Homily - 10 August 2014 - Those who remain silent are responsible

N.B.: The following homily has been edited to correct a few grammatical errors and to include the paragraph about Saint Edith Stein.

The Nineteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

The experience of these past few days as we awaited the arrival of hurricanes Iselle and Julio has taught us something of the experience of the prophet Elijah. Just as the man of God sought the Lord in the “strong and heavy wind” and in the earthquake, so, too, did we, although in reverse order (I Kings 19:11). Like the prophet, we did not find the Lord in the quaking of the earth or in the driving force of the wind. Whereas Elijah climbed Mount Horeb to encounter the Lord, we looked to two mountains – to Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea – to find the Lord’s kindness and salvation (cf. Psalm 85:8).

Elijah climbed Mount Horeb – the very mountain on which the Lord spoke with Moses - not only to encounter the Lord, but also – and primarily – to flee from the forces of Queen Jezebel whose men sought his life. When the Lord asked him why he was on the mountain of God, Elijah answered, “I alone remain, and they seek to take my life” (I Kings 19:14).

At this very moment, on the other side of the world, at least 100,000 men, women, and children are also fleeing from men who seek to kill them. They fled to the Kurdish region of Iraq after the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) marked their homes and businesses in Mosul with the Arabic letter nun, the equivalent of our ‘n’. ISIS destroyed many of their homes and the forces of ISIS now seek to take their lives because they are Christians.

ISIS used this letter to mark the buildings and their inhabitants as Nasrani, Christians in Arabic. Arabic names Christians in reference to the Nazarene, to Jesus of Nazareth, to whom they, like us, pledged their lives and obedience in holy Baptism. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria gave these Christians three choices: convert to Islam, pay a heavy annual tax and live with few rights and liberties, or die by the sword. They chose instead a fourth option and fled for their lives. That was four weeks ago, and for the first time in more than 1,600 years, there are no Christians in Mosul.

This week, ISIS overran the largest Christian city in Iraq, Qaraqosh, as the Christian inhabitants fled before them. A man converted to Islam and was martyred anyway. ISIS beheaded children and raped women. Regardless of the damage caused in these Hawaiian islands by Iselle, our sufferings here cannot compare to the sufferings of our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

As they cry out to God, begging, “Lord, save me!” the Christians of Iraq also cry out to us, demanding, “Where are you” (Matthew 14:30)?! The situation is dire and grim and the world largely simply sits back watching and doing nothing or very little.

Back in January, President Obama likened the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria to a junior varsity basketball team; today, though, ISIS controls one third of Iraq and controls military bases in both Syria and Iraq even as it marches towards Baghdad. ISIS has established a new caliphate and Friday threatened to raise the flag of Allah over the White House. This is no idle threat. The swiftness with which ISIS forced the Christians out of Mosul and the hatred and cruelty shown to them clearly demonstrates.

No matter how many miles separate us from the Iraqi Christians, we cannot ignore their plight, nor can we remain silent. They are suffering greatly for the sake of the name of the Lord Jesus, the same name that unites us together in the Body of Christ. We cannot ignore them or their needs because, as Saint Paul teaches us, “If [one] part suffers, all the parts suffer with it” (I Corinthians 12:26).

It was not that long ago that people outside Germany looked at the terrors of the concentration camps and asked, “How did they allow this to happen? How did they not see it coming? Why did they say nothing? Why did they do nothing?” Before he was elected Chancellor of Germany, everyone knew what Hitler wanted to do, but no one thought he would actually do then. Then, step by purposeful step, he incrementally began his campaign. It was subtle at first, but in the end deadly and horrific.

Right before our eyes another such genocide is occurring at this very moment in Iraq – we have seen the pictures! What is more, we have known this was coming for months, and we did nothing! History will look back upon us and condemn us with the same questions we asked about Hitler’s Germany: “How did they allow this to happen? How did they not see it coming? Why did they say nothing? Why did they do nothing?” Among the many victims in the camp at Auschwitz was a Carmelite nun, Saint Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, whose feast day we celebrated yesterday. She was born to Jewish parents and given the name Edith Stein. She abandoned Judaism for atheism in her teenage years and became a reknowned philosopher whose thought deeply influenced Saint John Paul II. Before her martyrdom in the gas chambers, she said, “Those who remain silent are responsible.” She directed her words to those of her own day, and they are equally directed at those of our own day. Yes, those who remain silent are responsible!

On Friday, Pope Francis issued an urgent plea to his sons and daughters in Christ. “I ask all parishes and communities,” he said, “to offer a special prayer this weekend for Iraqi Christians.” With Saint Paul, we, too, must have “great sorrow and constant anguish in [our] heart[s]” for our persecuted brothers and sisters (Romans 9:2). If we do not, we should beg the Lord to help us empathize with them and to know their sufferings.

While Pope Francis has asked us to pray this weekend for the Iraqi Christians, His Excellency the Most Reverend Richard E. Pates, Bishop of Des Moines, on behalf of the Committee of International Justice and Peace of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has called us to pray for the Iraqi Christians next Sunday, August 17^th. Certainly there is no reason for us to wait that long; we should pray for them today, and every day!

We should pray that their attackers show them mercy, that peace come to their land, and that justice be served. We should pray that they find shelter and sustenance and that they be allowed to return to their homes. We should pray that they remain steadfast and persevere in the faith of the Lord Jesus, that they hear his voice whispering to them, “Take courage, it is I; do not be afraid” (cf. I Kings 19:12; Matthew 14:27).

What is more, we should fast for them; we should offer our sufferings and inconveniences for them; we should talk about their plight with our family, friends, neighbors, politicians, and strangers; we should, to the extent we can, donate to reliable groups working on their behalf. We cannot forget them! We must remember that, like them, we are N! We, too, bear the mark of nun because we are one with them in Christ Jesus!

Pope Francis has urged us to think of “Christian” not simply as a descriptor for what we believe, but as our very name. He said:

We are not isolated and we are not Christians on an individual basis, each one on his or her own, no, our Christian identity is to belong! We are Christians because we belong to the Church. It is like a last name: if the first name is “I am Christian”, the last name is “I belong to the Church.”[1]

He went on to say:

…you cannot love God without loving your brothers, you cannot love God outside of the Church; you cannot be in communion with God without being so in the Church, and we cannot be good Christians if we are not together with those who seek to follow the Lord Jesus, as one single people, one single body, and this is the Church.

My friends, we cannot claim to love our brothers and sisters, we cannot claim to be members of the Church or even to be Christians without feeling their sufferings and without doing all that we can to come to their aid.

His Beatitude Louis Raphael I Sako, Patriarch of Baghdad, recently composed a prayer that he and Bishop Pates have asked us to pray in union with our brothers and sisters in Iraq. Although the Patriarch wrote his prayer from the perspective of an Iraqi, there is no reason we cannot pray it as it is because we are all one. Let us, then, pray in the name of our brothers and sisters:

Lord,

the plight of our country

is deep and the suffering of Christians

is severe and frightening.

Therefore, we ask you Lord
to spare our lives, and to grant us patience,
and courage to continue our witness of Christian values
with trust and hope.

Lord, peace is the foundation of life;
grant us the peace and stability that will enable us
to live with each other without fear and anxiety,
and with dignity and joy.

Glory be to you forever.

Amen.

---

[1] Pope Francis, General Audience Address, 25 June 2014.

Pray for Christians in Iraq

The morning after Iselle

Yesterday the faithful throughout the State of Hawaii and throughout the world prayed to God Almighty, imploring that "the stilling of fearsome storms may turn a powerful menace into an occasion for us to praise you." This morning I am pleased to say these were heard and favorably answered.

The National Weather Service feared Iselle would pass between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea and continue across the Big Island. We were told to prepare for the worst and the Iselle would - without a doubt - pass directly over the island of Hawaii. This morning the National Weather Service reports that the two mountains broke up the storm and sent it mostly south of the Big Island because, as one NWS meteorologist said, these storms "don't like land." One might wonder why that wasn't mentioned yesterday. Another meteorologist described is as "the epic battle between geography and weather;" geography clearly won.

As is often the case, the terrible predictions of the meteorologists came to nothing (or at least nowhere near what they foretold). It is one thing to encourage people to prepared and quite another to incite fear and panic.

There are reports of one roof being torn off a building by strong winds last night and rainfalls of about eight inches across the island (though one area of the Big Island received closer to twelve inches of rain). Some power lines were taken out by falling branches, some of which fell across roads, and some areas have some flooding. I have heard no reports of any deaths, or even of any injuries. All is not well, but we are certainly not in a great disaster zone.

Here on the west side of Hawaii, we had some wind (though I see no signs of any damage or even of fallen branches or flowers) and some rain, though I can't imagine we received anywhere close to eight inches. The mountains protected the Kona side of the Big Island from the hurricane, just as the locals said it would all along. This morning the clouds are heavy and thick, but I awoke to the sound of roosters calling for the sun. About fifteen people came to Mass this morning because, as one parishioner told me before Mass, "we had to come to praise God."

Iselle was downgraded from a hurricane to a tropical storm early this morning and now continues on the way by the other islands in the chain. The models indicated that the trajectory of Julio will take that hurricane north of the islands and shouldn't pose too much of a threat to us.

The evening before Iselle

It rained here in Holualoa a few hours ago for about 15 minutes and has been strangely still since. This sleepy village sits some 1,300 feet above sea level, yet there is barely a breeze at the present moment. The only sound is the chirping (it isn't really a croaking) of the Coqui frogs.

About 6:45 p.m. (almost an hour and a half ago), I happened to look out the kitchen window and was surprised to see a beautiful sunset:

After the Noon Mass, the transitional deacon and I headed out to make two visits to very ill parishioners who asked to be anointed with the Oil of the Sick. We returned to the parish about 3:00 p.m. and already within those four hours, cabin fever set in. I've never been a patient waiter and decided to go for a evening walk while one could still be had. It could be a very long couple of days, especially since I do not know anyone on this island (at least not yet).

As the sun was setting over the Big Island, the moon was rising over Holualoa. At this moment, hurricane Iselle still has not made landfall on the east side of the island. The storm seems to be weakening and no longer has an eye. While this is promising, we still aren't, as it were, out of the woods yet.

The morning before Iselle

As we brace today for the arrival of two very strong storm systems on the Hawaiian islands, the morning opening beautifully with bright sunshine and blue skies:

Weather forecasters are expecting hurricane Iselle to pass between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. If it does indeed pass between the two mountains, they aren't really sure what to expect from the winds and rains. The locals here in Kona tell me that historically the two mountains largely protect the west side of the Big Island from such storms. This will, to say the least, be interesting.

The strongest of the winds are expected to hit the islands of Oahu and Maui. As the hurricane passes over the Big Island, strong winds are expected to blow for 6-8 hours (it's a good thing I like strong winds) and the rains are expected to fall for 8-12 hours, leaving behind as much as 8 inches of rain. The majority of the rain will fall on the east side of the storm system.

This will be my first experience of a hurricane and, in fact, I will get to expect two of them in one week. The weather service believes this will be the first time two hurricanes will strike the same area in the same week.

I also experienced my first earthquake this morning as the Big Island felt a quake registering at 4.3. It did not last more than a few seconds and at first I thought the noise was a large truck in the back yard (it turns out there wasn't a truck at all). The floor of the house shook very briefly, more of a rattle than anything else. The quake left me asking, "What was that?" A few minutes later I saw on Twitter that it was a quake.

There were about 25 people at Mass this morning here at Immaculate Conception church in Holualoa. They seemed concerned, but no one seemed overly worried; cautious is probably the word that best fits the present demeanor of the locals. Many of them stayed after Mass to pray the rosary and to pray at litany.

Here in the rectory I have several days worth of food and water (and Dr Pepper). I am staying with the pastor and a transitional deacon, both of whom are locals. I'm sure if we need to head elsewhere, they'll bring me with them.

No matter what happens in the Hawaiian islands with two approaching hurricanes, it cannot compare with what is happening right now to Christians in Iraq. Please keep those of us on the islands in your prayers, but please do not forget our persecuted brothers and sisters in Iraq.

A Prayer Against Storms through the Intercession of Saint Scholastica

Hurricane Iselle is now expected to hit the Big Island of Hawaii today at 3:00 p.m. local time. As we pray for your safety and for a weakening of the hurricane, Father Selvester sent a prayer for the intercession of Saint Scholastica, the twin sister of Saint Benedict and patroness against storms:

Blessed and Holy Saint Scholastica, intercede for your people in this time of need.

May your prayers go to the throne of God in order that we be delivered from harm that our lives and our homes be protected, and churches stand erect and ready to serve your people.

Finally, Saint Scholastica, may your prayers deliver all of those in danger, heal all those in illness, and direct all of those without shelter.

Intercede for us, great patroness, and offer us the good weather for which we hope.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A Prayer For an End to Storms

As we brace for an unprecedented arrival of two hurricanes this week in the Hawaiian islands preparations are well underway before hurrican Iselle arrives tomorrow evening.

In the morning I will offer the Holy Mass in Immaculate Conception church and will pray For an End to Storms. Please join your prayers to ours:

O God, to whose commands
all the elements give obedience,
we humbly entreat you,
that the stilling of fearsome storms
may turn a powerful menace
into an occasion for us to praise you.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Saints Damien and Marianne, pray for us!

I can say that though I am concerned about what weather may soon arrive over the Big Island, I am not worried, probably because the locals do not seem worried. I had dinner this evening in Kailua Kona with the pastor and a deacon and there are no signs that life is other than it usually is here. Still, that may change tomorrow night; we will just have to wait and see.

Homily - 3 August 2014

The Eighteenth Sunday of the Year (A)

Dear brothers and sisters,

There comes in each of our lives a time when - at least once - we try to run away from the troubles and frustrations of daily life (these times occur more often for some than for others). The pressures and the stressors that we encounter and even sometimes endure, become, we think, too much for us to handle and so we flee in search of a place of solitude, quiet, and peace, a place where others cannot find us, bother us, or take our attention away from our own needs, wants, and desires.

Each of us has tried to run away and hide, to greater or lesser distances and with greater or lesser effectiveness. Does it not seem, though, that each time we flee, someone manages to find us and require something of us? We carve out a few hours to ourselves and the boss calls with an emergency at work; we plan a vacation that turns out to be not quite what we at first envisioned; we sneak off to a quiet room of the house when no one is looking, but the children discover us anyway. Yes, if we are honest, it happens to us all.

We need this time to ourselves, we say, and sometimes we even like to invoke the example of the Lord Jesus to justify our frustration and irritation. Even he snuck away from the crowds “to a deserted place by himself,” we say, but the Gospel passage proclaimed for us today, on closer inspection, proves us wrong (Matthew 14:13).

Without a doubt, the Evangelists present to us several times in the Gospels in which Jesus set out for a quiet place. This, we suggest, shows Jesus getting away to "recharge" and to take time for himself, to care for himself so that he might better care for the people. While such an interpretation may not be wholly incorrect, it seems to place the wrong emphasis on the Lord's actions.

No, Jesus did not go away from the crowds for himself, but to be with the Father; because he was not focused on himself, he was not frustrated by the gathering crowd. As two commenters observed, "Jesus shows no signs of being irked" by the gathering crowd. “Instead, ‘his heart was moved with pity’ as he peered out across the vast human sea of hunger and heartache that pressed in around him. However fatigued, Jesus made himself available to the sick and suffering” (Matthew 14:14).[1]

His going away from the crowds was not an act of selfishness, as ours often is, but was rather an act of selflessness; his attention was set not on himself, but on his Father in heaven. Whereas we often go away not to pray, but to hide, Jesus went away not to hide, but to pray. The difference in emphasis is no small matter and one that we would do well to heed.

Just a few days ago, we welcomed back to Honolulu the mortal remains of Saint Marianne Cope and enshrined them here in the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. It was a day filled with many emotions, a day of laughter and of joyful tears. Most importantly, though, it was a day for us to reflect again on what led Mother Marianne on the path of holiness and a time to ask ourselves if we are on that same path.

As he spoke of the mana of our Beloved Mother of Outcasts, Bishop Larry reminded us that the bones of this holy woman were given to us as a spiritual candy. Rather, they were given to us

so that the Holy Spirit may penetrate into our bones and lead us to feed the hungry on our streets, to welcome the stranger on our borders, to clothe those who are naked and vulnerable with the education that will adorn them with the finery of wisdom, to free those imprisoned by their own self-worship.[2]

Are these not the same people who often inconvenience us and require something of us? This list is certainly not exhaustive.

As one simple example of what I mean, let use an everyday example. When I first came to Hawaii eight years ago, one of the things that particularly struck me was the friendliness of the drivers. If someone needed to change lines on the freeway, they were waved in and they waved back to say mahalo [thank you]. At the same time, if someone accidentally cut someone off, he would wave back to say “Sorry!” and the one cut off would wave in response to say, “No worries!” Driving with aloha was common. Now, though, just eight years later, such friendliness and aloha is not easy to find on the freeways. Certainly other drivers inconvenience us, but is this any reason for us not to love them?

I dare say that the iwi [bones] of Mother Marianne are with us to serve as a constant reminder to us that wherever there are people in need, there we must be. In his first encyclical, His Holiness Benedict XVI put it both brilliantly and simply when he answered the question, "Who, then, is my neighbor." "Anyone," he said, "who needs me, and whom I can help, is my neighbor."[3]

Of course, helping our neighbors sometimes proves to be something of an inconvenience to ourselves, and so we try to run away with all of our excuses of "recharging." We put the emphasis in the wrong place, on ourselves, and not on God who said, "whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me" (Matthew 25:40). Like Mother Marianne, we must look to the example of Jesus and forget ourselves. "Humility," said C. S. Lewis, "is not thinking less of myself, but thinking of myself less." Precisely by thinking of herself less and more of the patients at Kalawao and Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne progressed daily on the path of sanctity and now is rightly honored among the Saints, whose company we, too, are called to join by thinking of ourselves less and more of others. As Saint John the Baptist said, "He must increase, I must decrease" (John 3:30).

When Mother Marianne heard of the plight of the patients of Kalawao and of the great need for people of faith to attend to their needs and to share with them the love of God, she was the only woman religious to answer the Bishop’s call. She knew the difficulties that awaited her, the many inconveniences and the countless hours of labor she would endure on their behalf; still, she went. Following the example of Christ, she emptied herself of selfishness and selflessly gave her life for the patients.

She once said, “My heart bled for the children and I was anxious and hungry to put a little more sunshine into their dreary lives.” In the presence of her iwi, we have to ask if we are anxious and hungry to put more sunshine into our own lives, or into the lives of others. Mother Marianne would have us think of others more and of ourselves less. Today, let us ask her to intercede for us so we may learn to follow her on the path of holiness to arrive in the presence of the Lord. Amen.

---

[1] Curtis Mitch and Edward Sri, Catholic Commentary on Sacred Scripture: The Gospel of Matthew (Baker Academic), 189.

[2] Most Reverend Clarence “Larry” Silva, Homily, 31 August 2014.

[3] Pope Benedict XVI, Deus caritas est, 15.

Bishop Silva: The mana and iwi of Mother Marianne is not a spiritual candy

Yesterday morning the relics of Saint Marianne Cope were translated to and enshrined within the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in downtown Honolulu.

His Excellency, the Most Revered Clarence "Larry" Silva, Bishop of Honolulu, received her relics outside the front doors of the Cathedral Basilica, together with a sizable gathering of the faithful, priests, deacons, and women religious, as well as members of the Hawaiian royal societies.

Already by this time, the faithful crammed into a standing room only Cathedral Basilica, including the residents of Kalaupapa.

Wearing his cape of the Royal Order of Kamehameha I, Bishop Silva inspected the seals of the box containing Saint Marianne's remains to certify their authenticity after their departure from Syracuse, New York.

The relics of the Beloved Mother of Outcasts were then carried in procession into the Cathedral Basilica by four Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, to which Saint Marianne belonged, one the same canoe that once carried the relics of Saint Damien into the Cathedral Basilica (the same church in which he was ordained a priest) while the Litany of the Saints was sung:

Post by Our Lady of Good Counsel - Youth & Family Ministry.

Once her relics were placed the before the altar, the Bishop of Honolulu led the faithful in the praying of mid-pray, after which the Holy Mass was offered in thanksgiving for the return of Saint Marianne. During his homily, Bishop Silva spoke of the Hawaiian notion of mana:

Mana is the Hawaiian word for a spiritual power, an aura possessed by a person or place that can be almost palpable to others.  Although it is a word with great meaning in the Hawaiian culture, the concept is shared by other cultures, indeed by the Catholic Church.  Anyone who has been to the Kalaupapa Peninsula on the island of Molokai, where St. Marianne and St. Damien devoted themselves to the outcasts and the abandoned, knows that that place has a very strong mana.  Despite all the suffering and chaos that once characterized the place, one can feel a strong sense of the holy there.  It is quite palpable.  It is a power, a force, a spirit that touches and changes hearts; that heals and gives courage.

It is the mana of St. Marianne that brings us together today.  The mortal remains of this frail creature of God, made from dust and returning to dust, have an incredible spirit of their own, an aura that makes us want to be near them, to be changed by the very odor of holiness that emanates from them.  We want to touch the relics of this woman who dedicated herself to healing, so that we may be healed and may be healers.  To think of her from afar and contemplate her goodness is certainly a noble and enriching experience, but to be in physical proximity to her iwi, her sacred remains, is to be able to catch her mana. Her faith in the Lord Jesus can be contagious, and so we come to enshrine her relics so that all who come here may catch this faith and spread it to others.  We will venerate her relics forevermore in this sacred temple, so that we can catch her mana and, like her, have the strength “to comprehend with all the holy ones what is the breadth and length and height and depth” of the love of Christ.”

Although yesterday was a day of great pride and joy for the Diocese of Honolulu, Bishop Silva cautioned that the return of the relics of Mother Marianne to the islands is "not so that we can be filled with some sort of spiritual candy that will sweeten our hearts for a moment but ultimately bloat us and make ourselves bigger," but "so that the Holy Spirit may penetrate into our bones and lead us to feed the hungry on our streets, to welcome the stranger on our borders, to clothe those who are naked and vulnerable with the education that will adorn them in the finery of wisdom, to free those imprisoned by their own self-worship."

Following the Mass, the relics of Saint Marianne were enshrined in the Cathedral Basilica opposite the relics of Saint Damien of Moloka'i where many of the faithful left leis for Mother Marianne in token of their love for her:

 After several hours in which the faithful venerated the relics of Saint Marianne, the day concluded with the praying of Vespers, again presided over by Bishop Silva.

All in all, it was a wonderful day filled with much aloha and even many tears of joy.

A Catholic Mom in Hawaii has also posted several photos from the reception of Mother Marianne's relics. Being on the opposite side of the gathering, she had a better view than me.