“Christmas is coming and a New Year approaches and I send you my best wishes.” – Father Damien writing to his family in 1885
Father Damien at Kalawao, circa 1884. (Photo by Dr. Eduard Arning, Hawaiian Historical Society Collection)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Christmas in Hawaii in the mid- to late-1800s was a much simpler holiday than today. On Molokai’s isolated Kalaupapa peninsula, where those suffering from Hansen’s disease had been sent since 1866, the holiday was perhaps even simpler due to a lack of access to certain food and goods.
Journals, letters and recollections from the time of St. Damien de Veuster, who went to Kalaupapa in 1873, and St. Marianne Cope, who arrived there in 1888, gives a glimpse at what Catholics then did to mark the special time of year. There was confession, prayer, but also special meals, music, decorations and gifts. Here are some excerpts. The St. Damien letter passages came from the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts book “Father Damien’s Letters.” The other excerpts are from “Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory” by Anwei Skinsnes Law.
Dec. 21, 1882, letter to Bishop Hermann Kockemann: Bishop, I received your kind letter inviting me to the Solemnity of Christmas at your cathedral. I understood this invitation to be as an order, but the inclination of my colleague to occupy himself completely with Kalaupapa without taking any interest in Kalawao prevents me from being absent at Christmas.
I have a dozen catechumens and confessions, etc. We usually have Midnight Mass here, and I don’t want to deprive them of it.
I will try to be with you at the end of next week …
Excuse me, Excellency, for that lack of politeness and pray for us.
— Brother J. Damien ss.cc
In an 1883 letter to his brother Pamphile: Dec. 21, 1883 — Finally, breakfast runs into dinner after which there I am, stick in hand, visiting the sick, from one case to another, to prepare them for Christmas, and I have the consolation of baptizing … one old blind woman, recently arrived and well disposed …
Dec. 22, 1883: Today, Friday after Mass, short instruction, preparation for Christmas by a good confession, etc. Afternoon there’s confession for those in hospital who cannot come to church.
Dec. 23, 1883: Day of fasting; a little salt will replace the customary meat with the poi. … After breakfast, we have to clean and decorate the church. Lacking artificial flowers and other ornaments, my young people bring in some green from the woods, which they have braided. To cover the vault and part of the altar is half an hour’s work. Wooden chandeliers with their six candles each only waiting the wick to be illuminated at the midnight Mass!
Dec. 24, 1883: Sunday morning, last touches to the ornamentation of the altar; I am only half satisfied; I have only old things to put there; a mouse in the wardrobe has damaged my altar antependium [hanging]; the beautiful statue of the Sacred Heart above the altar has only a few garlands of leaves. At 10 the high Mass begins as usual. Then my catechumens ask to be baptized. … I have seen their good will and their state of health and I believe that I can admit them to baptism. The ceremony ends at 2 p.m. and I am off immediately to the confession until 9 in the evening. My confrere Father Albert arrives with his Christians from Kalaupapa.
Dec. 25, 1883: At 11 p.m. the bells ring. Our young people made a tour of the village; with two tambourines they wake up everyone, shouting out ‘Happy Christmas.’ The weather is beautiful; all my Catholics properly dressed press to enter the church. A quarter before midnight, on the second ring of the bell, the communal prayer begins; soon my singers, some twenty of them, intone the Christmas hymn. Right at midnight, there is Father Albert with acolytes coming out of the sacristy. The church is well illuminated and filled to overflowing. Perfect order! After the Gospel, the preacher makes a great impression on the heart of my poor sick. Although already pretty old, Father Albert has learned rather well the language of the Sandwich. It is almost two o’clock [a.m.]. All is over and we return happy and content. This is the tenth time that we celebrate the Midnight Mass here; in the beginning years, there was some disorder but now we are better arranged and all went well. At the Mass at dawn, I rang the bell. Everyone was sleeping. Necessity had obliged me to permit general communion at midnight. No great inconvenience. They will arrive on time for the High Mass at 10. As on all Sundays, the Liturgy plus catechism took five hours.
Below, a Christmas prayer card sent by Father Damien to the bishop, likely around December or January 1888.
Dec. 27, 1883: Wednesday at 5 a.m. I have just finished my Mass. I take a good cup of coffee, my little pack on my back, and I am on the way; at 9 already on the height of our famous mountain drenched in sweat, and pretty well tired out. I find my small horse there ready to carry me 10 leagues further. I have there one small parish with a beautiful church. I announce to the Christians that I have come to give them an opportunity to celebrate the Feast of Christmas. Although it is a bit late, it’s my offer to them. “We have already celebrated it. We also had a midnight service.” Actually, although they do not have a resident pastor, they celebrate Sundays and Feasts in an edifying manner. It’s the Kanaka Mass: that is to say the recitation in community of the prayers of the Mass followed by an instruction in the form of a catechism which they had at midnight. Thereafter, a big pig, furnace hot throughout, fed them as needed. After the meal everyone goes to church for the service at dawn. Thereafter they go home and sleep the Holy Day of Christmas.
Dec. 26, 1884, letter to Bishop Kockemann: Our midnight Mass at Kalawao went very well and at 4 a.m. at Kalaupapa none better.
After the service however, a non-extinguished candle fell behind the great molding and almost turned the whole church into ashes. If one good woman had not seen the flame on the floor of the sanctuary during my thanksgiving, this would have been finished. The flame would have been in the steeple. I have recommended to Father Albert not to put the candles ever again on the ledge; I do not know to what point I will be listened to.
Dec. 28, 1886, letter to a benefactress: Your kind letter of the 1st of this month, with two packages of very interesting pictures, arrived safely on our shore 3 days before Christmas. After Divine Service on Christmas Day, many of our sick people and children to whom I distributed the small images, and showed the oil painting, besieged my door. I do not know how to express to you the many thanks of my unfortunate children in Christ, for the extraordinary pleasure, your kind heart has afforded us all, on that day.
Dec. 30, 1886, letter to Bishop Kockemann: Our Feast of Christmas went well. From 9 in the evening the church was full for the general examination in catechism until 11:30 and, right at midnight, the Mass etc. At 5, there was the Dawn Mass at Kalaupapa. I had only three baptisms this time.
Jan. 10, 1888, letter to Oregon Archbishop William H. Gross: Our brave supplier has sent me materials needed to build a large dormitory for our leprous boys whom I look after in my orphanage. The building was finished exactly at Christmas. It is more spacious and better appointed than all the others at the leprosarium and we Catholics who came to Mass at midnight were enchanted by it.
— Brother J. Damien ss.cc.
Mother Marianne’s journal, Dec. 1888: Dec. 22: … [artist] Mr. [Edward] Clifford called — Rev. F. Damien sent two sets of Stations — Sent him 20 large & 105 small altar breads one rug and 1 antipendium [a decorative hanging for the front of an altar] Mr. Strawn sent Honeysuckle, pine apple plants, geraniums and oleanders.
Dec. 24 MONDAY: Weather rainy, Surf high and grand to look on — Went to Church to help to decorate the Altar — remained 2 hours. Girls went to Confession. Rained hard all day — Sent candles to Fr. Damien Gave boy Kauhi 50c — Kapoli sent two pots of Fern and a large bunch of cut Fern for the Altar. … She also sent a little Pig to the girls for their Christmas dinner.
Dec. 25 TUESDAY: Christmas day — The singing was grand — and the little Church looked beautiful — I felt deeply effected by the thought that our dear Lord and Savior dwells in the poor tabernacle even here….At 10 A.M. Fr. D sent conveyance to bring the Sisters and girls to Kalawao — to see the new Church. All had lunch there, even the Sisters — they returned at 2 P.M. and at 3 we went to Benediction. The singing was even better than in the morning — Our girls seemed indeed very happy.
1888 Board of Health letter to a Kalaupapa committee including Mother Marianne: The Board of Health and other friends in Honolulu, send their Christmas greetings to you, and through you to all the afflicted ones … The ‘Lehua’ or some other steamer will convey to you a quantity of gifts for the children, boys and girls at the Settlement, as an expression of their sympathy and aloha, and as proof that they desire you not to be left out in the cold in the celebration of this glad anniversary.
1888 letter from Francisco Comacho to Father Damien about his 9-year-old son Peter, who was in his first year at Kalawao: I send this short note to you because we sent some Christmas presents to our child Peter Camacho to be under your care and that you will open the box yourself and give it to him whatever it contains. A tin of crackers and some toys for him to play with to amuse himself … We send our greetings to you and to our child Peter, our beloved child, and tell him he should not forget to pray to God.
Dear Father Damien, I am very grateful to you for the care of my child in the strange land without any hope for our seeing him again in this world … tell Peter that we all send our love and greetings to him from his brother and sisters. Tell him that they did never forget him for a moment from the day he left Honolulu till this moment.
From “Kalaupapa: A Collective Memory” by Anwei Skinsnes Law: Mary Sing knew Mother Marianne for less than a year, but her memories were vivid some sixty years later. She remembered that the first year she was at Bishop Home, although Mother Marianne was in her last illness, ‘she asked the Sisters to see that the girls all had new dresses for Christmas.’ She provided special touches such as black velvet ribbon for their ‘baby waist style dresses.’ And she remembered how they used to sing for her and always sang ‘Makalapua’ — ‘because she loved that song.’
