From left: Deacon Joel and Lily Narusawa, and Roxanne and Deacon Renier “Ray” Torres, take a photo outside the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls — one of four basilicas in Rome they visited. (Courtesy Deacon Joel Narusawa)
Hawaii’s permanent deacons
By Deacon Joel Narusawa
Special to the Herald
This past February, my wife, Lily, and I journeyed to Italy for the Vatican’s Jubilee of Deacons (part of the Jubilee Year) with Deacon Renier “Rey” and Roxanne Torres, our friends and classmates from deacon formation.
I am a deacon in the Diocese of Honolulu, assigned to Sts. Peter and Paul Church in Honolulu, near Ala Moana. Rey and I were ordained in January 2021 as part of Cohort 9.
While being a deacon was never on my to-do list, God has blessed me and called me to serve him and his community.
I used to work as an environmental engineer, but now I serve at Sts. Peter and Paul Church. I also work part-time at St. Francis Healthcare as a chaplain serving the sick and the dying in hospice; and at the Federal Detention Center doing Communion services for prisoners.
Where “I used to work to live,” now God has allowed me “to work for love.”
The journey
It started in November 2024 when Deacon Rey asked me if I was interested in going with him to Italy for the Jubilee. Not knowing anything about the event and never having been there, I said that I would think about it.
Little did I know that it would be like many things of God that start as a small seed and grow with time. The hurdle was to say “yes.”
While excited to see the country, I had reservations as I don’t travel well. Also, while visiting Italy was on the list of things to do, it wasn’t the best timing since Lily and I had recently gotten back from a Divine Mercy trip.
The flying to and from Rome was, for me, the hardest part of the trip; it took us almost two days to get there. However, my anxiety quickly subsided once we were on the ground.
Thanks to Deacon Rey’s experienced traveling skills, most everything went well with no noticeable problems. He got us from one location to the next with Uber, trains and a lot of walking, and we were able to hit all the sights that we had hoped to see with little stress.
This wasn’t what I would call a “sightseeing trip,” but a spiritual journey, a pilgrimage. We were traveling on our own and not with a tour group and, more importantly, we went to places that interested us and to which we felt called to see.
It felt more like a heartfelt calling rather than an intellectual trip.
Thus, we were able to soak in the spiritual experience but, on the flip side, we also recognized that we would be missing a long list of sightseeing spots.
Deacon Rey and Roxanne are fluent in Spanish, which helped tremendously with language barriers although many of the Italians we met could speak or understand at least some English.
It was truly an adventure. Our schedule was only restricted to working around the Feb. 21-23 timeframe which the Vatican had set aside for Jubilee of Deacons events — just imagine, more than 6,000 deacons from about 100 countries all gathered in one location. Consider that this was out of the 50,000 permanent deacons from around the world.
Most of the permanent deacons came from Italy (nearly 4,000), followed by 1,300 from the United States, 656 from France, 350 from Spain, 230 from Brazil, 160 from Germany and 150 from Mexico, plus large groups from Poland, Colombia, the United Kingdom, Canada and contingents from other countries.
On Feb. 21, we attended a welcoming and midday prayer session with a lecture on “Concrete Signs of Hope in the Ministry of Deacons.” The bishop’s message was, “Be humble in all the work that you do; have it be a secret between you and God which bears great fruit.”
On Feb. 22, we visited the Holy Doors at four basilicas: St. Paul Outside the Walls, St. Mary Major, St. John Lateran and St. Peter’s. In the afternoon we attended a vigil prayer service in Paul VI Hall.
There Lily and I met the presider, Cardinal Lazarus You Heung-sik. The archbishop-bishop emeritus of Daejeon, South Korea, Cardinal Heung-sik is the first Korean to head a department of the Roman Curia: He serves as prefect of the Dicastery for the Clergy.
The Jubilee of Deacons events culminated on Feb. 23 with Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica, with Pope Francis scheduled to preside. Unfortunately, due to Pope Francis’ illness, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, instead celebrated the Mass, which included 23 ordinations to the diaconate. The men hailed from Brazil, Colombia, France, Italy, Mexico, Poland, Spain and the United States.
We coincidentally bumped into Deacon Michael Weaver, one of our cohort’s core team members, just before the Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica. Deacon Mike, who serves at St. Anthony of Padua Church in Kailua, and his wife Cecelia were traveling with a tour group from the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
We were able to eventually visit seven of the eight Holy Doors in Rome which was a joy not to be missed. We also were able to see St. Peter’s Basilica and Square, the Vatican Museums, Castel Sant’angelo, the Spanish Steps and Trevi Fountain.
We were aware of how special it was to be able to experience, for us, a once-in-a-lifetime journey.
Although we were warned about the crowds, we thought visiting during the “off-season” wouldn’t be so bad; however, there were still large numbers of tourists in Rome at the basilicas we visited and at sites such as Trevi Fountain and the Spanish Steps.
We also went to Assisi and Florence where we were able to soak up the culture, experience the food and avoid the crowds.
Overall, it was a very good experience that we will all treasure.
We did the trip as a pilgrimage and not as a sightseeing trip; therefore, we didn’t hustle from one location to the next trying to see all there was to see. We prayed at each location and gave alms where we could and were mindful of the significance of each location to our faith — something that we plan to share with those we encounter in our interactions with others doing Christ’s ministry.
What surprised me was not that there were homeless in Rome, but that several of the homeless slept along the outskirts of St. Peter’s Square. We witnessed this each morning as we walked to our various destinations: We saw the homeless gather their things before the tourist crowds showed up.
Closing thoughts
There were many things we saw that left an impression, such as the various relics on display: the Virgin Mother and Mary Magdalene’s hair; a thorn from the crown on Jesus’ head when he was crucified; bodies of saints; gold and jewelry, and so forth.
But one thing that I took away from the trip was a feeling of gratitude — gratitude for all that God has given me and my wife, to allow us to journey to this far-off country with friends and to see beggars, even one without hands. I don’t know how he lost his hands, but he gave me the gift of gratitude.
