He loved and lived his diaconate, and was a strong advocate for life
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Deacon Kin Borja was feeling so happy he wanted everyone in the car to sing. He was driving with family and friends from Sacramento, California, to Lake Tahoe on Oct. 25 for a much anticipated vacation. He chose “Amazing Grace,” a song still reverberating in his head from the funerals he had presided over the week before at St. Elizabeth Church in Aiea.
Little did he know he was singing for himself, his wife Alicia later told the Hawaii Catholic Herald. Deacon Joaquin Muna Borja collapsed in the bathroom of the hotel soon after checking in and died a short time later.
One unintended blessing of her husband dying where he did, 2,500 miles from home, Alicia said, was that she was closer to many of his 14 siblings, those who live on the mainland. “All the family came to the hotel” to support her, she said. She said she was grateful to have “family around” on her “last trip” with Kin, praying for him.
Borja was 69 and a deacon for 11 years. He served at St. Elizabeth, working in numerous ministries, spending long hours every week at church. As director of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, he would prepare large groups of catechumens every year for baptism.
He was very grateful for the privilege of being a deacon, Alicia said. “He loved the diaconate.”
“He believed he came into the world to serve, not to be served,” she said. “He never refused a request.”
Alicia said she would like people to remember him “the way he was, a servant of God.”
“He loved God, loved his church and loved his family,” she said.
Deacon Borja’s funeral was Nov. 10 at St. Elizabeth Parish.
Joaquin “Kin” Muna Borja was born on Feb. 2, 1949, in Chalan Kanoa, Saipan, in the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas Islands. He attended California State University, Long Beach.
Alicia and Kin Borja were married 46 years. They have three children, Mei, Kathy and Rosalia, seven grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.
He was ordained by Bishop Larry Silva for the Diocese of Honolulu in 2007.
Deacon Borja retired five years ago as a human resources advisor with the Department of Defense, Defense Commissary Agency, working out of Hickam Air Force Base.
A fervent supporter of prolife causes, the deacon was president of Aloha Life Advocates, formerly Hawaii Right to Life, the organization that for many years has organized the annual March for Life every January at the State Capitol.
Deacon Walter Yoshimitsu, director of the diocesan Resect Life Office, said Deacon Borja was a “great voice for life in Hawaii.”
The deacon was also a member of the Knights of Columbus for 33 years and a distinguished member of the Hawaii State Council, according to Robert Camilleri, the Knights’ state treasurer. He served as grand knight of the Father Damien De Veuster Council 6906 in Aiea and as State Deputy of the Hawaii Jurisdiction from 2004 to 2006.
From 2009 to 2013, Deacon Borja was district master of the Hawaii Fourth Degree of the Knights of Columbus. He also served for many years as life director of the Hawaii State Council, leading the prolife activities of the organization.
The pastor of St. Elizabeth Parish, Father Arnold Ortiz, in the homily he prepared for the deacon’s funeral, listed “all those who benefitted from Deacon Kin’s ministry” — those he baptized, those whose weddings and funerals he officiated, those he prepared for reception into the church, those he counseled and those he walked with in support of life.
He also recognized those “whose spirit he strengthened with his proclamation of the Gospel” and his homilies, who prayed with him at eucharistic adoration, whose homes or cars he blessed and those whom he supported at youth retreats — “in other words,” Father Ortiz said, all whom he brought “closer to the heart of Jesus.”
Father Ortiz said he affectionately referred to Deacon Kin as “my deacon.”
He had an “enormous, generous heart … a servant’s heart,” the priest said, “always so ready to serve others through his diaconate ministry.”
“Sometimes I had to scold him when I thought he was doing too much, going beyond what I thought his health could handle,” he said.
He said Deacon Borja would only laugh “as he kept moving and serving.”
Father Ortiz noted his deacon’s passionate opposition to abortion, which he said, “grieved him the most, what he thought was most cruel, what brought tears to his eyes.”
“Those angel babies weighed so heavily on his heart,” he said.
“I can see it now,” Father Ortiz said, the deacon being greeted in heaven by “crowds of little angel babies who so appreciated his efforts on their behalf.”
