Maryknoll Sisters exchange the sign of peace during the Mass celebrating 90 years of service in Hawaii at the Maryknoll Community Center Oct. 7.
Four Maryknoll Sisters renew their vows, from left, Sister Lourdes Fernandez, Sister Cecilia Santos, Sister Elizabeth Kato and Sister Ardis Kremer.
Story and photos by Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
“We are the Maryknoll connection,” Sister Joan Chatfield told the diverse crowd gathered in the Maryknoll Community Center Oct. 7 to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the Maryknoll Sisters in Hawaii.
The 200-or-so people all knew what the Maryknoll veteran meant. Each had been touched, some profoundly, by the hundreds of Maryknoll Sisters who have filtered through the Islands over the last nine decades since their arrival in 1927, leaving their indelible matchless mark.
“If you are here, you belong here,” Sister Joan said to the congregation which included former and present students, faculty and staff of Maryknoll School, men and women of other religious orders, and others.
She spoke of the sisters — numbering 165 at their peak — who were pioneers of parochial education, social work and pastoral ministry in Hawaii.
Sister Maria Rosario Daley chats with Father Dennis Koshko after Mass.
And having “done their job,” they have clearly passed the torch to new generations who “keep the Maryknoll promise going,” she said.
Are the sisters retired? “Certainly not in terms of spirit,” she said.
Sister Joan’s remarks were prelude to a Mass celebrated by Msgr. Gary Secor and four other priests.
“We are so grateful for your years of service here in Hawaii,” said Msgr. Secor, in his homily.
The priest recounted his own personal connections with the Maryknoll Sisters — he is a 1969 Maryknoll High School graduate — which, in typical local fashion, went on and on, affirming Sister Joan’s premise.
“The Maryknoll Sisters are a wonderful example for us of women who make God’s love visible on the margins of society,” Msgr. Secor said. “They challenge all of us to go out to the margins as well.”
“We are reminded, inspired and instructed by your example,” he told the sisters. “All of you and all of us share in that calling to make Christ real in the flesh and blood of our own lives.”
At the celebration were 17 Maryknoll Sisters from China, Philippines, Japanese and Korea who were conducting Asia East World Section meetings Oct. 4-10 in Hawaii.
During the Mass, four sisters celebrating their own special anniversaries of profession renewed their vows. They were Sister Cecilia Santos, 70 years; Sister Elizabeth Kato, 60 years; Sister Ardis Kremer, 60 years; and Sister Lourdes Fernandez, 50 years.
The most popular person in the room, wearing the same habit as the first group of sisters who arrived in 1927, but not looking out of place, was Sister Maria Rosario Daley who has the longest Hawaii tenure, since 1948, and who was one of the last two sisters to leave the Maryknoll School faculty in 2006.
The Maryknoll Community Center is Maryknoll School’s newest building, a multipurpose gym and gathering place on the grade school’s campus where the Maryknoll Sisters’ convent used to stand.
After Mass, a large curtain was pulled back revealing the rest of the center where sisters and guests then enjoyed lunch and each other’s company.
