Bringing the Holy Face to Honolulu

During my last pilgrimage to Manoppello after concluding my studies in Rome and before returning to the United States of America, Paul Badde and Father Carmine Cucinelli,  O.F.M. Cap, rector of the Shrine of the Holy Face, both referred to me as "an apostle of the Holy Face" because of my collaboration with them in researching the history of the Volto Santo and my desire to make the Face of Jesus more well known. I do not think I am worthy of such a title, but I am happy to do my part in spreading this beautiful devotion.

With Ellen and Paul Badde and Antonio Bini

With Father Carmine

Since my return to Illinois, I have had the opportunity to talk about the Holy Face with the Sisters of St. Francis of the Martyr St. George and soon I will have the pleasure of talking about the Volto Santo with the Fisher's of Men in Honolulu at 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, February 25 at the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace.

If you are on one of the Hawaiian islands, I hope you'll be able to join us for the breakfast and talk and humbly ask that you help spread the word. Mahalo e aloha!

It is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas

Ever since I first obtained my driver's license, I have enjoyed assisting in the decoration of churches for the celebrations of Christmas. Even in high school, I was found in the my local parish on evenings and weekends helping string lights on trees, hang garland from balconies, and wrap it round pillars. In college and in the seminary, I could found late at night in the church with the pastor making last minute tweaks to the poinsettias and other decorations. All of this took lots of time, but I thoroughly enjoyed and always saw it as an act of loving service to the Christ Child.

These last few years, not having been actively involved in parish ministry, I have not had the same opportunities to help decorate churches for Christmas. Thankfully, this Christmas in Honolulu has afforded me to pleasure of helping decorate the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. In particular, I was entrusted with the decoration of the niche for the manger scene:

As I sat and crawled around on the platforms trying this poinsettia here and that one there, trading a taller one for a shorter one, re-positioning an animal or searching for a brick or two, many happy memories of Christmases past flooded my heart. There's something very peaceful and comforting in the act of decorating.

Once the decorations were ready, I went to a nearby florist to purchase a lei to offer to the Infant King, as is the custom among some in these islands:

Following the blessing on the manger scene, I was invited to offer the first lei to Jesus as an expression of aloha:

Writing in his classic novel, A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens wrote that "it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when the mighty Founder was a child himself" (Stave 3).

As I presented my lei to the Child of Bethlehem and kissed his feet, the childlike joy of Christmas welled up in my heart and I felt very much like a child before God and remembered these words of then-Cardinal Luciani (who later became Pope John Paul I):

Personally speaking, when I talk to God and the Blessed Virgin alone, I prefer to feel like a child rather than an adult. The mitre, the skullcap, the ring disappear; I send the adult off for a walk and even the bishop with all his grave and ponderous dignity, so that I might abandon myself to the spontaneous tenderness of a child with his papa and his mama. When I am with God, even if it be for a short half hour, I prefer to be what I am in reality, with all my wretchedness and any merits I might have. To feel the child I once was being reborn from the depths of my being, the child who wants to laugh, chatter, to love the Lord, who sometimes feels the need to cry so that he may obtain forgiveness – all this helps me to pray.

I've always felt the same, and sometimes the experience of my being a child of God is felt more keenly than at others.

As we approach the manger this Christmas to look upon the face of the Father's mercy, Jesus the Christ, let us ask him to renew within us the experience of being his children and knowledge that his kingdom is open only to the childlike (cf. I John 3:2; Matthew 18:3).

Merry Christmas!

Bishop Silva: The heavenly garden is more beautiful than the flowered islands of Hawaii

Photo: Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace

A few months ago, His Holiness Pope Francis granted to the faithful of my favorite island chain in the Pacific Ocean a unique privilege by granting the favor of naming the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu a Minor Basilica. The honorific title of basilica is given by the Holy Father to a church with a particular importance because of its history or art (or both).

The Cathedral Basilica of Honolulu witnessed the ordination of Saint Joseph Damien de Vuester to the priesthood and welcomed Saint Marianne Cope to the Hawaii before she followed Father Damien to the island of Moloka'i to serve the lepers on the Kalaupapa peninsula. In addition to its connections to these two saints, the Cathedral Basilica is believed to be the oldest cathedral in continuous use in the United States of America and has a remarkably beautiful set of stained glass windows (I posted a few photos on Facebook a few years ago, though they do not do it justice).

As a church now especially connected with the Bishop of Rome, it has the honor of displaying the ombrellino (umbrella) and the tintinnabulum (bell) -shown to the right as His Excellency the Most Reverend Clarence "Larry" Silva, Bishop of Honlulu, blesses them - which are utilized in any procession in which the Roman Pontiff takes part in a basilica.

Bishop Silva took the occasion of the Mass of Thanksgiving to preach about the various aspects of the art and architecture of the cathedral basilica and caught my attention when he spoke of the ceiling:

Have you ever looked up at the ceiling of this magnificent cathedral?  In most churches the ceiling soars above our heads, higher than it needs to be for the practical reasons of sheltering us from the sun and the rain.  This high vault draws our attention to heaven, to our ultimate destiny, where we will be in the presence the Most High God.  If you look carefully, you will see angels, which remind us of these messengers of God who speak to us every day and guide us like little tinkling bells, so that our paths stay true to the Way that God has set for us.  For the Way himself God sent the Archangel Gabriel to touch Mary’s soul and to call her to her vocation.  Our ceiling is stenciled with flowers to remind us of the Garden of Eden that will be restored to us, a place more beautiful than even these flowered islands that are sometimes referred to as paradise, but which in reality are nothing compared to the heavenly garden.

This last sentence caught me by surprise and sent my thoughts back through the ten or eleven visits I have made to Hawaii which, in total, add up to almost six months in all. I have seen more beauty in the flowers and trees, waters and forests, mountains and skies, of Hawaii than I have seen anywhere else. This natural beauty of the islands, in addition to the beauty of the aloha of the Hawaiians themselves, keeps me returning year after year. This same beauty is also always near my heart, which pines always to be back in my beloved Hawaii. I once described it as something in Hawaii singing to me and to all.

The beauty of the flowers of Hawaii is magnificent indeed! Consider only a few samples of the beauty I have encountered there over the years:

As beautiful as the flowers of this earthly paradise are, Bishop Silva is right. Saint Paul knew of what he wrote when he referred to the words of the Prophet Isaiah: "What eye has not seen, and ear has not heard, and what has not entered into the human heart, what God has prepared for those who love him" (I Corinthians 2:9).

If we long to be in Hawaii, how much more so should we long to be in heaven!

Random bits of news, some important and some not

This morning I'm in a bit of a random mood, so I thought I'd share a few random news stories of varying importance with you:

• Forbes has ranked Honolulu the "most overpriced" city in the U.S.A.;
• The Clericus Cup soccer tournament will include 358 players from 60 countries this year in Rome;
• Green Bay has never had a colder winter;
• Oral contraceptives may double a woman's risk of developing MS;
• In testimony before Congress, co-founder of Greenpeace says there is "no proof" humans are causing climate change;
• Charles Krauthammer tackles the unscientific notion of "settled science";
• Planned President says it doesn't matter when human life actually begins, only when a mother says it does;
• A man pronounced dead in Mississippi is found to be alive before being embalmed; and
• Back in 2008, Sarah Palin was mocked when she warned that Russia might invade Ukraine.

Should I make a list of news items a daily post?