Chaminade University of Honolulu

Catholic

Chaminade Students Received the Sacrament of Confirmation at the Easter Vigil

At the footsteps of Eiben Hall, a fire burned brightly into the night as Chaminade chaplain Fr. George Cerniglia, SM began Easter Vigil.

In the Roman Catholic Church tradition, the Easter Vigil, also called the Paschal Vigil or Holy Saturday, is the most important service of public worship and Masses of the liturgical year because it commemorates Christ’s rising from the dead. Traditionally at this Mass, people are baptized, and adult catechumens are received into full communion with the Church. This Easter Vigil at Mystical Rose Oratory four Chaminade students and six parishioners committed themselves to the faith and were received into that full communion.

Chaminade students Anthony Lamorena, Darynka Gomez-Cervantes, Mario Armendariz, and Jared Hernden have been studying the Catholic faith since September 2016.

Lamorena, a senior majoring in Business Administration, knew that this was the right time to be confirmed. He had been raised Catholic but had always put it off. “I believe that when God tells you it’s time that is when you should do it. I felt God drawing me to this program this year, and I thought it was the right time in my life to go through the process and attain this sacrament,” he said.

Darynka Gomez-Cervantes, a first-year student majoring in Criminal Justice, felt that this was the right time for her as well. She explained, “I chose to confirm as Catholic because I was baptized Catholic and thought to myself that I needed to continue the steps of being a Catholic and becoming closer to God. I am very glad I chose to go through this somewhat long process. In the end, it was very worth it, and I was glad I made this huge decision that will forever change my life.”

As the students went through the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (RCIA), they prepared themselves to receive the sacraments of initiation (baptism, confirmation, and the Eucharist). The night was the culmination of an eight-month journey where they learned about the Catholic faith and then took the final steps.

“The process was a lot of fun for me,” said Gomez-Cervantes. “My sponsor was my best friend and would attend all the meetings with me, and Danny (Campus Ministry director Daniel O’Regan) would make the meetings very relatable and spiritual. We would meet every week. It was great relaxing and talking about God.”

For Lamorena, the experience grew his understanding. “The process leading up to confirmation was both educational and cleansing as I prepared myself spiritually for this new leap forward in my walk with God. It allowed me to revisit things I learned in the past, and it allowed me to learn more about God and the Church,” Lamorena shared.

The Easter Vigil Mass on Saturday, April 15, was deeply moving for the students — filled with symbols of light and hope. Friends and supporters were on hand to witness the sacraments of initiation.

“I felt a bit of sadness because my parents weren’t here to celebrate this special moment in my life and spiritual journey, but I’m glad I have great friends that came to support me,” said Gomez-Cervantes. “After the confirmation, I felt much closer to God and related more to the people of the church. I felt like a new person, a worthy person closer to God.”

Lamorena reflected that he, too, had changed. “I felt renewed because I had gone through a process that has helped me become a stronger and new person in the eyes of God and to others,” he said.

The Rite of Christian Initiation for Adults (R.C.I.A) is an eight-month program intended for those who are interested either in becoming Catholic or who wish to receive the sacrament of Confirmation. Offered by Campus Ministry, the program opens during the first week of September and continues throughout the school year to Easter. R.C.I.A. encourages the growth of each person’s faith life through regular worship at the Sunday Mass in the Mystical Rose Chapel; participation in community service and the Awakening retreat; and mandatory weekly meetings on Sundays after church or at other mutually agreed upon times to learn about Catholic traditions and beliefs.

Students Experience Spiritual Growth through Kalaupapa Pilgrimage

During spring break, eight students from Chaminade made a pilgrimage to Kalaupapa, Molokai to walk in the footsteps of Father Damien de Veuster, SS. CC. and Mother Marianne Cope and see the world through their eyes. Father Damien, known as “the apostle of the lepers,” and Mother Marianne, known as the “mother of outcasts,” were canonized for their work at Kalaupapa’s leper colony. Located on the northern peninsula of Molokai, isolated Kalaupapa has long been associated with Saint Damien (Contemplative Congregation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary) and Saint Marianne (Sisters of Saint Francis).

Campus Ministry 2017 Kalaupapa Pilgrimage

The Chaminade students were eager to connect with both saints.

“I wanted to immerse myself into my culture and gain a stronger appreciation for the islands and learn about the leprosy settlement on Kalaupapa. I wanted to walk where Father Damien and Mother Marianne walked and served,” said Karinna Himan, a junior majoring in Criminal Justice.

Kimberly Rose Aguada, a first-year student at Chaminade and an alumna of Damien Memorial High School, revealed, “When I first learned about Saint Damien, I decided to model my life after him – to always act courageously and faithfully.” Aguada is studying to be a nurse making Saint Marianne also significant to her.

Flying in on a small plane with all their belongings and supplies, the students spent March 18-21 in one of the most beautiful places on earth and yet, at one time in history, one of the saddest places on earth.

“The most memorable part of this trip for me was that for so long, Kalaupapa was known to be a place of sorrow and hardship,” said Yaron Fernando, a Criminal Justice major with a Forensic Sciences minor who will graduate in 2019. “Now it is a place where people can feel joy and compassion in the heart and learn to appreciate the beauty that God has created.”

Campus Ministry 2017 Kalaupapa Pilgrimage

This was the second time that Chaminade’s Campus Ministry offered the Kalaupapa Pilgrimage to its day undergraduate students. Chaminade Campus Ministry director Daniel O’Regan took his first Chaminade group there in 2013.  He noted the powerful impact that this pilgrimage had on students’ spiritual growth.  “It’s a way to connect with the earth, God, and be inspired by the history and people living in Kalaupapa, as well as allow the natural beauty of the island to speak to us of the grandeur of God’s goodness,” he said.

Aguada recalled one of the most memorable parts of the pilgrimage for her. “We hiked up a trail and at the top was a giant white cross. It overlooked the entire settlement and a beautiful valley. When I sat under the cross, I heard the wind blowing through the trees. It was almost as if God was speaking. I remember just sitting there and feeling at peace. I truly felt like He was there with me. It still gives me chills,” Aguada said.

Campus Ministry 2017 Kalaupapa Pilgrimage

From Ohio, Shea Smith, who will graduate in 2019 with a bachelor’s degree in Sociology and a minor in Criminal Justice, found the pilgrimage serene and meaningful. “I walked around by myself to reflect and focus on my spiritual side. Nature for me is calming, and it helps me see God. The beauty of the earth helps me see the beauty in my life that God has given me. This trip allowed me to realize just how grateful I am for my life,” Smith said. “I remember sitting on the pier looking at the crystal clear water and watching these colorful fish swimming around. I don’t see fish like that in Ohio, and when I see them here, I thought it was so amazing. It was another peaceful moment for me that I will always remember. It was relaxing, and it made me happy seeing them swim around and flow with the current. That moment was God talking to me, making me smile and helping me to remember that He is always with me and that I have so much to be grateful for in my life.”

The students had no set schedules, no agendas, and no phone signals as they shook off the stress of school. “As you visit the place, you realize that you are trying to move away from the insanity of our life filled with agendas, timelines, and meetings,” said O’Regan. “In Kalaupapa, you need to have the courage and confidence to go with the flow.  There was downtime to visit the sacred historical sites, hike, visit the locals and even get in a game of volleyball. There was time to reflect under a full night sky of stars, but everything was done by feeling the moment and doing what was right. That is something Kalaupapa teaches you.”

Campus Ministry 2017 Kalaupapa Pilgrimage

Himan noted how grateful the residents were. “They don’t need to have the most glamorous things to be happy. They enjoy the simple things in life and truly love and care about their Kalaupapa. Knowing the history of this place with the positivity of the people and its patients, it’s easy to forget the sad history of this settlement, which some have described as a giant graveyard.”

Once back on Oahu, Himan missed Kalaupapa intensely. “On our last night, we listened to locals have a jam session and just talked story with them. One of the less-than-a-dozen leprosy patients still there told us his experience of being at the settlement. The man described Kalaupapa better than I ever could and told us ‘one day we all going die, but I’m not worried because I already live in Heaven.’”

The value of family spirit and being able to experience the pilgrimage with each other stood out in the students’ memories.  “The people I went with became family, the place felt like home, and I will never forget the memories we’ve made. If anyone wants to experience a serenity that’s absent on our busy island, make new friends, and truly connect with God, I suggest that they apply for this opportunity the next time it’s available,” Aguada said.

Campus Ministry aims to provide students with the best spiritual support during their time at Chaminade University and offers abundant opportunities to nurture spiritual growth. Though Chaminade is a Marianist Catholic Institution, Campus Ministry welcomes and serves people of all faiths and traditions.

Panelists Offer Solutions for ‘Housing the Houseless’

Faith-motivated responses to Hawaii’s homelessness epidemic was the topic of “Housing the Houseless,” a well-attended panel discussion at Chaminade University. Moderated by Hawaii News Now TV reporter and weather anchor Ben Gutierrez, the March 12 event was part of the Mackey Marianist Lecture Series: Catholicism in Prophetic Dialogue.

Panelist Peter Savio, a real estate broker/developer and social worker, characterized homelessness as a symptom of a greater problem – that being the high cost of housing in the Aloha State. As a result, many renters are just one paycheck away from losing their homes.

Savio called for the construction of affordable housing units financed by low-interest government loans. He also favors expansion of home ownership through equity-building rent-to-own projects that create “hope and opportunity” for lower-income families and individuals.

Panelist Terry Walsh (Behavioral Science ’93.), the new president and CEO of Catholic Charities Hawaii, believes in a “housing first” approach to getting people off the streets. First, provide shelter and meals for these needy individuals, Walsh said. Then tackle more deep-seated challenges such as alcohol abuse, drug addiction and mental illness.

“It takes a community to address this problem,” Walsh emphasized. “All of us together.”

Rounding out the panel were Dave and Bernie Reeves, retired teachers from Chaminade College Preparatory School in West Hills, California, and chairs of the Homelessness and Affordable Housing Committee at St. Ann’s Parish in Kaneohe.

Bernie Reeves, who volunteers for the state’s annual point-in-time homeless count, said the crisis is worse than the numbers indicate. That’s because many street people decline to provide information about themselves to outreach workers.

According to the statewide count from a single night in 2016, there were 7,921 homeless in Hawaii, up 4 percent from the previous year. More than half those counted lacked shelter of any kind.

“You have to organize individuals to solve problems,” Dave Reeves urged. Homeless people can help themselves to an extent, he said, “but they cannot do it alone.”

The Mackey Marianist Lecture Series has been sponsored for 20 years by Chaminade, Saint Louis School and the Marianist Center of Hawaii. The twice-annual lectures are dedicated to the memory of Chaminade’s first president, Father Robert R. Mackey, SM.

Chaminade Professor Demonstrates Concepts of Heaven and Earth through Ikebana

When Fine Arts professor Yukio Ozaki creates art, it is as if he is in a sacred space.  A space of silence electrified by thought. Patient anticipation precipitates into a decisive idea that acts, causing material elements to move, form and change.

“Every art form started as a gift to God,” he said as he shook a banyan branch taller than himself during a recent demonstration of Ikebana for the Marianist Educational Associates (MEAs).

Ozaki paused. Despite the crowded room, he connected with a hidden quietness in himself. Decisively he stepped towards the large ceramic vase, held the branch to the ceiling and with a loud, cleansing breath, suddenly slammed the branch into the prepared vase. Stepping back, he determined that it was good.  “A gift to God,” he proclaimed and named it.

Keeping in mind the requested “heaven and earth” theme, Ozaki created three unique floral arrangements.

Early that morning before the demonstration, he completed his first arrangement. Using flowers from the field tied to the tip of a bamboo branch, he fastened the bamboo to a palm tree near Henry Hall. The arrangement presented itself to the heavens like a banner. It heralded creation without fanfare or need for human approval.

The second arrangement was the banyan branch placed into the vase with a robust spirit.

During the third arrangement, Ozaki interacted with the audience, answering questions and sharing his method.  Discussion ensued on the differences between Western and Japanese perspectives made evident through decisions in the creation process. As he taught, he sorted through his collection of yard cuttings and scrutinized with a hidden agenda.  Chosen pieces were pruned for structure and line. Ozaki navigated his way through light and space, creating balance with placement. He deliberately ordered along dark branch lines intermittent moments of orange seed pods, green teardrop leaves and gray lichen grasping at banyan bark.

When he was young and still living in Japan, Ozaki considered teaching Ikebana as a possible career choice but found that was not the right fit for him. “When I quit lessons from my teacher in Ohara School of Flower Arrangement system in 1966, I thought I wasted more than five years of my life trying to become a flower-arrangement teacher to make a living. But the intensive training gave me an incredibly comprehensive foundation in aesthetics, material, design, history and culture,” recalled Ozaki. “The most profound philosophy I learned from my teacher was: ‘don’t arrange with your hands; arrange with your feet.’ By that, she meant: ‘Know where you can get the right material at any time when you need it’.”

Working with Ikebana taught him something else.  It revealed how he did not want to teach.  Consider it part of the pruning process.  His early career experience and what he thought of as failure shaped his style of teaching.

“Now, in education, I don’t teach. This is very different from the way I learned flower arrangement. It was always very painful to see my teacher take apart my arrangement in lessons and change my work so completely to her arrangement,” he shared.

Later in a sculpture class at the University of Hawaii, he felt validated when his professor said, “There is nothing more awful than seeing an instructor in the students’ work.”

The beloved teacher shared on his calling as a teacher. “I am convinced that God gave me a second chance in life through becoming an educator at Chaminade. I’m so blessed that there was a purpose for someone like myself,” said Ozaki modestly.   “It has been my educational motto that I facilitate my students’ learning, not teaching.”

His teaching manner connected with faculty in the room. “As I watched you carefully and thoughtfully prune the branches and leaves and flowers during the Ikebana demonstration, I realized this is how you teach,” wrote Joan Riggs, director of the Environmental + Interior Design program, in a thank-you email. “You meticulously examine your students’ work and guide them to discover and to discern what is relevant and meaningful and what can be discarded or re-used in a different way. I see all of this as an effort to seek the beauty and wonder of God in all things and circumstances. Your resulting arrangement was unique, interesting and thought-provoking. I see this in you and in the work your students produce.”

Ozaki joined Chaminade’s faculty in the fall of 1986 and continues to teach ceramics and 3D-design. Since 1973 he established himself as an artist mainly in the medium of ceramics and wood. His artwork has been exhibited in museums and in prestigious art exhibitions nationally and internationally, as well as in Hawaii.

Named as a Living Treasure of Hawaiʻi by Honpa Hongwanji of Hawaiʻi, Ozaki is not only a renowned artist, he is a renowned teacher. He was the first recipient of the Fr. Bolin Faculty Scholarship Award and recognized nationally by the Carnegie Foundation as Professor of the Year. He received the Chaminade Award for Commitment to Marianist Values as well as the Outstanding Tenured Faculty Award.  In 2005, he inspired the addition of the Jean E. Rolles and Kiki Tidwell Ceramics Studio and Sculpture Garden between Eiben Hall and the Sullivan Family Library.

For Ozaki, creating art and teaching are sacred spaces. Each is done as an offering to God.

Love You Then, Love You Still

More than 40 people celebrated their marriages by renewing their wedding vows on Sunday, February 12, in Mystical Rose Oratory.  The event was sponsored by Alumni Relations and Campus Ministry.  It has become an annual tradition at Chaminade in honor of Valentine’s Day and marriage.  Some of the couples were newlyweds while others have been married nearly 50 years. Alumni Relations director Be-Jay Kodama and her student assistant Arielle Regis cheerfully handed out red carnations and gave out prayer cards.  The renewal followed Mass with couples invited to come up to the altar.  Fr. Allen DeLong, SM, the presider, encouraged the couples to hold hands and look into each other’s eyes.  They each repeated the vows with a kiss to follow, as Fr. DeLong blessed them.

During refreshments, couples enjoyed each other’s company and remembered the proclamation of love and faithfulness made to each other in the past. Lots of hand holding with a few stolen kisses between bites of chocolate cupcakes continued, thanks to Alumni Relations. Later Kodama shared a Marianist thought from Our Marianist Heritage by Stefanelli (p.94) in light of Valentine’s day: “Father Chaminade insisted on the example of the early Christian Community….they had their quarrels and their battles.  But beyond that, they had so much to show forth to the world — a spectacle of love.”

Surely “a spectacle of love” — enduring love– would be an apt description of the couples participating in the wedding vows renewal.

Chaminade University Celebrates Founders’ Week

Banners with the images of Marianist founders, Blessed William Joseph Chaminade, Venerable Adèle de Batz de Trenquelléon and Venerable Marie Thérèse Charlotte de Lamourous, held steady by the high winds, unfurled throughout Chaminade University’s campus. Banners of past founders and presidents of Chaminade University also heralded in the week. It was Founders Week (Jan. 23-28) and an opportunity for the University to celebrate its Marianist heritage, affirm its present day Marianist spirit and carry forward its Marianist values.

Honoring the Past

Monday morning, Campus Ministers set up a lei making station in the Vi and Paul Loo Student Center.  They stacked boxes of white and purple dendrobium orchids and threaded lei needles for students, staff, and faculty to craft together long garlands of flowers.  The garlands were completed in time for a simple draping ceremony at the Father Chaminade statue on the oval.  A simple prayer united the onlookers and gave pause. The group reflected on the rich Marianist past that preceded them.

Fully Present in the Here and Now

On Wednesday, the Chaminade family gathered at Mystical Rose Oratory for Mass and to honor three of its finest.  This was the 15th year that Chaminade University gave out its Heritage Awards. These awards, given annually to members of the faculty, staff and student body, who embody the Marianist spirit, give clear evidence that the Marianist charism is alive and well on campus.

 

This year’s awardees were:

  • Joan Riggs, associate professor and director of the Environmental and Interior Design program, who will receive the Chaminade Award, given to a faculty or professional staff member who has exhibited a continuous commitment to Marianist values in education;
  • Elaine Oishi, director of Administrative Services, who will receive the Marianist Award, given to a staff member who has exhibited a continuous and extraordinary commitment to the vision and mission of Chaminade University while drawing others into the collaborative community (Elaine was unable to attend due to health issues);
  • Jerri Gisela Francisco, vice president of CSGA Programming and Campus Ministry volunteer, who will receive the Founders Award, given to a student who has exhibited a commitment to Marianist values by outstanding generosity, respect for others, and spirit of faith.

Sowing Forward

Combining education and application, Campus Ministry on Tuesday presented an exhibit of Marianists doing good works globally. That afternoon the Chaminade community prepared food to serve to the homeless at Next Step Shelter in Kakaako, Honolulu. On Thursday, it was off to see the film Hidden Figures, which reminded students of social justice issues. On Friday, it was an Ice Cream Social, where Campus Ministry highlighted activities of involvement and civic engagement available to students and winners for the Founders’ Week photo contest were announced.

On Saturday, Founders’ Week culminated in service.  Faculty, staff, and alumni joined more than 60 students to outwardly express their Marianist Catholic values together. From sorting out clothes and household items at the Institute for Human Services to refurbishing furniture at Habitat for Humanity, from cleaning up the campus to cleaning out an ancient fishpond in Heeia, the Chaminade volunteers poured their energy into doing good works across the island.

The good works that the ‘ohana did that service day and participated in throughout Founders’ Week would continue to pay forward towards a rich Marianist future.