View from the Pew
A look inside Hawaii's houses of worshipBy Mary Adamski
Saturday, January 12, 2002
Outreach coordinator Mele Ahuna was busy making coffee and setting out pastry for the socializing hour between services. St. Rita’s in Nanakuli
makes everyone feel welcome,
in many languagesVolunteer nurses set up their blood pressure testing equipment and were instantly in business as a couple of elderly men ducked out of church early.
It was the monthly Aloha Sunday at St. Rita Church. The hospitality and health checks are side benefits that are offered at numerous churches.
But the Nanakuli parish offers a unique expression of aloha on the first Sunday of each month.
Father Alapaki Kim says Mass in the Hawaiian language at the church where, like himself, 65 percent of the parishioners are of Hawaiian ancestry. Kim, pastor of the Leeward Oahu parish since 1998, said he has the largest Hawaiian congregation of any Catholic church in the state.
He believes only one other place, the Pahoa parish on the Big Island, regularly has a Hawaiian-language Mass.
It's clearly a popular idea at this church perched at the edge of Hawaiian homestead land. Prayers and responses have the congregation's strong participation, but the songs are over the top, thanks to enhancement by a band of mostly young musicians on piano, drums and electronic instruments. There's a read-along, sing-along book for the non-fluent.
As people enter the close quarters of the 200-seat church, it feels like a homey gathering of an extended family.
Jan Kauhane sits near a door and gets the "auntie" treatment - a kiss on the cheek - by nearly every other person who enters. Jason and Anna Ortiz no sooner settle in seats before a teenager takes their 9-month-old son, Justin, to pass around for hugs from a variety of fans.
The exchange of personal greetings in the pews - which is usually programmed in midservice as the "kiss of peace" - is staged here before Mass and goes on for minutes. Shell lei were presented to visitors, who got a chance to tell about themselves.
After Harold Levy, who was just ordained a deacon six months ago, gave his soft-voiced homily, he was given a round of supportive applause.
Actually, this was a trilingual service. At least one song was sung in Samoan - most of us needed the read-along book - and a rousing, clapping rendition it was.
After Aulani Helemano did the scriptural readings in Hawaiian, Lawrence McCann repeated them in English enhanced by the accent of a man born in Ireland.
The parish serves a low-income area where many people need its considerable outreach services, including distribution of nonperishable foods and hot meals cooked by volunteers who deliver to the homebound.
Still, Kim said, a large number of parishioners tithe and, in these hard economic times, several pay in canned or packaged foods rather than money. Rather than passing a collection basket, folks may bring their contributions forward at the offertory. It's a kind of participation the kids love and, said Kim, "a good way of teaching children that we all share in the parish."
Kim wore the full vestments typical of a Catholic service, but he stood barefoot at the altar. The prayers for the faithful were local and global in scope, asking God's blessings for people in military service, for the people of Afghanistan, "for the indigenous people of our world, for the many who are struggling to survive."
Amid the Christmas decorations were handmade banners with year-round reminders of the Christian's duties: "Visit the sick," "Comfort the sorrowing," "Clothe the naked," "Visit the imprisoned" and "Feed the hungry."
Jan Kauhane said "this parish has a spiritual feeling."
Minnesota visitors Scott and Kathie Elfstrom said they have worshipped in different languages on their travels.
They returned to St. Rita's this year because "this place has a really good feeling for us."
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Mary Adamski covers religion for the Star-Bulletin.
Email her at madamski@starbulletin.com.
