Retail center of light
At Pauline Books & Media, the commercial business is part of a larger apostolate of evangelization
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
When customers walk off the busy Bishop Street sidewalk and into Pauline Books & Media in downtown Honolulu they are greeted by smiling nuns dressed in simple blue habits and armed with superior knowledge of their product — the Word of God.
These are the Daughters of St. Paul, who operate the multi-media retail outlet as part of their apostolic mission as religious sisters. Blessed with both spiritual gifts and a business sense, the sisters bring God to daily customers through their work in the store, and the wider community through evangelization.
“The core mission of the Daughters of St. Paul is that we communicate the Gospel message using the media,” said Sister Margaret Timothy Sato, local superior of the Daughters of St. Paul and manager of the Honolulu Pauline Books & Media.
“If people never come across us it would probably strike them on appearance as different because we operate this retail store as part of our mission,” said Sister Margaret, who was born and raised in Kalihi and was assigned to Hawaii last April. “Our founder very clearly said in the beginning that ‘You don’t operate stores. These are centers, centers of light.’”
Sister Karen Joseph Hamm echoed this sentiment.
“It’s not just a store for us,” said the Boston native. “This is our mission, to evangelize with the media and through the media to really form people, to help them change their lives, to grow in the faith, to bring them closer to God.”
In the store, you will find a constantly changing inventory of about 30,000 religious books of a wide variety, from Bibles and spiritual guides, to the lives of saints and the writings of popes, to lectionaries and reference volumes. You can browse through stacks of inspirational CDs and DVDs, buy crystal rosaries or plastic ones, find a crucifix for your wall, a saint’s statue for your shelf, or a gold cross or medal of your patron saint for your neck.
There is also a large children’s section.
Founded in 1915 in Italy by Father James Alberione, who had founded the Society of St. Paul a year earlier, and Teresa Merlo (later known as Mother Thecla), who became the first religious sister of the order, the Daughters of St. Paul arrived in the United States in 1932.
Today, according to their website, the women’s religious order operates 17 Pauline Books & Media centers in the United States — including Honolulu — and one in Canada, and run a publishing company out of Boston, where their American headquarters are located.
The Daughters of St. Paul first arrived in Hawaii in 1974. Nine Hawaii women have since joined the community.
The Pauline umbrella encompasses a media studies center, radio and television studios, music labels and recording studios, and periodicals. The Daughters of St. Paul use their work in the communications world to complement and enhance their spiritual mission, based on the life and philosophy of St. Paul.
No climbing corporate ladder
The sisters’ typical day starts with 6:30 a.m. Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace followed by morning prayer and breakfast. The store opens at 9 a.m. and the sisters alternate working in it throughout the day along with two full-time and one part-time store employees.
“We all know how to do everything,” said Sister Joseph, who is on her third assignment to Hawaii. “There’s no climbing up the corporate ladder.”
Regular customer Sibel Mestanova, an analyst for the Hawaii Coastal Zone Management Program, appreciates the expertise of the sisters, the specialized reading material and the calming atmosphere of the store. “There’s just peace here,” she said. “I think this little bookstore just gives quiet from the outside world.”
“Here you find faith and knowledge combined in one place,” she said.
No matter what they are doing on any given day, the sisters are committed to a daily hour of eucharistic prayer in the chapel, which allows them to center themselves and pray for the people they have encountered during the busy day. They also invite customers to visit the chapel.
“Our book center is like a church, our founder said,” said Sister Mary Timothy Coniglio.
Born in Italy, Sister Mary Timothy has been assigned to Honolulu twice, from 1988-1997, and from 2000 to the present.
“Why do we go to a church? To receive from God favors, graces, to thank God,” she said. “So people come in here because they are in need of something, they’re looking for something. Sometimes they don’t even know. It’s our duty to help them out.”
After the store closes at 5 p.m., the sisters have evening prayers and dinner in their convent two floors above the store. Their evenings are often filled with other apostolic work.
“Our mission is huge,” said Novice Sister Kim-Ngan Bui, who is originally from Arizona and is spending four months in Hawaii as part of her second novitiate year. “Because we deal with the modern means of communication there’s just so much available to us, so much good that could be done.”
Besides working in the store, the sisters regularly visit parishes with their book displays and presentations. Since the Boston headquarters this past year has taken over the ordering and shipping of inventory for the media centers across the country, the sisters have more time to go out into the community and work on other projects.
Sister Kim is working on vocational awareness presentations for Catholic school students. The sisters are also preparing a weekly children’s reading hour and organizing monthly visits for a home-schooling group, which came recently to share in the sisters’ hour of eucharistic prayer.
“I enjoy just encountering people and being with the people, helping them in their needs, and just being a sign of church caring,” said Sister Linh Nguyen, who is originally from Vietnam and has been assigned in Hawaii for three years.
“I think the Daughters of St. Paul’s charism really fosters that because of our eucharistic spirituality,” she said. “It’s very rooted in prayer that will be able to be sent out reaching out to others.”