Fr Ben Garren

Dear Siblings in Christ,

Prince Alexander Liholiho was fifteen and in his second year of Law School when his family asked him to take up a diplomatic mission to Paris on behalf of the Hawaiian people in 1849. He was fluent in both French and English and the hope was he could stop the occasional French attacks on the islands of Hawaii. This became a royal tour that led him to a somewhat successful parlay in Paris, a trip to England where his love of Anglicanism was solidified, and ended with a trip to meet President Zachary Taylor of the United States.

He arrived in the United States a bit wary. Having engaged with missionaries from many nations growing up he had found those from the states the most bothersome. His wariness was soon proven correct as he was consistently maligned in ways he had not encountered in France or England. While waiting in his reserved compartment on a train the conductor began questioning what he was doing in a section reserved for whites. He was invited to high society parties but then provided a bib instead of a napkin by the staff. In his journal he remarked that “The Americans talk and think a great deal about their liberty, and strangers often find that too many liberties are taken of their comfort just because his hosts are a free people.”

These experiences of his youth brought him to be wary of missionaries from the United States when he became king. Instead, he translated the Book of Common Prayer into his native language and sought missionaries to come to Hawaii from England, where his basic dignity as a human being had been respected. Which is a solid reminder that our capacity to share the Gospel comes both from how we treat others interpersonally but also the expectations we maintain as a society about how different groups are treated. On this feast may we give thanks for the ministry of Alexander, crowned Kamehameha IV, and his wife Queen Emma.

Pax,

—Ben