E Hiki Mai Kou Aupuni
Here is the prepared text of the homily delivered Aug. 7 at Sacred Hearts Mission Church, Kapalua, during a commemorative Mass for Sacred Hearts School, Lahaina.
Twenty days after the destructive wildfires of August 2023, tents were erected at Kapalua, at the Sacred Hearts Mission Church, and classes resumed at Sacred Hearts School. Since learning of this remarkable fact, I have asked, “But how is that possible?” Less than three weeks after such devastation and destruction, in the midst of such loss, how could school possibly have resumed?
The answer to this question is the same, regardless of the angle from which it is asked, and you, the community of this blessed school and of Lahaina, you know the answer better than I: Classes resumed — Sacred Hearts School has persevered — because of the love of God embodied in his people.
As Principal Tonata Lolesio has expressed it, “this is God’s school after all, we’re just here to help.” And she adds, “and as long as you have people who are praying for you, you will be ok.” And so we are grateful this day that there are so many good people gathered here in this holy Mass and throughout the community, and even beyond the sea, offering your prayer, your labor, your treasure, so that Sacred Hearts School remains resilient, a beacon of hope for generations to come.
The word of God that we have just heard proclaimed in the readings for this Mass should strengthen us in our faith and hope that, in the end, only good things will come to Sacred Hearts — to the students and faculty, parents and friends, who form this community of learning and thereby foster a bright future for our youth.
Along these lines, it may be helpful to consider that the first reading we heard, from the book of Sirach, was actually inspired and written in a time of great challenge and even hardship for the people of Israel.
The people were facing conquest by foreign armies and very real threats to their faith, their culture, and even their survival as a nation. And yet, in wisdom from the holy spirit, the author of Sirach declares:
“Has the Lord ever disappointed anyone who put his hope in him? All you who fear the Lord, trust him and you will certainly be rewarded.”
But how does one live on in such hope when facing such great challenges? One does so as the people of Israel did at that time, as the people of Lahaina have these past three years: by holding on to what is most important. As Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “your heart will always be where your riches are.”
I saw an interview of a kuku wahine from Lahaina who helped me understand better what Jesus seems to have meant by this teaching. In the interview, this lovely grandmother, seated beside two of her grandchildren, shared the tragic news that she had lost her home and everything that she had in the fires, except for a small bag of her possessions.
But even that small, rescued bag of possessions did not contain her true riches. For as she explained, “the one thing we didn’t lose was our aloha. We didn’t lose our love for each other, we didn’t lose our care for each other.”
That is a life lesson that we can all take to heart. And, though it is difficult, often that lesson of holding on to what is most important is learned principally through hardship, loss and sacrifice.
In this light, and in hearing the grandmother’s words, I recalled the events surrounding the 50th wedding anniversary of a dear aunt and uncle of mine.
This aunt and uncle had a love affair that lasted all the years of their lives. They did everything together, so that any family member or friend who knew them would remark about it, about this love affair of my aunt and uncle.
And so, on their 50th wedding anniversary, a photo album was presented to my aunt and uncle which was beautifully made and captured their togetherness throughout five decades of marriage.
But then, shortly after that anniversary, my aunt was diagnosed with a disease that is very difficult to bear — “ALS” or “Lou Gehrig’s disease”— which would progress over the years and eventually take her life.
As soon as they received that diagnosis, my uncle retired from his work and spent the next several years of his life simply taking care of my aunt. And I recall how a close friend of theirs said to me at the time, “We’ve always talked about this great love affair of your aunt and uncle, how they loved to be together and do everything together, but only now, in the face of this disease, when they can no longer do all those things together, only now do we realize how great their love is!”
I found real insight in this observation by my aunt and uncle’s friend. For often it is primarily through hardship, suffering and sacrifice that the true riches of our hearts are revealed. It was true in Jesus’ life and it is true in the life of this blessed school of Sacred Hearts, which we honor and commemorate this week. Indeed, we affirm this day that the resilience, the new life arising at Sacred Hearts School, shares in the mystery of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ himself.
To affirm that this wondrous truth is held by the Church, I would like to share with you a few words from “The Joy of the Gospel,” a pastoral letter by the late Pope Francis in which he explained how the life of our risen Lord springs eternal within human society and even within nature itself.
What Pope Francis wrote is actually very consistent with Pope Leo XIV’s own recent teaching that the Resurrection is “not a distant event, but the source of hope for everyday life.” And we might lift up the experience of these past three years, and where we are today, as we listen to this passage from “The Joy of the Gospel.”
Those of you who are very young, I pray that you can understand, at least within your hearts, and with the help of your older schoolmates and teachers, what Pope Francis and Pope Leo mean in teaching about the Resurrection in this way:
“Christ’s resurrection is not an event of the past; it contains a vital power which has permeated this world. Where all seems to be dead, signs of the resurrection suddenly spring up. It is an irresistible force.
“At times it seems as if God does not exist: All around us we see persistent injustice, evil and indifference. But it is also true that in the midst of darkness something new always springs to life and sooner or later produces fruit. On razed land, life breaks through, stubbornly yet invincibly. However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew, it rises transformed through the storms of history. Values always tend to reappear under new guises, and human beings have arisen time after time from situations that seemed doomed.
“Such is the power of the resurrection, and all who evangelize are instruments of that power.” (“The Joy of the Gospel,” 276)
And so, you — the students, the faculty, the parents, the friends and supporters, the community working to ensure that Sacred Hearts School endures and remains resilient — allow me to say that you are evangelists of the new life revealed in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Through your efforts, “beauty is born anew” in our midst.
And someday the youngest of you will — please God — be kuku wahine or kuku kane yourselves, and you will share with your grandchildren how you kept Sacred Hearts and Lahaina strong, because you never stopped loving, and how the riches of your hearts were revealed.