State lawmakers and other civic leaders receive a blessing at the altar.
“She embraced the Hawaiian culture as she lived the life of hoolokahi (to keep peace and unity in the settlement) in her daily work, bringing hauoli (happiness/joy) and pono (the respect, caring and righteousness) to all the patients.”
Using Hawaiian words to exemplify St. Marianne’s total devotion to Hawaii, Sister Alicia Damien Lau gave state legislators and other civic guests a portrait of Hawaii’s newest saint in her talk at the Diocese of Honolulu’s Red Mass, Jan. 17 at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan gives the homily.
Sister Alicia Damien, a Sister of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, St. Marianne’s order, was the main speaker at the annual liturgy that calls upon the Holy Spirit to bestow grace and wisdom upon Hawaii’s civic servants. (Read her full text on page 18.)
Bishop Larry Silva was the main celebrant at the Mass which had as special guests three bishops: Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York and the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, Bishop Robert Cunningham of Syracuse, N.Y., and Bishop Peter Paul Yelesuome Angkyier of the Diocese of Damongo, Ghana.
The visiting New York bishops were in Hawaii for St. Marianne’s post-canonization celebration in Kalaupapa Jan. 12. Bishop Angkyier was in Hawaii to visit one of his diocesan priests.
About 25 state lawmakers, city council members and other civic leaders attended the Mass. They included the past and present speakers of the State House of Representatives, Calvin Say and Joseph Souki, respectively, and State Senate president Donna Mercado Kim.
“Marianne was a woman ahead of her time,” Sister Alicia Damien said. “Only completing the eighth grade, she became a cultured and self-educated individual not intimidated by the cultural, ethnic, gender, religious and political power rifts in the [Hawaiian] kingdom.”
“At the age of 45, she arrived in Honolulu an accomplished administrator, a leader in health care, an educator and superior general of her order” who acquired “an instant affinity to her new home and felt humbled and touched by the welcome of King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani,” she said.
Sister Alicia Damien went on to describe St. Marianne’s work with leprosy patients on Oahu, her opening of a hospital on Maui and an Oahu home for the healthy children of patients, and her final 30-year assignment on Kalaupapa.
The Mass began with a prayer in Hawaiian chanted by Ikaika Bantolina.
Nearly 40 members of several Hawaiian royal orders filed in with the procession, the women dressed in all white or all black with matching hats, the men in black suits with red and orange alii shoulder capes.
Concelebrating the Mass were 32 priests. Seven deacons assisted.
The Mass music was a mix of Hawaiian, traditional, contemporary and patriotic, and also some Gregorian chant.
Long red banners hung down over the cathedral’s pillars.
Cardinal Dolan gave a brief homily.
The ever-genial New Yorker opened his remarks with a joke about Hawaii’s road congestion — “I have to admit it will be good to get back to Manhattan where there’s much less traffic” — and a crack about his red cardinal “duds,” a scarlet cassock, white surplice and red biretta.
“So coming in today I felt like I was in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade,” he said.
Cardinal Dolan admitted having some earnest confusion over Hawaiian words. “After six days I still don’t understand what aloha means, but I sense it is a greeting exuding welcome and peace and graciousness. And all of that I sure have found in abundance here in Hawaii.”
But the substance of his homily was motivated by the example set by St. Marianne.
“Might I propose that exactly what inspired St. Marianne and St. Damien of Molokai” is what “enlightens civilization and the noble American experience in ardent liberty and justice,” he said, “an ingrained conviction that all of us are made in God’s image and likeness, that the human person in actually a reflection of the divine and thus uniquely deserving dignity and respect.”
“A person’s dignity is not dependent on one’s health, or property or wealth or age, race, gender, religion, color, intelligence, size, passport or green card, or whether one lives inside or outside the womb,” the cardinal said.
Before Mass ended, Bishop Silva called the guests forward and extended his hand in blessing over them, asking God for his “powerful protection” so that they will be able “to discharge their duties with honesty and ability.”
Maui’s Rep. Joseph Souki, the new Speaker of the House, said he has been a regular Red Mass attendee for the “great majority” of the 30 years he has been a politician.
“I enjoy the service,” he said. “It inspires me and reinforces my faith.”
Rep. Henry Aquino of Waipahu said he appreciated the messages he received from the Mass’s two speakers, calling on public servants “to stand up for those who are vulnerable, for those who live in those vulnerable situations … and to try our best to serve them as best as we can.”
A Catholic who once worked for Catholic Charities Hawaii, Aquino said that prayer is a good way to start a legislative session.
“And Mass is the highest form of prayer, and for me personally, it helps start me up for the new legislative year,” he said.
Rep. Calvin Say, who is not Catholic, said he tries to go to the Red Mass every year. He said he appreciated the prayers of the Catholic Church for the work he does.
“I am really honored and privileged that the Catholic Church would allow us to have this type of Mass for all the community leaders and elected officials throughout the state,” he told the Hawaii Catholic Herald outside the cathedral after the Mass.
“You’re blessing all the elected officials who go through some trying times at the [City] Council, at the Legislature and the State Capitol,” he said. They are all trying to do what is right and for the “greater good of our community.”
Say, who lost his House speakership with the start of the legislative session two weeks ago, said he feels “very much at peace” with his change of position. He said, as a Christian, he believes that “whatever future I have, it’s in his [God’s] hands.”
