel," one of the twelve apostles, St. James the Greater, brother of St. John the Evangelist, went west to the Iberian Peninsula. He not only confronted great difficulties but he also saw very little apostolic fruits of conversion at first with the obstinate people there. Tradition says that when he was at his lowest point of discouragement, in A.D. 40, while he was sitting by the banks of the Ebro river in Zaragoza, Mary appeared to him standing on a pillar accompanied by thousands of angels, to console and encourage him. With the Blessed Mother's help St. James pushed through his difficulties evangelizing those tribes. They became the people of Spain, one of the greatest evangelizing nations in history.
So, with the help of Our Lady of the Pillar, St. James brought the gospel to Spain in A.D 40. A Franciscan priest, St. Junipero Serra conveyed it from Spain to California in 1769-1784 in his great California mission project. St. Junipero Serra is buried at Mission Carmel, not far from Half Moon Bay.
A 100 years later in 1868, Our Lady of the Pillar parish was founded. It is the second parish founded in San Mateo County and remains the largest in size. There is a one acre parcel on the north end of the church property that has been earmarked for a school for many decades.