Mary Adamski: Feeling angry and disappointed

VIEW FROM THE PEW

There were yardmen in the neighborhood and it always makes me think they are still boys at heart, loving to make noise. And how they do love those leaf blowers, roaring on and on while they herd leaves and cuttings to the green bin. I’ll bet these guys never think of using a rake, too much muscle power required, takes too long, besides it’s so quiet rustling up the rustling leaves.

Believe me, I know about raking leaves from small kid times. The yard never seemed so long and the trees so numerous as in the autumn when raking was a required chore. If leaf blowers had existed then, I’ll bet my brother would have volunteered to own the job; not that Mom would have tolerated the noise marathon.

My thoughts for the past few months remind me of those falling leaves. They’ve dropped quietly, eddying and swirling in the wind, piling up. Every time I’ve faced a deadline for this column, it would be like those days of scuffling through leaves on the ground, looking for a good gold or red one to pick up and save. So, if there is any theme to this two-months overdue effort, it would be about raking through fallen ideas, clearing the way for new ones.

It was just at the cusp of Christmas when I got out pen and notebook to record the priest’s homily. A socially distanced lady nearby looked askance at me — even behind a mask I could tell it was a “tut tut” look, maybe because I wasn’t techie enough to just click on a smartphone and record it.

Father Clyde Guerreiro was pointing out that we were enjoying a visual aid — or do we call it “optics” now? — invented in medieval times, the nativity scene. St. Francis of Assisi decided it would be a “powerful message of God’s love,” he said. Christians have loved the custom ever since Francis started it in 1223. He got the pope’s permission and directed a live tableau, according to an account by St. Bonaventure, a Franciscan monk. People have been entranced by scenes of the Bethlehem story ever since, from school plays to statuary by great artists and everything in between. Lots of creative license is involved; no shepherds from 2,000 years ago wore clothes like those medieval caps, vests and pantaloons we see in the parish creche.

Family groups gathered to have photos taken beside it. It was heart-wrenching to see such a group, cautiously unmasking and clustered together.

I had thought of pursuing the subject of the manger scene from the police beat angle. Father Guerreiro told me there’s a traditional crime wave each year and my parish isn’t the only one to lock up the Christ Child statue after Masses. Sure enough, there are news stories galore of cities and churches using surveillance cameras, GPS tracking devices, even using bolts to secure the baby in the manger. What a pitiful thing, whether the motive is prank or mockery or grasping for comfort from a plaster image.

But then, I laughed at myself for my own nostalgic fixation, as I finally packed up the miniature manger scene a whole month after Christmas. The humble plaster set has been in the family for generations. With children not on the scene, I assumed the duty of folding a tissue paper blanket under Baby Jesus to keep him off the straw in the manger. No, this is not a symptom of madness from COVID confinement; tradition is tradition.

But just getting on the subject of statues could be grounds for an exploration of God’s commandment about not having “strange gods.” Jewish people and some other Christians take the taboo in the Ten Commandments against graven images very seriously. As do Muslims, who are deeply offended when anyone dares depict their prophet, Mohammed. Yet here are we Catholics with our statues and medals and art, another leaf plucked to be saved for later reflection.

Prayers of the faithful

Another leaf to contemplate is this: does anyone ever really listen to the prayers of the faithful after we’ve recited the creed at Mass? They’re pretty much generic, taken from a booklet attached to the liturgical calendar, distributed by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. So Father doesn’t have to create an ad-lib prayer; he can choose from among the words from on high. Often a prayer will follow through on the scriptural text. For instance, after hearing the Gospel story about Jesus recruiting fishermen Peter, Andrew, James, John, we might be praying for the safety of fishermen today, or for ourselves to be willing to follow Jesus’ charge to become “fishers of men” too.

But I’m always tuned in for the prayers with an edge, a hint of commentary on the problems, conflicts, maybe policies and dissensions in our world. There was quite a bit of those available before and after recent dates marking our national ceremony of turning over a new leaf. Some of those somewhat political prayers annoy me and some make me increase my volume when I join in “Lord, hear our prayer.” That’s how I felt a week ago when the lector read this prayer: “That our national and world leaders may receive guidance from the Holy Spirit and the true Shepherd so that they create policies that model mercy and forgiveness.” Amen to that. As for my growing collection of politically-charged prayers, I threw them in the leaf pile as future compost.

But speaking of Jan. 20, I thought I had a lot to say about that historic event. But then, so has everyone else and it’s time to move along. I would skip the major players and focus on the former Catholic school girl whose powerful poetry is being shared and applauded as much as the president’s speech. Amanda Gorman is remembered in her childhood parish of St. Brigid in Los Angeles where the largely African American congregation gave her a standing ovation for a poem she presented at a Martin Luther King Jr. event at the church, parishioners told Catholic News Service. Gorman went on to be selected the first national Youth Poet Laureate in 2017, and has since graduated from Harvard University. Another reason she was invited to perform at the inauguration is that Gorman, like President Joe Biden, overcame a childhood speech impediment.

Her creative style is spoken word poetry or performance poetry, having an intensity of rhythm and delivery that is found in hip hop music. That’s what I read. Hip hop is not anything I deliberately know about, prejudiced by my own slow rhythm and aversion to hearing obscenities and insults, even if they do rhyme and carry a profound commentary.

But Gorman is a rhymer and commentator beyond that. Her poem “The Hill We Climb” reflects her Catholic viewpoint and such positive patriotism that it brought tears. “Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid.” That’s a line she wrote, and so are references to redemption and reconciliation. “If we merge mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy and change, our children’s birthright.”

You can just imagine that the Catholic schoolgirl carries some of the sentiments we sing in church: Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. We are the light of the world, let our light shine among men. This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine.

It’s a belief that beamed in the final lines of the poem: “The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light, if only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it.”

Other Catholic schoolchildren

Gorman’s former parish religious education director told the Catholic News Service, “She is definitely a light, an inspiration to us all. She takes God with her,” said Floy Hawkins of St. Brigid. Well, look at that. I didn’t exactly rake that idea away after all.

More recently I pondered the fate of other Catholic schoolchildren and it blew away the hopeful and happy note. How sad I am to hear that St. Ann School will be closed. I understand the harsh economic reality, and I sympathize with the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts folks who had to make the decision.

But it makes me angry as much as sad. This isn’t just another Catholic school going down. This is cutting an integral thread of the Catholic Church history in Hawaii.

The first Catholic priests, Sacred Hearts Fathers from France, landed in Hawaii in 1827.

By 1830, the Protestant missionaries from New England, who got here first in 1820, had persuaded Queen Kaahumanu to get rid of their competition. The priests were deported and a 10-year persecution of Hawaiians by Hawaiians began, as is chronicled in “Dark Decade,” a book by Emmet Cahill. Catholic converts kept the faith and endured forced labor and other punishment.

The dark decade came to an end in 1839 when the captain of the French warship L’Artemise persuaded King Kamehameha III to grant religious freedom to Catholics, backed by the threat of the ship’s cannons. According to historic accounts, when the priests returned in 1840 and were joined by others from the Sacred Hearts order, they found the lay Catholics were missionaries themselves, with 4,000 Hawaiians taught and ready for baptism. The king signed a proclamation and in 1845, gave the Catholic missionaries land in Kahaluu.

St. Ann School traces its beginning back to 1841, when schooling in the Catholic faith as well as reading, writing and math was informally underway, well before 1846, the formal opening of Ahuimanu College, the first Catholic school in the islands.

So I’m feeling angry and disappointed at a whole lot of Catholics about this. I’m not a member of the parish but I spent a lot of hours in the hot sun watching its May Day and other shows and it’s dear to my heart.

I know the various religious orders choose to be separate from each other, perhaps none more so than the first to arrive. And the diocese has its own huge financial issues leaving no emergency fund for help. But where is the small “c” catholic perspective in this? Where is the charity? Where is the sense of cherishing the shared history?

If this were New York or Chicago, there would be a batch of wealthy Catholics wanting to make their bishop happy with an endowment. Where are those people in Hawaii? Do they care that the largest denomination in the state, counting heads not dollars, is closing a chapter of its history? Maybe we should change our tradition of naming schools for saints. Could we copy the late Harry Weinberg’s egotism and put benefactors’ names on buildings.

Why don’t all the people whose names show up on the donors’ lists for culture and the arts consider an investment in Catholic history? Oh, wait. How many of those financially fit Catholics even sent their kids to Catholic schools? Maybe their money has already gone to the premier local alma mater, which does love to put benefactors’ names on buildings. That’s Punahou School, founded by Protestant missionaries and very, very well endowed throughout its history. Like St. Ann, it traces its beginning to 1841. This is a disheartening time of raking, when the leaves I’m turning all seem to be dark and dry.