Clockwise from top left: Bishop Larry Silva holds a cross Nativity he purchased from the Daughters of St. Paul’s Book and Media Center. A colorful two-piece sculpture of the Holy Family is inset with the image of Joseph and a pregnant Mary traveling to Bethlehem. Bishop Silva purchased this small clamshell Nativity scene on a pilgrimage to Fatima. The Carmelite sisters, whose cloister is next to St. Stephen Diocesan Center, painted this manger scene for the bishop. (HCH photos | Anna Weaver)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Tiny and tall. Manufactured and handmade. Local and internationally inspired.
Close to 150 Nativity scenes fill the bookshelves of the St. Stephen Diocesan Center library this month, all of them a part of Bishop Larry Silva’s personal collection of manger scenes.
This is the first year Honolulu’s bishop has put his crèches on public display. In the past, he decorated his personal residence at St. Stephen’s with the scenes, which limited both the number of people who could see them and the number of sets he could bring out.
“I think they bring joy to people,” Bishop Silva said of sharing his crèche collection during this season of joy.
The bishop didn’t set out to amass such a large grouping of Nativities. He says that close to 20 years ago he mentioned in passing to Msgr. Terence Watanabe of Maui that he loved the traditional scenes depicting the birth of Jesus. Msgr. Watanabe soon after gave him a crèche. Then more people started gifting them to him and soon he had a growing collection.
The Nativity scenes come from around the world and are made of clay, wood, paper, leaves and plant fibers, porcelain, glass, metal, even alpaca wool.
There’s a set depicting the Holy Family in a cave at Wadi Carith on Mt. Carmel that the local Carmelite Sisters painted. There’s a lighthearted manger scene with cloth musubi figures. There’s a puzzle piece Nativity and one with baby Jesus on what looks like an ambo, the “Word made flesh.”
Out of all his sets, Bishop Silva has only purchased two himself. One is a palm-sized, blue velvet clamshell that opens to reveal a tiny silver manger scene with a shooting star overhead. The bishop bought it on a Fatima pilgrimage. The other is a non-traditional Nativity with the Magi, Holy Family, shepherds, star, animals and angels intricately carved within a gold-painted cross. That one came from Pauline Books & Media Center.
The bishop’s collection has gotten so large that he is rapidly running out of storage room. One gets the sense that he might appreciate people’s prayers at Christmas from now on instead of additional Nativities as much as he enjoys the ones he has.
In the meantime, you can call St. Stephen Diocesan Center to inquire about seeing Bishop Silva’s Nativities at the center’s library this December: 203-6700.