Hawaii Catholic Herald

Newspaper of the Diocese of Honolulu

Effie Caldarola: How generous are we?

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FOR THE JOURNEY Someone I know is a waiter. Like restaurants across the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic, his establishment has been open, closed, carry-out only, 50% capacity — in other words, his income has bounced like a yo-yo. The other evening, with renewed closure rules going into effect, he served his last table. He […]

Effie Caldarola: Advent tears and laughter in a year of difficulty

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FOR THE JOURNEY Do you ever find yourself, during this time of COVID-19, experiencing unexpected tears? We’ve all walked, on the news, through hospital corridors we never planned to visit. We’ve heard heartbreaking stories from families, the pleas of health care workers, the frustration and fatigue of teachers. We’ve seen refrigerated trucks holding overflow bodies, […]

Effie Caldarola: Post-election, with gratitude

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FOR THE JOURNEY It was the day after Halloween and just two days until Election Day. As a nation, we were marking milestones in our long national COVID-19 trudge. Taking a neighborhood walk, I was struck by how fast Halloween decorations disappear. Here, for instance, was a driveway where a giant inflatable ghoul had hovered […]

Effie Caldarola: Interesting and challenging times

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FOR THE JOURNEY My granddaughter Charlotte posed for the traditional first day of kindergarten photo on the front porch of her home in New Jersey, wearing a new sequined-splattered outfit popular with the under-7 set. Then, like millions of American kids, she turned around, walked with her backpack into her own house, sat down at […]

Effie Caldarola: Don’t bottle up emotions

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FOR THE JOURNEY Have you had a good cry lately? I have. I saw a Twitter post about a cheerful old fellow in an English care facility who slept with his late wife’s photo every night. So, a thoughtful staff member had a photo company create a pillow for him, one side of which displayed […]

Effie Caldarola: These days of Ordinary Time

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FOR THE JOURNEY How ordinary is “Ordinary Time”? As it turns out, not very, if you think of ordinary as ho-hum and routine. Instead, suggested one writer during Advent, it’s the time when we begin our journey “from the crowded stable to the empty tomb.” That’s an extraordinary hike. Did you ever wonder why we […]

Effie Caldarola: Make 2020 a year of forgiveness

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FOR THE JOURNEY As we trudge into 2020, a year that promises to be just as rancorous politically as the year we are ending, I find myself thinking about forgiveness. Not forgiveness as a meek act of acquiescing to evil, which is what our national climate might persuade us to believe. But forgiveness as a […]