HCH/Patrick Downes

Na Wahine O Kalawao bring Damien hymn alive with hula.

Kalaupapa offers a personal tribute to a personal saint

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

KALAWAO

The Father Damien canonization celebration ended where it all began, in Kalawao.

The Kalaupapa community paid its own personal tribute to its own personal saint with a Mass and a luau on Nov. 7.

“It is with great joy that we are here, where Damien became a saint,” Bishop Larry Silva said, greeting the 300 people gathered on the slope behind St. Philomena Church for the morning Mass.

The altar, borrowed from the Franciscan Sisters’ St. Elizabeth Chapel in Kalaupapa, stood on a stage under a reflective tent set up just yards from where Father Damien spent his first nights outdoors when he arrived on the peninsula in 1873.

The temporary sanctuary was decorated with red and white anthuriums, palm fronds, strings of purple orchids and bunches of yellow balloons.

Kalaupapa patients sat in the first row.

The St. John Vianney Choir from Oahu, frequent visitors to Kalaupapa, led the music.

An even breeze off the ocean kept things pleasant during the Mass. The sun played hide and seek behind Kalawao’s low gray clouds, which blessed the crowd with an occasional light cooling drizzle.

In his homily Bishop Silva said that the choice of a foot bone as the saint’s relic given by the Sacred Hearts Fathers to the people of Hawaii was providential in its symbolism.

Quoting the prophet Isaiah, he said, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring glad tidings.”

“It was his feet that walked up and down that pali,” the bishop said. “It was his feet that took him into the houses of all the residents here, bringing them the good news of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ.”

The bishop said that it was also Father Damien’s foot, feeling no pain from a scalding soak, that confirmed he had contracted leprosy.

“It was the Lord himself washing his feet,” he said. “It was that evening that the Lord confirmed that this was no hireling but a true shepherd.”

Like St. Damien, who “reaped an abundant harvest” in Kalawao, many laborers are needed in other fields, the bishop said.

“The harvest is indeed abundant and the Lord has directed our feet on this path, so we can go forth from here to every town and village and spread the good news,” he said.

At the end of Mass, before the final blessing, Na Wahine O Kalawao, a group of a dozen women patients, nurses and national park employees who live in Kalaupapa, dressed in white muumuus, green sashes and haku leis of kukui leaves, performed an exquisite hula to the hymn “Father Damien” (formerly “Damien, the Blessed”).

Three ministers representing two other religious denominations with flock in Kalaupapa also spoke at the end of Mass. Rev. Charles Buck of the United Church on Christ sought recognition for the thousands of Kalaupapa’s “nameless saints” who were “lifted up” by Father Damien’s canonization.

Gloria Marks, head of the Kalaupapa Patient Advisory Council, offered a heartfelt string of “thank yous” — to the visitors, to the benefactors, to Bishop Silva, to Seawind Tours for arranging all the travel, and “to the many people of Hawaii for your support.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank you,” she said.

It was a big day for Kalaupapa.

The settlement relaxed its 100-visitor-per-day limit for the invitation-only event, the last major canonization-related observance in Hawaii.

The FAA provided air traffic control to handle the busy run of chartered and scheduled planes arriving one after the other at the tiny airport.

Damien Tours, owned by Kalaupapa resident Gloria Marks, employed four buses, two of which had just been brought into the settlement in July.

The additional guests were assisted by an extra number of National Park Service workers, all in uniform. The Park Service also created historical displays and exhibits and handed out brochures and programs.

A handful of police officers and fire fighters flew in from Maui to be on hand in case of emergencies.

After Mass, everyone converged at historic McVeigh Hall for a big luau prepared by Deacon Mike and Leoda Shizuma, caterers on Topside Molokai, and paid for by Abigail Kawananakoa of Honolulu.

There, guests and residents enjoyed the food, Hawaiian entertainment and each others’ company before the visitors hopped on buses and vans to head off to the airport for their rides back home.

HCH/Patrick Downes

Some of the outdoor congregation Nov. 7 in Kalawao.