What we pass on.

It was Sunday mornings in Samoa. We woke early, put on our best white and walked through a patch of banana trees, past the Catholic Theological College at Moamoa, to reach the Cathedral. All the children from the four families on our block would walk together. It was always an adventure. We might sing along the way or see who could reach the Cathedral first.

Everyday life was surrounded by things that grew: mango, guava, sugar cane, taro, coconut, pawpaw, breadfruit, yams. Looking back, we were blessed with so much abundance from the Lord’s provision. But there were also shortages, particularly water. There were stretches when we had no running water, so the mums would do the washing together at the river while we played nearby. It never felt like hardship to me. It just seemed like how things were, and as a child I loved whenever we went to the river.

My grandparents, Etuale and Katalina Mauga, were catechists. They had attended the Moamoa Theological College we passed every Sunday. When I stayed with them in one of the villages where they served, I remember dutifully ringing the village bell for the Angelus. I remember Grandma calling the chickens, scattering rice where she wanted them and making her “cooo cooo cooo” sound. Sometimes that call meant something slightly different depending on whether a special meal was coming.

I didn’t know it then, but there was something rewarding and comforting in that simplicity.

Saturdays before we served at Sunday Mass often meant making leis if our family was responsible for the church decorations. We call them ula in Samoan. We would climb the frangipani trees to collect whichever flowers Mum or Grandma wanted: red, yellow or white. Neighbours sometimes came to take flowers from our trees when it was their turn to prepare the church.

In the evenings, Grandma and Grandpa would call everyone inside—all the cousins and whoever happened to be staying with them—to sit in a circle in front of their big altar. We prayed and sang together in island harmony.

My eldest son, Harold’s clothes passed through all four of my boys and then continued on to my brother’s family. My nephew Miguel is not much of a talker, but you can see his gratitude in his smile when something that once belonged to his cousins becomes his. Those clothes have already kept someone else warm and dry. Now it is his turn.

What my boys have taught me is mostly something I have watched rather than something they set out to say. None of them grew up seeing a hand-me-down as the lesser option. As my eldest son put it: “The tradition of hand-me-downs was just a way of life for us, and we didn’t mind growing up. It also taught us to be grateful for what we have.”

By the time a jacket reached my youngest son, or passed from my boys to my nephew Miguel, it wasn’t reluctant generosity. It was the much-awaited blessing of a loved item that a younger family member had been waiting to receive.

I knew that feeling myself, just as my mother had. I had once waited for my turn too.

The same thing happens with food.

On a recent trip back to Samoa, I watched my brother teach my eldest son, Harold, how to prepare taro the way I was taught. His hands were learning the same motions my own family’s hands had made before him, while someone nearby prepared coconut cream fresh from the tree.

Faith was never separate from those rhythms in our home growing up. There was Sunday Mass, the Angelus bell, evening prayer around Grandma and Grandpa’s altar, and the joy of singing together. At one family reunion, my uncle, the late Monsignor Etuale Etuale, baptized one of my cousins in an inflatable paddling pool in the living room. The whole family stood gathered around in a circle—the same circle we used to make for evening prayer.

Today I live in another country. Aotearoa New Zealand is home now. The banana plantation is no longer on the walk to church, but the worship and thanksgiving remain.

My boys have grown up, and one still lives at home. We continue the tradition of being with our elders when they reach the age when they need a helping hand. Our old Sunday Mass walking crew has become intergenerational. My parents continue their devotion as members of the Legion of Mary. Prayer remains constant for us: the Divine Mercy Chaplet, the Rosary, remembering whom to thank when we wake and before we sleep. Sometimes one of my sons who lives farther away will call me on WhatsApp and ask if we can pray together. I am grateful that they still remember the power of our Creator.

That can happen in very small moments: putting a banana skin back into the compost, watering the thirsty peace lily sitting quietly in the corner, thinking about whether something we buy can be recycled or was sustainably sourced. Sometimes I hear my boys asking questions about how something was produced, or whether child labour was involved. I am glad they think that way. I am glad they ask questions and care about justice. As my eldest son put it, caring for creation is simply part of our daily lives, and something we value a lot.

I don’t think my grandparents would have used the words integral ecology. I certainly didn’t grow up hearing them. But when I look back now, I can see what they gave us.

They showed us a way of living in which creation provided for us and we understood that what we received deserved care. We had fruit from the trees, water when it was available, clothes that moved from one person to another, food prepared by hands that had learned from other hands, neighbours who could come and take flowers when it was their turn to decorate the church.