View from the pew Last week was the rare opportunity to come out in public as a Catholic as you combed your hair back to display a cross of ashes on your forehead. Immature though it was, I would enjoy it as a “ta-da!” moment in my workplace, usually inspiring someone’s advice that I might […]
Mary Adamski: Seeking charity, love and unity
View from the pew Our parish music director, aka the piano man, was MIA at Sunday Mass a couple weeks ago after eye surgery. We had just switched back into Ordinary Time and were past the familiar sing-along music of our 18-day Catholic Christmas festivities. Singing a cappella was no problem for the fantastic Samoan […]
Mary Adamski: ‘Tis the season to take action
View from the pew Flipping through the calendar with holidays on the horizon had become a downer for me. Not in a Happy Thanksgiving mindset. Definitely dreading fa-la-la-la-LAH. Almost wishing we were still in ancient days of the Catholic Church when Advent was a time of defined penitence — fasting and abstaining from rich foods […]
Mary Adamski: Stewards of creation
View from the pew Our hot autumn weather and distressing lack of rainfall has put me in a mental state that’s “for the birds.” Compared to some rude and raw 21st-century put-downs, that old American idiom which dismisses something as being “worthless, nonsensical” is a pretty mild criticism. But I don’t consider being for the […]
Mary Adamski: Honoring leaders in the fight against hunger
View from the pew There’s a couple of months before the next major holiday celebration, but summertime has saints’ days and island events to celebrate them. You won’t find these two men on the Catholic Church’s list of canonized saints. Their names are not even known to most of the thousands who followed in their […]
Mary Adamski: Relearning, respecting the roots of America
View from the pew When we sang a string of “Alleluias” at the end of Mass on Pentecost Sunday, it was with mixed feelings. That was our cheerful “Happy birthday” refrain on the day we celebrate the birth of the Christian church. It’s also a bit sad to reach the end of the weekslong Easter […]
Mary Adamski: Midwestern pride, global appeal
View from the pew Just as a dark force loose in our corner of the world preaches that diversity, equity and inclusiveness are wrong and works to forcibly delete such welcoming acceptance from our culture as well as our conscience, we welcome a new voice to counter that most uncharitable, un-Christian political ideology. It’s not […]
Mary Adamski: Music makes bishop’s legacy come alive
View from the pew Music is accompanying memories as I start down a reminiscing path about a very special person who has affected all our lives for the past several years. I am hearing a congregation gustily singing the Litany of Saints, not as the dirge-like traditional ritual, but sung to a Hawaiian tempo, accompanied […]
Mary Adamski: It’s possible for everyone to get along
View from the pew Nearly 100 people came together to pray and worship God at Newman Center/Holy Spirit Parish last month, but most of them were not Catholic. A group of men preparing to become deacons met this month to learn about some of the first people to bring Christianity to Hawaii — Protestant Congregational […]
Mary Adamski: In search of hope amid hard times
View from the pew “Hope springs eternal in the human breast.” It’s the sort of statement that seemed profound, lifted from a shared memory of folk sayings, or like a proverb, something possibly biblical. It is the kind of common wisdom people shared, an old-school version of a modern trend to quote from movies or […]
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