Na kana I Hawai'i (Saints in Paradise)

           

Recently I was privileged to visit the island of Moloka’i (Hawai’i) where the sad story of the forced relocation of victims of Hansen’s disease (Leprosy) played itself out for a little over a hundred years. In 1865 the (then) Kingdom of Hawai’i, in an effort to stem the spread of Hansen’s disease, decreed that all Lepers would be forcibly relocated to the isolated Kalaupapa peninsula on the island of Moloka’i. Children were taken from their parents as well as brother from sister and husband from wife. Even after the discovery of a variety of treatments beginning in the 1940s, it wasn’t until 1969 that the state of Hawai’i formally rescinded its isolation laws.

            What made my visit to Moloka’i so privileged was the role the Catholic Church played in caring for the physical, material and spiritual needs of the Lepers. Beginning in 1873 a young Belgian priest, Father Damien De Veuster, asked the Bishop of Hawai’i to be sent to Moloka’i in service of the Lepers. He was the first non-Leper to live on Moloka’i for an extended period of time. More than ten years later he was joined by Mother Marianne Cope and two Franciscan Sisters. Mother Marianne assumed responsibility for the Colony upon Father Damien’s death and, for the next 35 years, would faithfully - and cheerfully - serve the patients of Kalaupapa.

            On that visit I was privileged to “meet” Mother Marianne for the first time. I say for the “first time” because I have known about her for virtually my entire life. At the time that she accepted the request for nursing sisters to be sent to Hawai’i, Mother Marianne was Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse - the same nuns - a hundred years later - that taught me in elementary school and my sister in high school. Sister Bonaventure, my eighth grade teacher, was a native of Hawai’i. We grew up knowing the heroic story of Mother Marianne and her Sisters.  Needless to say, when the opportunity to visit Moloka’i came up, I jumped at the chance to “meet” Mother Marianne.

            By all accounts, she was a remarkable woman. While still in her thirties, Mother Marianne founded Saint Joseph Hospital (the hospital in which I first greeted the world) and at a fairly young age - 40 - she was elected the second Superior General of the Franciscan Sisters.  A little over five years later, Mother Marianne accepted the invitation (the only affirmative response to a letter that was sent to 50 other religious orders) from the Kingdom of Hawai’i to staff a hospital for Lepers. Having never encountered the scourge that was Leprosy, Mother Marianne boldly asserted: “I am not afraid of any disease.” In 2005 Mother Marianne followed Father Damien into the halls of sanctity when the Church declared her a saint.

            The Bishop of Honolulu, Larry Silva (the first native-born resident of Hawai’i to assume that office), accompanied us on the visit to Moloka’i and preached the homily at Mass that day. The Gospel - Luke 10:25-37 - contained the parable of the man robbed and left for dead on his way to Jericho (I’ve previously commented on this passage in my Blog:  http://lasallehs.blogspot.com/2013/07/who-is-my-neighbor.html). In that parable, Jesus asks the central question that goes to the heart of Christianity: “Who is my neighbor?” There isn’t enough space to recap the answer to that question, save that it includes the man who stopped to give aid to the one left for dead. Then, Bishop Silva posed this rhetorical question: “In the Ebola epidemic, who is the neighbor?”  The obvious answer is the medical professionals who have responded to the rapid spread of this deadly disease.  Sounds a whole lot like Father Damien and Mother Marianne!  But Bishop Silva pushed us to consider a more complicated perspective with respect to this question.  Father Damien and Mother Marianne were utterly ordinary people (indeed, both were immigrants) who, when confronted by an extraordinary challenge, simply said yes.  What fascinates me about Mother Marianne - to this day - was her speedy and uncomplicated commitment to a destiny not her own. Bishop Silva challenged us to look at ourselves from the perspective of Father Damien and Mother Marianne: as ordinary individuals who - at one point or another - are (and will be) surprised by God’s invitation to be neighbor to someone else.

            As I spent five hours on my return flight from Hawai’i, I had time to consider the challenging perspectives my visit to Moloka’i forced me to consider with regard to my own life. I thought about Bishop Silva’s challenge to constantly ask myself the question: “Who is my neighbor” and somewhere, over the middle of the Pacific, I realized that this is the exact same question we ask the students of La Salle (and all Lasallian schools) when we challenge them to: Enter to Learn and Leave to Serve. At La Salle, everything related to the activities of Student Life, of the Retreat Program, of the various drives to respond to the needs of the homeless and the marginalized are designed to inculcate in the students entrusted to our care a sense that anyone who is in trouble needs a neighbor.  Like Father Damien and Mother Marianne, we need to listen to that “still, small voice” that is God challenging us to figure out who we need to be neighbor to - and then - to act on it.