OUR LADY OF PEACE OF HONOLULU

Day 257: January 24

Our Lady of Peace of Honolulu, Hawaii Islands, United States



The Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace is the mother church and spiritual center of the Diocese of Honolulu, Hawaii. The history of this island (ancient leper colony) is intertwined with the lives of two important saints: San Damiano de Veuster and Santa Madre Marianne.

The first Catholic missionaries arrived in Hawaii from France in 1827 and built a mission on land donated by King Kamameha III. The priests dedicated the new building and their mission to Our Lady of Peace, patroness of the order of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.

Hawaiians follow an old Spanish tradition that leads them to celebrate Our Lady of Peace on January 24. Initially, in fact, in the city of Toledo in Spain, the day after the feast of San Ildefonso (January 23rd) was celebrated, the apparition of the Virgin of Peace to the saint.

It is said that on the night of December 18, 665, St Ildefonso saw Our Lady appear, who nodded to him to come closer and, fixing her eyes on him, said: "You are my chaplain and faithful notary. Receive this chasuble that my Son sends you from his treasure."

The miraculous event, also known to Muslims, was documented in the Actae Sanctorum as "The Descent of the Blessed Virgin and Her Apparition."

It was only in 1085 that Alfonso VI instituted the feast of the Virgin Mary to celebrate the reconquest of the Christians of the Cathedral of Toledo and the flight of the Moors on January 23. With the missions, this devotion spread throughout the world in the following centuries.

In Honolulu Cathedral, there is a bronze reproduction above the high altar of the wooden statue of Our Lady of Peace and the Sacred Hearts in which the original is placed in the Convent of the Congregation in Paris. Another copy in the courtyard marks the point where the first mission was born by St Damien de Veuster who lived here and served the community of lepers who were exiled and abandoned for more than two decades.

Another important saint for this island was Mother Marianne Cope who worked alongside Father Damien to improve the conditions of the sick and the healthy children of leprosy patients on the so-called "cursed" island, also founding the first hospital.

Daughter of German peasants who emigrated to America, she entered the Sisters of the Franciscan Third Order in Syracuse with the name of Sr Marianne. In 1883, she received a letter from a priest in Hawaii asking her for help on behalf of King Kalakaua and Queen Kapiolani for the Kingdom of Hawaii.

Only Sister Marianne agreed to run to his aid with some sisters. The nuns arrived in Hawaii on November 8, 1883, dedicating themselves to the care of over 200 lepers at the Kakaako Branch Hospital on Oahu.

This hospital was built to accommodate 100 people, but it had to hold more than 200. The conditions were deplorable. Each nun-nurse had learned to wash putrid wounds, to apply soothing ointment and to restore order and legality, which tends to be abandoned by those who lose all hope.

St Mother Marianne founded Malulani Hospital, Maui's first general hospital to treat all kinds of illnesses just a year later.

In 1885, realizing that healthy children of leprosy patients were at high risk of contracting the disease, she founded a home for them. For all her work she was given the Royal Medal of Kapiolani. In the summer of 1886, the nuns also took care of St Damien when he was infected with the terrible disease that he had fought so hard. St Damien de Veuster continued to serve everyone despite the fact that he also caught leprosy

In Kalaupapa, Mother Marianne had foreseen that no Franciscan nun would ever contract leprosy, while making sure that there were strict health procedures.

She lived and worked closely with leper patients for 35 years. Although there was no proper care, she and her sisters offered lepers as dignified a life as possible. St Marianne died in Kalaupapa on August 9, 1918.

The Sisters of St Francis continue their work in Kalaupapa with victims of Hansen's disease (more commonly known as leprosy). No sister has ever contracted the disease. A relic of St Damien (a foot bone) and the remains of St Mother Marianne are enshrined inside the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu. Through Our Lady of Peace these two saints brought great peace to the hearts of these suffering peoples.


St Justin Russolillo Writes...

"God the Son, seeing you so united to the Father for all eternity, has really become your child in time, O Mary; He has taken a body in your own image and likeness, for your Immaculate Flesh, O Mother of God."

(Justin Russolillo, Spirit of Prayer, trans. Louis Caputo, Vocationist Fathers, Newark, 1996, p. 155)

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