‘Marianne, Damien, take care of this’
Several years ago, the Bishop Museum was sponsoring a talk on the future of Kalaupapa. Many of the sisters went because we wanted to know what Steve Prokop, the superintendent of Kalaupapa National Park, envisioned. He looked at us directly and said that it would be good if there were more sisters down there. I thought that would be something I could do as I was retired. I have been there for five years now and enjoy every moment of every day in the special place where Mother Marianne and Father Damien became saints.
Before I became a Catholic, and even when I entered the convent, I did not know much about St. Marianne and St. Damien. As a convert from Taoism, I remember reading from cover to cover the big red book on the catechism of the Catholic Church that a priest gave me. There were unfamiliar words like “extreme unction” and “contrition” in it but nothing that stuck in memory on the lives of the two saints. Religious formation also did not emphasize the life of Mother Marianne. So, I volunteered to go to Kalaupapa to get to know Marianne and Damien better.
One of the things that I have been pondering about Mother Marianne’s life in particular is how she kept up with the religious aspects of her life while doing the work before her. She and the sisters must have suffered a lot. As I conveniently do the laundry and hang out the wash to dry, I cannot help but think of the hardships they endured keeping up with the hand-washing of their heavy serge habits and cooking the starch to starch them!
Whereas we have food that comes in on a barge that also carries other necessities, I wonder how she fed her sisters and the many patients during food shortages. I wonder too where she and the others slept before enough blankets could be obtained and shipped in for everyone? Whereas I drive visitors to Kalawao to share with them the stories, the sisters would daily walk forth and back a few miles to care for the patients.
Mother Marianne held to her single purpose of what she and the Sisters had to do, and what they needed to go about doing to help everyone, even when it meant arguing with the goverment for the patients’ necessities. She ran to people’s care.
When I meet up with problems, I find myself saying, “Marianne, you take care of this.” Realizing I really cannot be partial and call on Mother all the time, I have added, “Damien, you need to help us too.” Sometimes even if the weather is bad and I cannot go to the garden because it is raining too much, I call on them both.
Some things may seem insignificant, yet others truly don’t seem to have a solution. I often say to myself, “Oh, what the nerve this sister has on calling on them for small things.” I know I am not saving souls by this intercession, but it does help me fulfill my daily work which I feel God has definitely called me to.
Sister Theresa Chow is a Franciscan Sister of the Neumann Communities who resides at the convent at Bishop Home in Kalaupapa. She has been professed 63 years.
