Long pilgrimage ends with canonization

ROME » Hansen’s disease patient Pauline Chow had relied on a wheelchair during her trip to Rome for the canonization of Mother Marianne Cope.

But on Sunday Chow walked up 15 steps to receive Communion from Pope Benedict XVI.

"Corpus Christi," the pope said in Latin as he placed the wafer on the tongue of the woman kneeling before him. "Body of Christ."

"Amen," said Chow.

She was followed by Sister Alicia Damien Lau, who lives in the Manoa convent of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities.

Both women wore custom-made muumuu made out of Cope-themed cloth.

"It was a very special moment," Chow said.

Honolulu Bishop Larry Silva joined other bishops just steps away from the pope during the canonization and Mass.

"It brought tears to my eyes," Silva said of the ceremony. "It was wonderful."

Nine Hansen’s disease patients in wheelchairs had front-row positions in front of most of the throng.

And when Cope’s name was announced as a saint in Latin as Mariam Annam Cope, the more than 200 Hawaii pilgrims scattered throughout St. Peter’s Square let out a low roar.

Hawaii residents who made the nearly 10,000-mile pilgrimage to St. Peter’s Square to witness the canonization of St. Marianne Cope on Sunday wore lei, aloha shirts and muumuu for their audience with the pope and felt the eyes of the world upon them.

Davilyn Ah Chick of Ewa Beach, a member of the Sisters of St. Francis of the Neumann Communities, wore a red-and-white muumuu, a haku lei and a maile-and-plumeria lei around her neck as delivered the "prayer of the faithful" to tens of thousands of people inside St. Peter’s Square.

Ah Chick chose her bright garb, she said, "because I wanted to represent Hawaii."

Sister Rose Amette Ahuna of Kalaupapa, where Cope ministered to Hansen’s disease patients until her death in 1918 at age 80, said the crush of the crowd and relentless sun were worth the payoff to witness Cope’s canonization because "we represented the patients who were not able to come."

Even the 79-degree weather, under a bright, blue sky, seemed perfect for a ceremony to honor Hawaii’s second saint.

Unlike the 2009 canonization of St. Damien de Veuster, which was rained out and forced two-thirds of the crowd to miss the hastily arranged indoor ceremony, Sunday’s canonization was "like Hawaii weather on a windless day," said Robert Mondoy of Molokai.

Mondoy attended both canonizations but had to watch Damien’s ceremony on a gigantic TV screen in the rain.

"It was much better this time because we were actually connected to the celebration of the liturgy by being present in front of it, whereas the other one was strictly televised," Mondoy said.

Benedict referred to Cope in English as "a shining and energetic example of the best of the tradition of Catholic nursing sisters and the spirit of her beloved St. Francis."

While the canonization was spoken in Latin, Italian, Mohawk, Portuguese and other languages, Hawaii people and touches of aloha were spread throughout the nearly hourlong canonization of Cope and six other saints, followed by a two-hour Mass.

A bone fragment of Cope’s exhumed from her Kalaupapa grave in 2005 was delivered to Benedict in a wooden Franciscan Tau cross adorned with a lei.

There were long delays getting people into St. Peter’s Square through the pope’s security. The crush of tens of thousands of people forced some Hawaii pilgrims to watch the canonization from the sidelines.

Ahuna, like many of the others who traveled so far from Hawaii to the Vatican, did not focus on the crowd or having to head toward St. Peter’s Square three hours before the start of the ceremony to ensure getting in.

"Mother Marianne went through way worse," Ahuna said.

At the end of Sunday’s canonization and after nine days of travel, the religious pilgrims from Hawaii spent one last evening together over an Italian dinner that ended with an enormous sheet cake bearing a depiction of Cope.

To the melody of "Happy Birthday," the Hawaii contingent took over the restaurant and sang, "Happy canonization, Mother Marianne, Happy canonization to you …"

Today the group disperses across Europe, to the mainland and back to their homes throughout the various islands of Hawaii.

One group will go on to Florence, Italy. And several Hansen’s disease patients were scheduled to travel to Lourdes, France, today, although their plans were in doubt because of heavy flooding in Lourdes.