Christmas – Page 2 – Where’s Fran?

Peace on Earth? Not the Other Night at Hemlani

A couple of nights ago I attended a wake for a Pohnpeian youth who had been stabbed to death two days earlier. It happened in a drunken fight here on Guam outside the Hemlani Apartments?a low-end unit situated right next to what looks like might be the island dump. The Hemlani Apartments have made the front page of the local newspaper quite a few times over the past year, usually because of some minor crime or drunken brawl.

Old age and Christmas season are a tough combination. The old Yuletide favorites?with their ?silver bells? and ?sleigh bells? and ?jingle bells,? their wistful ?I?ll be home for Christmas,? not to mention the familiar melodies themselves?are dripping with nostalgia. As if an old-timer like me, head packed with fond memories, needed any more reminders of happy days past and marvelous holiday seasons!

?Peace on earth, good will to men? are the words of the old Christmas song echoing the hymn of the angels. Isn?t this everyone?s wish as we again celebrate the event that was said to have ushered in?the New Age?

Christmas greetings from the Bronx campus of Fordham University, where I have made my home for the past year. But my time here has always been with computer on and bags packed for forays to other places. Most of the trips have been to where the coconut tree grows and waves lap on warm shores. With five trips to Hawaii and beyond, as well as a recent spurt of trips to the islands for a total of ten weeks since September, my air travel was enough to win me platinum on United Airlines? mileage program?a status I never achieved in all my years living in Micronesia! Read More

Catching Up with the Veterans

Dr. Joe Flear?s visit to New York for a couple of days seemed to trigger a series of reunions. Joe (standing second from the left in the photo) worked in Yap for several years during the 1980s before he moved to Pohnpei to teach at the medical school there. Since 2000 he has been teaching and doing clinical instruction at the Fiji School of Medicine.The evening of his arrival, he joined a couple of us for dinner Read More

Christmas 2013

It?s home for the holidays for me?again for the third time in four years. But where is home? Where I was born and raised? Or where I spent two-thirds of my life? Or is home anywhere I happen to be assigned as a Jesuit? Read More

A Micronesian Monastery in Cow Country

If you?re looking for the presence of a Micronesian religious community in the US, you?ll have to go to the Midwest to find it. But if you visit during December, be prepared for temperatures hovering around zero. When I woke up this morning, the thermometer registered five degrees, but everyone says it?s even colder at night. This place makes New York City seem like Miami Beach. Read More

Christmas on Guam

After all those years in Micronesia, I fancied myself an old hand in Christmas devotions: incensing the manager scene in church, and especially presenting the infant to people after mass for them to venerate.? But never anywhere have I seen this as often as I have during the past week. In Pohnpei and Chuuk, we honored the old Spanish practice of presenting the image of the infant Jesus to those who attended the Christmas masses.? People would come up in long lines to kiss the infant after mass, leaving an offering in the basket nearby if they were so moved.? But this island has taken the veneration to a whole new level.? In one church Read More

Francis X. Hezel, SJ, is a Jesuit priest who has lived and worked in Micronesia since 1963. At different times he has served as high school teacher, school administrator, pastor, and regional superior to the Jesuits of Micronesia. He spent thirty years directing the Micronesian Seminar, a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Pohnpei, Micronesia.

He has written and spoken widely about social change and its impact on island societies. He has also written several books on Micronesian history, including The First Taint of Civilization, Strangers in Their Own Land, and The New Shape of Old Island Cultures. His most recent book, Making Sense of Micronesia: The Logic of Pacific Island Culture, is available through University of Hawaii Press.

Category - Christmas

Peace on Earth? Not the Other Night at Hemlani

Christmas 2016

Christmas 2015

Christmas, 2014

Catching Up with the Veterans

Christmas 2013

A Micronesian Monastery in Cow Country

Christmas on Guam