Cardinal Soane P. Mafi of Tonga speaks July 14 at the Sacred Hearts Center in Kaneohe to a gathering of friends of the Sacred Hearts Congregation. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
Pondering and praying on the beach before dawn July 2 on tiny Tongan island of Pangaimotu, Cardinal Soane Patita Paini Mafi thought of the courageous souls that had gone before him. As he watched, boats began to arrive with people coming for the Mass he was there to celebrate on the spot of Tonga’s first Catholic Mass on its 175th anniversary.
“I put myself in that place, 175 years ago, when the French missionaries arrived,” he said.
“I was thanking God” because “who I am” is the fruit of the sacrifices of those first brave missionaries, Cardinal Mafi said.
“I am standing on the shoulders of holy people,” he said.
The Tongan cardinal told this story to about 50 friends and donors of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts at a dinner July 14 at Sacred Hearts Center in Kaneohe.
Cardinal Mafi pointed to the coincidence of July 14 being the 190th anniversary of the first Catholic Mass in Hawaii, celebrated by a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts.
The faith in both Tonga and Hawaii, thanks to heroic missionaries, is today empowered by the “spirit of the resurrected Lord,” he said.
The Tongan cardinal also spoke of the experience of the 15 Tongan youth who last year attended World Youth Day in Krakow, Poland.
“They witnessed something beautiful,” he said, “the universality of the church.”
“Eyes were opened to the richness of the church,” Cardinal Mafi said. “They were full of excitement.”
He said, the youth also experienced the centrality of the Mass in their faith and the importance of the priest who celebrates the Mass, he said.
“We must pray to the Lord of the harvest” for more priests, he said. “We must pray … pray hard. Youth need to hear the good news.”
Cardinal Mafi also thanked the Sacred Hearts Congregation for sending missionary priests to Tonga.
In introducing the cardinal, Father Johnathan Hurrell, provincial superior of the U.S. province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, said, “I truly believe God has a mission for us, as he has for over the past 200 years, and wants us to continue.”
He drew attention to the congregation’s fast growing seminary program in Fiji where 10 men from Hawaii, the U.S. Mainland, Asia and the Pacific study at various levels of formation.
“We are really a family that strives together, prays together,” the priest said. “In the deep spirit of family, the mission continues.”
Also speaking was Tongan Siosateki Faletau who told of the “immense” impact the three Sacred Hearts missionaries, led by Father Clyde Guerreiro of Hawaii, have made on Tonga.
Faletau, a parishioner at Father Guerreiro’s St. Michael Church, said the “hardworking, humble priests” have increased the size of the congregation from a church three-quarters full to overflowing.
The priests, he said, are available 24 hours a day, every day of the week.
He said that Father Guerreiro is a great preacher, with the “ability to speak at all levels, and a “superior teacher.”
He said more support is needed for the Sacred Hearts Congregation’s Tongan mission.
