Red Mass speaker: ‘We help because of who we are’

Above, vicar general Father Gary Secor raises his hand as Bishop Larry Silva blesses government leaders. (HCH photos | Darlene Dela Cruz)

 

At the diocese’s annual Red Mass, Jan. 20 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace, a congregation of government leaders, Protestant priests and ministers, Hawaiian societies, Catholic priests, sisters and brothers, diocesan employees and lay men and women heard how the U.S. Catholic Church responds to Jesus’ mandate to care for the world’s weakest and most vulnerable people.

With the Gospel story of the Last Judgment providing the context for the liturgy’s lesson, guest speaker Joan Rosenhauer of Catholic Relief Services explained how her organization answers the Lord’s command to serve the “least among you.”

“We represent the church in the U.S. and the American people in 100 countries around the world serving nearly 100 million people each year, regardless of their creed or race or nationality,” she said. “We often say that we help people not because of who they are, but because of who we are and what we believe.”

Bishop Larry Silva presided at the annual morning liturgy, celebrated the day before the opening of the Hawaii State Legislature as an invocation to the Holy Spirit to bestow wisdom and grace upon Hawaii’s public servants. Ten priests concelebrated.

About 25 civic leaders, mostly from the State Legislature, attended. They included Senate President Donna Mercado Kim, Speaker of the House Joseph Souki, and Vice Speaker of the House John Mizuno.

Other state senators present were Sen. Suzanne Chun-Oakland, Sen. Mike Gabbard, Sen. Gil Riviere and Sen. Gene Ward. State representatives attending included Rep. Henry Aquino, Rep. Romy Cachola, Rep. Ty Cullen, Rep. Matthew LoPresti, Rep. Derek Kawakami and Rep. Calvin Say.

Also in attendance were U.S. Air Force Maj. Gen. John Dolan, Chief of Staff, U.S. Pacific Command; Hawaii Supreme Court Associate Justice Michael Wilson; Honolulu City Council member Brandon Elefante; Jun Yang, the executive director of the Honolulu mayor’s Office of Housing; George Atta, director of the Honolulu City and County Planning and Permitting Department; and Lionel Camara Jr., deputy chief of the Honolulu Fire Department.

A larger-than-usual number of leaders from other Christian churches, most wearing stoles, participated. They included the dean of St. Andrew Episcopal Cathedral Very Rev. Walter Brownridge; Pastor Allen Cardines of Hope Chapel, Nanakuli; Rev. Dale Burke, the chaplain of Hawaii Pacific University; Rev. Dr. Nobuko Miyake-Stoner of United Methodist Church; Chaplain Maj. Kurt Mueller of the Christian and Missionary Alliance of the Hawaii National Guard; Most Rev. Stephen Randolph Sykes, the Orthodox Bishop of Hawaii; and about a half dozen others.

The presence of 25 members of several Hawaiian royal orders, which participate every year, added color and dignity to the proceedings, the women in elegant hats and the men in black suits wearing yellow and red Hawaiian capes.

In a brief homily, Bishop Silva called on civic representatives to join those motivated by faith in caring for the community.

“We pray that this coming together will connect people more closely so that all entities can work together to serve our beloved community,” he said.

“Despite the often extreme mantra of ‘separation of church and state’ we need each other to sharpen the vision of how our community can best be served,” the bishop said.

“Moreover, we need to see that there is a reality beyond our own time, and beyond this community of the present day,” he said. “It is God in his transcendence who gives us a broader yet clearer vision that will keep us more focused on the needs of here and now.”

Speaking at the end of Mass, Rosenhauer, who is CRS’s executive vice president of U.S. Operations, gave examples of the organization’s work on the front lines of the Ebola epidemic in Western Africa, rebuilding Philippine communities ravaged by Typhoon Haiyan, facilitating post-civil war reconciliation in Rwanda, and creating water and land restoration projects in Ethiopia.

She listed four ways a person could help CRS help others: praying, learning, acting and giving. She thanked the congregation for their prayers and for the monetary offering collected during the Mass, which amounted to $1,021, according to the diocesan Finance Office.

Rosenhauer closed with a story from a refugee camp for Syrians displaced by war, where she said an estimated 42 percent of the children suffer from post traumatic stress disorder and 60 percent from depression.

A girl about 12 years old, watching the Catholic relief workers helping the children, concluded that the foreign word “Catholic” must mean “help.”

“What a blessing it is that we can be known as the people who help, because that is what the Gospel calls us to do,” Rosenhauer said.

Before the Mass concluded, Bishop Silva invited the visiting dignitaries to stand for a blessing.

“We pray for David Y. Ige, our governor, for Shan S. Tsutsui, our lieutenant governor, for our mayors, for the members of our legislature, for judges, elected civil officials, and all others who are entrusted to guard our political welfare,” the bishop said.

“May they be enabled by [God’s] powerful protection to discharge their duties with honesty and ability,” Bishop Silva said.