HCH photo by Patrick Downes
Napua Leong, left, and her father Timmy Leong of topside Molokai present their hookupu, or offering, to the open field that is the location of the first cemetery at Kalawao, the site of at least 2,000 unmarked graves. Standing beside them is the Rev. David Kaupu. The Leongs had ancestors at Kalaupapa in the late 1880s or possibly earlier.
An ecumenical prayer service remembers the mostly unknown dead of Kalaupapa
By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald
KALAUPAPA
“You are standing in a holy place, on holy ground.”
Sacred Hearts Father Felix Vandebroek was not speaking in his regular church or to his normal congregation. The pastor of Kalaupapa’s Catholic parish was standing at the pulpit of Siloama, the Hansen’s disease community’s oldest Protestant church, addressing people of many faiths.
Religious leaders huddle in prayer outside Siloama Church before the beginning of the service. Clockwise, from left, Rev. David Kaupu, Rev. Arnold Wunder, Bishop Larry Silva, Rev. Charles Buck and Father Felix Vandebroek.
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Father Vandebroek was one of five religious leaders who gathered in Kalaupapa on Oct. 18 to bless the dead, the 8,000 who lay beneath the remote peninsula’s rocky soil, most of whose graves have been lost to the years and nature’s relentless progression.
It was a stirring prayer service Blessed Damien would have liked, because it was not about him. It was about his people — the thousands with whom he shared an exiled existence, a loathsome disease, and an isolated burial ground.
The first-time event, called Ka Halawai Laa Hoomanao Ana, “A Sacred Service of Reconsecration and Remembrance,” squeezed 70 people into the tiny, white chapel at Kalawao, Kalaupapa’s damp east side.
The service was sponsored by Ka Ohana O Kalaupapa, an organization of Kalaupapa residents and family members and friends of past and present patients, who were meeting that weekend in Kalaupapa.
Father Vandebroek, the first speaker, introduced a theme that was echoed by those who spoke after him, that the land has already been sanctified by the suffering of the people who lived, died and were buried there.
“So many buried here have no markers,” he said. “We want to express our respect for them, our love for them. We know that the Lord has restored them. They are at peace with him.”
Rev. David Kaupu, the kahu emeritus of Kaumakapili Church in Honolulu, effortlessly blended Hawaiian and English in his prayer for healing.
“We have come here to reconsecrate this aina, this land,” said the distinguished white- haired preacher. “Let us begin the healing process with the reconsecration of ourselves.”
The other speakers were Rev. Charles Buck of the Hawaii Conference of the United Church of Christ, Arnold Wunder of the Church of Latter Day Saints, and Bishop Larry Silva.
“We are grateful for their witness that endures, that testifies to the strength of spirit over body,” said Rev. Buck, of Kalaupapa’s dead.
Wunder added, “As we gather here today, may we reflect on the love they showed. As we leave here, may we be more forgiving, more understanding.”
Bishop Silva began by relating his seeing for the first time, just an hour earlier, the headstone of his great grandfather, who died in Kalaupapa 87 years ago.
Then he prayed, “Lord, you sent messengers of various faiths to bring your word of hope, light and love to a place where there was little hope, light and love.”
“We remember all our brothers and sisters who have gone before us in this place,” he said. “Their spirit continues to live on because they live in your spirit.”
The centerpiece of the service was not a prayer, but the prayerfully recited Hawaii State Legislature’s 2008 resolution apologizing to the people of Kalaupapa.
The 17-point statement acknowledges the “sacrifices” of the people of Kalaupapa and their families and expresses regret for “any harsh restrictions that caused them undue pain as the result of government policies surrounding leprosy.”
It was solemnly delivered, paragraph by paragraph, sometimes through tears, by family members of present and past patients.
The service also included hymns and a reading of a poem written by author, storyteller and Kalaupapa resident Makia Malo who was present.
The poem compared the graveyards of Kalaupapa to a garden: “There is no accounting for those who have disappeared. Their blood, their suffering, their souls enrich this land.”
Completing the church ceremony was a “circle of remembrance” where the congregation linked hands and each person spoke one or more names of people who had died, the singing of Hawaii Aloha, and a final benediction.
The crowd then walked a hundred yards through a light drizzle to the open field beyond Damien’s St. Philomena Church where an estimated 2,000 people are buried, to offer a hookupu, or Hawaiian offering, and toss hundreds of orchids.
The ritual was repeated across the street at the location of the settlement’s former Baldwin Home and a suggested site for a proposed monument that will display the 8,000 names of the people forcibly sent to Kalaupapa.