- December 8, 2023
On December 7, 1941, the sisters experienced the horrors of war at a dangerously close range. Three of them, Sisters Martha Mary, Frances Celine and Adele Marie, on their regular Sunday morning catechetical trip to Schofield Barracks, were passing Pearl Harbor when squadrons of Japanese planes hurled over them, dropping their destructive missiles on an unsuspecting and incredulous island world.
Despite the attack, the sisters attended Sunday Mass as planned, even as sounds of gunfire and bombing persisted and worried parents arrived to take their children to safety. After Mass, they found a taxi driver who attempted to get them back to Honolulu, but they were turned back at a road block.
Sister Frances Celine wrote, "To the right of us was Pearl Harbor with her ships burning and many of our defense projects in ruin, to say nothing of the hundreds of sailors that were rushing to meet their God."
As the islands were placed under martial law, the sisters adapted their lives to a regime of wartime restrictions. "Since that day we have had blackouts and become really skilled in finding our way in the dark," wrote Sister Frances Celine. "By the way, we are the only sisters here who can get into their gas masks without taking off all the head gear!"