The Franciscan Sisters of the Neumann Communities watch the May 25 graduation of Saint Francis School’s final graduating class. (HCH Photo | Anna Weaver)
By Dr. Shirley Tamoria
Special to the Hawaii Catholic Herald
The Saint Francis School graduation for 2019 was a heartfelt moment of a closing door with the hope of a new door opening. The young graduates were full of energy and the transformation process was amazing. I knew some of them as freshmen on the football field as their sports doctor. I remember them kneeling in prayer after every practice and before every game. I knew the graduating Ganeku twins since they were in diapers. It was a special joy to see the graduates sing their theme song with smiles and a true sense of camaraderie. They all face bright futures. Yet it was so sad that it was the school’s last commencement after some 8,700 students have passed through those classrooms and gardens in Manoa.
I have known and loved the Sisters of St. Francis as mentors for nearly five decades, since I was 14. They are incredibly gifted teachers of faith, courage and wisdom who led many to live the Gospel. They taught with joy by their lives of compassion and service to the most vulnerable. I was honored to serve on the Saint Francis school board and knew the struggle of dwindling finances as tuition was sometimes difficult to collect. Some students came from homeless families, or single parents who faced job, home and food insecurity.
Truly, Saint Francis School lifted up the poor and gave generously to the little ones and the most vulnerable. Rather than succumbing to becoming an elite school for those of higher income, Saint Francis, and many other schools across the nation, had to close in 2019. Even the Waldorf School in Honolulu for special students closed this year. Diversity in education, both private and public, is vital for the socioeconomic and political growth of our island communities. How can we help all schools achieve sustainability while serving the most vulnerable with excellence? All education needs to be supported by public and private funding. Everyone pays taxes and everyone should have equity in choosing a school without choosing financial burden.
Maybe the closing of Saint Francis School signals a need to be fools for Christ who in poverty and humility now await the movement of a deeper compassion and peace of heart that will send light into every dark corner of our island consciousness. It is now time for a leap of faith. A new vision promises to perpetuate the legacies of St. Francis, St. Marianne and St. Damien of Molokai, Queen Liliuokalani and King David Kalakaua who wept heartfelt tears for their people stricken with Hansen’s disease on Molokai.
Today we feel compassion, fear or even disgust for the many homeless, faceless island people who struggle with schizophrenia, drug and alcohol addiction, unemployment, physical and sexual abuse, generational trauma and structural poverty that imprisons many unjustly or condemns many to inequity and harsh conditions while others enjoy the socioeconomic expansion of our sweeping prosperity supported by new technologies and promoted by social media.
The Sisters of St. Francis supported the most vulnerable by healing and teaching for more than 100 years in Hawaii. The time is now to open a new door to support sustainable communities that practice new ways of living in balance and harmony — communities that give and share aloha, that nurture, care for and value the land, the water, the biodiversity of animals and plants threatened with extinction. We need to honor the cultural richness of diverse peoples, learn and appreciate their values and share new possibilities of growth.
We who have been touched by the Sisters of St. Francis offer them a heartfelt mahalo. We alumni of Saint Francis School can live the prayer of St Francis — “Where there is hate, let us bring love; Where there is darkness, light; Where there is sadness, joy” — for the many people of Hawaii and carry on the legacy of Saint Francis School by opening that new door to secure home, health and education for everyone.
Shirley Tamoria, MD, is a physician at the Castro Mission Health Center for the San Francisco Department of Public Health, providing primary care to patients with HIV/AIDS, families dealing with trauma, the unemployed, students and patients with chronic pain, substance abuse and many who struggle with homelessness. She graduated from Saint Francis School in 1973.
