HCH photo by Anna Weaver
Jon Cabico, to be ordained a priest of the Diocese of Honolulu on June 29.
Meet Jon, soon to be Hawaii’s newest diocesan priest
With the laying on of hands, a weight will be lifted off his shoulders and a new life will begin
By Anna Weaver | Hawaii Catholic Herald
Three weeks before his ordination for the Diocese of Honolulu, having completed his seminary studies in Washington, D.C., Jon Cabico was back in Hawaii preparing himself spiritually and practically for his 6 p.m. June 29 ordination Mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace.
Cabico will be the first local-born priest to be ordained for the Diocese of Honolulu since Fathers Scott Bush, Konelio Faletoi and Marvin Samiano received the laying on of hands by Bishop Joseph A. Ferrario 17 years ago.
“There’s always that normal fear of the unknown,” Cabico said on June 3. “Relying on God’s graces, I’m prepared as I need to be for the work ahead even though I sometimes don’t feel like it.”
A five-day retreat after his May graduation, attending the New Jersey ordinations of two seminarian friends, and speaking with them about their ordination experiences have helped prepare Cabico for his own big day.
“[They said] it was that kind of weight off their shoulders and now they’re just looking forward to their first assignments,” he said.
At 41, Cabico has taken an atypical path to the priesthood. He and his two younger brothers grew up attending Our Lady of Good Counsel in Pearl City and thinking about a job, marriage and kids. Becoming a priest was not on his mind when he received a bachelor’s degree in biology from Pacific University and went on to work as a control mechanic for The Gas Company in Hawaii.
It wasn’t until his 30s that Cabico began to recommit himself to Catholicism, going on Missionary Basic Christian Community and Basic Christian Community retreats and becoming an active lay minister at Our Lady of Good Counsel. He says it took the encouragement of a priest to decide to try out the seminary at age 36.
Cabico’s decision took his family by surprise, but his parents are both supportive of his vocation.
“They know the life of a priest is not necessarily all fun and games, so they worry about the difficulties ahead,” Cabico said. “But yet they’re happy.”
His brothers, he says, laughing a bit, have accepted his becoming a priest but “don’t fully understand why I would even consider this.”
Cabico headed to Theological College at the Catholic University of America in Washington in 2003, spending two years studying philosophy and four years earning his master’s in divinity.
“I went in thinking, ‘I’m still trying to figure out where God is really calling me,’” he said. “I took the attitude that I was invited to serve as a priest. It wasn’t the thought that, ‘I’ve got to become one.’”
During summer breaks from Catholic University, Cabico served at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa on Oahu, Maria Lanakila Parish on Maui, St. Catherine Parish on Kauai, Sacred Heart Parish on Oahu, and St. Michael Parish on the Big Island. He said those assignments helped get him through each successive school year since he experienced some “disillusionment about Christian community life.”
“The reality is [seminarians] are like any other community where there is the normal human tendency to the negative side,” he said.
It was a pastor at a summer assignment who told him the comforting words, “I’m glad you’re not happy in the seminary because you’re not called to serve in the seminary. You’re called to serve in a parish.”
While the seminary could be disappointing, Cabico also said, “The good men that I have met, that I have studied with, who are going into or already went into the priesthood, give me hope. That the church will continue to be given good pastors, good priests, and that I might possibly be numbered among them, God willing.”
As Cabico prepared to be ordained a transitional deacon on May 30, 2008, he knew he was called to the priesthood. He says that his vocation coming later in life “might help me to have a better understanding of what people are going through in their own lives … in terms of being a faithful Christian and dealing with daily struggles.”
After his May 29 ordination, Cabico will become the parochial vicar (associate pastor) at St. Elizabeth Parish in Aiea. He will celebrate his first Mass, or Mass of Thanksgiving, at his home parish, Our Lady of Good Counsel, on July 4 at 5:30 p.m. He’ll be using incense instead of fireworks that day, and joked, “Hopefully, I don’t make the coals go flying everywhere.”
People at Our Lady of Good Counsel are very proud that one of their own is being ordained, which can be embarrassing at times.
“It’s just me,” the future priest insisted. “I’m just Jon.”