Memories on the Mount

Our Lady of the Mount Parish in Honolulu’s Kalihi Valley celebrates 150 years

By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald

Almost as far back in Honolulu’s Kalihi Valley as you can drive on the narrow, paved portion of Kalihi Street sits an obscure little cemetery with just a few visible grave markers scattered across the recently mown St. Augustine grass. A faded sign labels the graveyard as part of Our Lady of the Mount Parish and says, “God is watching,” as if to warn trespassers away.

But on a mercurial afternoon in August, the only visitors were Our Lady of the Mount’s pastor, Father Edgar Brillantes, and volunteer cemetery caretaker Kalolo Tuihalafatai, who pointed out where trees and shrubbery had once overrun the space. The last people to be buried there were in the late 1940s, according to the marker dates that could be read.

Before it was a cemetery, this was the site of the parish’s first Catholic church, a simple wood building built 150 years ago in 1870, when Bishop Louis Maigret was the head shepherd and Father Damien was still laboring on the Big Island three years before he went to Molokai. The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary priests who staffed it served a largely native Hawaiian congregation that lived back in the valley.

In 1903, the parish built a second wooden church two miles away on Monte Street, turning the old church site into a cemetery. By the early 1900s, the mostly Portuguese immigrant church members dedicated the new church to Nossa Senhora do Monte, Our Lady of the Mount. They also brought a replica of the Our Lady statue in Madeira over from Portugal and installed it on the hill near the church.

Exploding dynamite

For many years, Our Lady of the Mount put on a large celebration in honor of its patroness and the feast of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary. It drew Portuguese Catholics and many others from all over Oahu with a fair, feasts, novenas, a candlelight procession up to the statue on the hill, and even exploding dynamite (later fireworks) to mark the occasion.

“Back in the day, they really celebrated the festival,” said Gloria Rodrigues, who has been a part of Our Lady of the Mount parish her entire life. The celebration is much smaller today though parishioners still hold a procession each August. (This year, COVID-19 will prevent that.)

Rodrigues’ family goes back several generations at Our Lady of the Mount and in Kalihi Valley. An uncle through marriage even helped erect the statue of Mary on the hillside.

She points to a treasured, old photo of about 70 men, including her grandfather, who made up the parish’s Holy Name Society at the time the picture was taken, to show just how big the parish was at one point.

“I’m sure every Portuguese family in the valley had a man in the Holy Name Society, maybe a couple of generations even,” she said. “We don’t have too many Portuguese left in the valley anymore.”

“Things change, but we still have our memories and cherish the memories that we have.”

“We still have Our Lady looking over us,” Rodrigues added, saying she loves going up the hill to the Marian shrine. “It’s just so special up there.”

Our Lady of the Mount’s resident Sacred Hearts priest initially lived at the nearby St. Anthony orphanage — today’s St. Anthony Retreat Center — until a rectory was built.

Sacred Hearts Father Edmond Schatz added to the Monte Street property during his almost 30 years as pastor, and in 1950, the parish dedicated the present-day painted brick church.

Eventually, a convent and a parish hall went up under the pastorship of Our Lady of the Mount’s first diocesan priest, Father Thomas Miyashiro, who took over in 1963.

Demographic changes

By the 1970s, the parish had gained a large number of Filipino parishioners. Today there are about 200 families in the parish, with more Filipino and Samoan than Portuguese church members. But what remains is that the congregants like to celebrate.

“We love to have gatherings,” said Father Brillantes, who is originally from the Philippines and says he felt right at home at Our Lady of the Mount when he became pastor in 2014. He points to the parish’s Misa de Gallo Masses and the spread after each Mass as an example.

“People love to partake of food together.”

COVID-19 put a damper on that, especially for the 150th parish anniversary celebrations, which started in January but had to be suspended in March due to the pandemic. To cap it off, the parish planned a celebratory Mass and then a meal for 400 at the Pagoda Restaurant. The banquet is delayed until next August.

But the Mass went on with Bishop Larry Silva presiding at a 9 a.m. liturgy on Aug. 16 followed by a blessing of the newly renovated parish center — a former convent where the Holy Family Sisters and the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet who served at the parish lived for many years. Instead of a big meal together, parishioners took home bentos instead.

When the parish can gather again, the pastoral center will be a great place to do that. It underwent a $200,000 renovation over the last few years, with a new roof, new flooring and paint, updated kitchen and other refurbishments. There are meeting rooms, a lounge, a chapel, and other shared spaces.

Kokua Ministry

Our Lady of the Mount has an active parish council, Filipino Catholic Club, Knights of Columbus chapter, music ministry, religious education program and other ministries. Its Kokua Ministry, which is temporarily on hold due to COVID-19, offers food, clothing and household items to those in need in the area.

Tom DeCorte, a longtime parishioner and the current outreach coordinator, said that the Kokua Ministry came out of parishioners going door-to-door in the community in the 1990s to meet their neighbors.

“From these visits, we found that what the community needed was food and clothes, so we added the Kokua Ministry,” DeCorte said.

He has fond memories of working with other Our Lady of the Mount parishioners to fix the church foundation, start a family fun night, serve the homeless at the Next Step shelter and worship together.

“The memories I have are not so much about the deed but the working together to accomplish it,” DeCorte said.

The parish has kept up with the times through things like the MyParish app and switching to Facebook livestreaming of Masses when the pandemic hit.

“We continue on,” Father Brillantes said. “We celebrate the spirit, we gather to remember the past, we honor the first members of this parish, the bishop, the priests, the missionaries, all those who have sacrificed to make this little hut grow into a beautiful church that stands out as a religious landmark in Kalihi Valley.”

“Hopefully the Blessed Mother, our patroness can continue to guide us for the next 150 years.”