OBITUARY

From Congo to Hawaii, Father Miechielsen served the church 64 years

By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Father Albert Miechielsen, one of the last three Belgian Sacred Hearts priests serving in Hawaii, died on Jan. 15 at St. Patrick Monastery in Kaimuki. Father Miechielsen came to Hawaii in 1962, after having served 15 years in the Congo. He was 90 and a priest for 64 years.

Father Miechielsen’s funeral has been scheduled for Tuesday, Jan. 26, in St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki. Visitation is 5:30-6:30 p.m. followed by the funeral Mass at 7 p.m. Burial is the following day at 9 a.m. at Valley of the Temple Cemetery.

In Hawaii, the Belgian priest served in parishes on Maui, Kauai, Oahu and Lanai. He also assisted briefly at Kalaupapa, Molokai. He was one of the more than 300 Flemish priests assigned to Hawaii over the last century and a half.

His superior, Father Christopher Keahi, called him a “wonderful, dedicated priest.”

“He certainly he gave himself totally to the people whom he had come to love and serve in Hawaii,” Father Keahi said in a phone conversation this week.

“He was faithful and true to his religious calling and his prayer life,” he said.

Just a month ago, he asked to be dispensed from reading the daily office because he could no longer see, Father Keahi said. Permission was given.

“He was very proud to be a child of the Sacred Hearts,” he said.

Father Albert Jaak Jan Miechielsen was born on May 25, 1919, in Merkplas, Antwerp, Belgium, one of 11 children.

He entered religious life as World War II engulfed Europe. He made his first profession of temporary vows as a Sacred Hearts brother on July 31, 1941, in the Belgian town of Tremelo, St. Damien’s birthplace. He pronounced his perpetual vows in Zandhoven, Belgium, on July 31, 1944.

Father Miechielsen was ordained in Zandhoven on July 28, 1946.

His first missionary assignment took him to the Belgian Congo, later called Zaire and now the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

His missionary work covered a vast area in the heart of the central African country, in places such as Kole, Lomela, Elingampangu and Loto. Much of his time was spent traveling from one mission station to the next, administering sacraments and overseeing native schools.

He left Africa in 1961 during the Congo’s rebellious struggle for independence. In an interview last year in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Father Miechielsen described being forced out.

“The Congo was a very primitive place,” he said. “They came to pick up all the white people. There was a little bit of violence the next day; one priest was beaten badly. The United Nations came to relieve us.”

When he arrived in Hawaii, the islands had about 50 Belgian priests. He first worked for a few months in Wailuku before being named associate pastor of Immaculate Conception Church in Lihue from 1962 to 1966.

Miechielsen was associate pastor of St. Ann Church, Kaneohe, from 1966 to 1979, and then named pastor of Sacred Hearts Church in Lanai City, the only Catholic church on that island, from 1979 to 1990.

His final assignment, started when he was in his early 70s, was also his longest — chaplain for the Sacred Hearts Sisters in Regina Pacis Convent, two blocks away from his residence at St. Patrick Monastery in Kaimuki. There, for about two decades, he would celebrate Mass daily for the sisters, hear their confessions, and join them in their seasonal celebrations.

The last time he visited the sisters was this past Christmas, said Sacred Hearts Sister Regina Mary Jenkins.

“It was the first time we saw him in a wheelchair,” she said.

About a year ago, declining health had forced Father Miechielsen to stop daily Mass for the sisters, who then went to a neighboring convent for the liturgy. But Sister Regina Mary said he insisted on returning to Regina Pacis at least once a month to fulfill a canon law precept regarding the celebration of Eucharist in convent chapels.

Sister Regina Mary said she and her fellow sisters enjoyed when his well-prepared homilies would, on rare occasions, veer off into a Belgian war stories or mission tales about the Congo.

“He was a great joy for us,” she said. “We enjoyed him. He was easy to work with.”

She said he would say directly what was on his mind in a way that was enlivened by “a very wonderful sense of humor.”

He felt that it was his job not only to serve the sisters, but “to do it as pleasantly as possible,” Sister Regina Mary said.

Even as he grew weaker, he never complained, she said.

“He deserves a great sendoff,” Sister Regina Mary said.