The Diocese of Honolulu’s new hermits, Sister Ursula Kuiee, left, and Sister Avia Montoya. Center, a statue of St. Francis graces the hermitage grounds. (Courtesy photos)
Two new Big Island diocesan hermits live in one house, divided into two hermitages
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
In a home on two acres in Pahoa on the Big Island, Sister Ursula Kuiee and Sister Avia Montoya have set up a hermitage. The two laywomen spend their days simply, in work and prayer.
This hermitical life is fairly new. The two began their hermitage in 2019. And on Aug. 28, Bishop Larry Silva consecrated both women as diocesan hermits at St. Joseph Church in Hilo. This makes them officially sanctioned to live consecrated lives dedicated to prayer and more removed from the world.
They join another diocesan hermit, Sister Bernadette Meno, who lives on Maui. Like Sister Bernadette, neither woman came to the idea of being a hermit in a direct or quick path.
Ursula was raised on Oahu in a family of 10 kids and attended the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu as a child. She attended Sacred Hearts Convent, then Cathedral School, and finally St. Francis High School until tenth grade when she got into Kamehameha Schools.
She married and has two children, son, Allain, 32, and daughter, Alycia Arquero, 42. She also has a 16-year-old grandson. Ursula’s husband, Alfred Paet, died in 2013.
Avia is originally from New York. Her father was an Eastern rite Catholic and her mother belonged to the Latin rite. She had wanted to enter religious life but said her stepmother opposed it. She then entered a brief arranged marriage, which was later annulled.
After leaving the marriage, Avia wanted a change and ended up in Hawaii where her family had a timeshare. She has two children, a 34-year-old son, Richard Tillman, and a daughter, Heather Carollo, who died at age 39 from a heart condition.
Sister Avia said she was distant from her faith for some time because of the circumstances of her marriage but came back when she was around 40 and living in Ewa Beach. There she attended Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish before relocating to Kalihi.
“The stories of Sister Avia and Sister Ursula are an indication that God is never finished with us, and that he always is full of surprises,” said Bishop Silva in an email. “Both of these women already have the vocation of motherhood, which is not cancelled out by their consecration as hermits, but is modified by it.”
Meeting each other
The women met when they were both parishioners at St. John the Baptist in Kalihi. Ursula was a confirmation advisor, lector and tutor at the parish school. Avia taught RCIA and religious education. They bonded while making costumes for a parish program. Avia asked Ursula to start praying the Liturgy of the Hours.
Eventually, the two decided they wanted to create a small contemplative community, and around 2014, Avia moved into Ursula’s six-bedroom home. However, they found it didn’t suit contemplative life as it was in a busy area and Ursula’s son lived at home at the time. So they began to pray about moving to the Big Island where Ursula’s mother was from and where they could have more space and quiet.
John Fredy Quintero, the then-pastor of St. John the Baptist Parish, became the women’s spiritual director.
“I heard from Avia and Ursula of their desire to lead a different life, dedicated to serving God,” he wrote in an email from Colombia where he is back in his home diocese. “I asked them to pray, to do it for them, for the parish and for me as their spiritual director. It is in unhurried prayer where we can hear with certainty what God asks of us.”
He asked them to serve even more at the parish and attend Mass more often “in order to better understand that desire for consecration to God that arose from their hearts.”
“True vocations mature and are consolidated in community service,” he added.
Father Quintero highlighted the perseverance of Sisters Ursula and Avia.
“If God is the one who calls, the Holy Spirit encourages the heart not to give up,” he said.
The grounds at the Pahoa home of Sisters Ursula and Avia, diocesan hermits on the Big Island. (Photo courtesy Sister Avia Montoya)
The right home
It took Sister Ursula and Sister Avia almost four years to find the right spot on the Big Island.
“We prayed on it and … that obstacles would be gone if it was God’s will to move here,” Sister Avia said. “The minute we did that, everything fell into place.”
In 2019, they found the right home on the Big Island. Its sale was contingent on the sale of Sister Ursula’s Oahu home. God seemed to play a part there too as they were able to find the right buyers, a family that wouldn’t have been able to afford the house if it had sold at the market rate. Sister Ursula asked only enough to cover the existing mortgage, repairs and cost of the Big Island house.
The two women also discovered that their original plan to create a contemplative community was evolving. Both learned at the same time that the other had been discerning a call to the life of a hermit. This stemmed in part from seeing a Hawaii Catholic Herald article on diocesan hermit Sister Bernadette Meno and much prayer.
For Sister Avia, a hermit lifestyle didn’t seem like a big leap as she’d been living a similar lifestyle already. But she said she was a little surprised that Sister Ursula would want to live a solitary life because she is more “apostolic.”
“But living here the way we were, she became more contemplative,” Sister Avia said.
Sister Bernadette remembers when Ursula first emailed her.
“Many times, people have written to me thinking they feel called to become hermits,” she wrote in an email. “After corresponding with Ursula, then also with Avia, I knew that they were, as I called it, the real deal.”
The trio email and occasionally talk on Sunday afternoons.
“We share a lot and we laugh a lot,” Sister Bernadette said. “To be a diocesan hermit, one needs to have love for God’s people and a sense of humor. If you eavesdropped on those chats, you’d hear both.”
She also says that in her support of Sisters Ursula and Avia, “my own vocation has been nourished as they have been a support to me also.”
“Our journeys may have been different and the way we live our vocations are different, our Rule of Life is different, and our daily schedules are different,” Sister Bernadette said. “But we share the call within our hearts and our spirits. In that we are sisters.”
“We are fortunate that Bishop Silva is open to the many different ways the Spirit leads in vocations,” she said. “That is in itself a gift to those of us who have what he called once, a unique vocation.”
A hermit’s life
Although Aug. 28 officially marked their consecration as diocesan hermits, Sisters Ursula and Avia have been living the vocation for some time.
The rules of being a hermit stem from the same rules for consecrated life, specifically canon 603 in the Catholic Church’s Code of Canon Law. A hermit’s vocation is particularly marked by three elements: a “stricter separation from the world,” solitude and silence, and continual prayer and penance.
Diocesan hermits publicly devote their life to God through a diocesan bishop, pledging the vows of chastity, poverty and obedience to the bishop. Sisters Ursula and Avia directly report to Bishop Silva and meet with him in person once a year. He also visited and approved their home living situation.
An explanation of hermitical life by Helen L. MacDonald, “Hermits: The Juridical Implications of Canon 603,” points out that begging for food is no longer required to be a hermit “but rather a simplicity of lifestyle which manifests a given state of mind.”
The women cover their expenses through savings and retirement funds. They also grow flowers and lots of vegetables in their garden including eggplant, lettuce, carrots, tomatoes, peppers, broccoli rabe, and brussels sprouts.
Both said they might eventually pick up some work to supplement their income, but would prefer it to be from their home. Sister Avia has been discerning whether she might be a spiritual director herself.
The two women have modified their Pahoa house so they could have completely separate living quarters suited to solitude. On one side, Sister Ursula has a kitchenette and three rooms. On the other, Sister Avia has the house’s original kitchen and three rooms. The two spaces are connected by an oratory in the middle.
While one might think of a hermit as living far away from everyone, historically hermits have also lived in small groups together. Sisters Ursula and Avia drive to noon Mass together at St. Joseph Parish in Hilo but spend most of their day apart, in solo prayer and work.
The two lead regular daytime retreats to help people deepen their spirituality. Retreatants can walk the meditation path with the Stations of the Cross that the two women built on their property.
They have one other companion, a poi dog named ‘Olu‘olu, which means “pleasant” in Hawaiian, who was gifted to them before they moved from Oahu. The small dog will enter the oratory and sit quietly while they pray.
Sisters Avia and Ursula wear habits they picked for themselves. Blue was chosen in honor of Mary. They have “home habits” that are slightly more casual, with shorter veils, that they can work in since they have a garden to manage and a house to maintain. Their more formal habits are for going out and about and to church. Even ‘Olu‘olu has a blue collar to match.
Sister Ursula paraphrased a biblical passage on new wine in old wineskins.
“Our new habits are our new wineskins for him,” she said.
She feels one of the important parts of a hermit’s vocation is “to make sure that the kingdom of heaven is built here” along with working toward the salvation of souls.
Sister Avia said their hermit vocation is a “daily conversion, growing closer to God in our solitary life, listening for his voice in our hearts and using that to intercede and pray for others, and making sure the salvation of souls is achieved through our witness to Jesus by how we live our lives.”
Besides Sisters Avia, Ursula and Bernadette, the latter who marks 10 years as a hermit on Sept. 2, Bishop Silva said he has been contacted by a man interested in hermitical life.
He also pointed out that the diocese has two “Consecrated Virgins Living in the World,” another less common vocation. They are Noemi Angeles and Susan Spiegelberg, both on Oahu. Another woman is discerning that vocation as well.
The bishop said that when he was approached by Sisters Avia and Ursula, he could tell “they were very sincere in their desire to love and serve the Lord in this deeper way.”
“They are mature women who know the meaning of commitment and who are now called to this special way of committing themselves to the Lord,” he said.
“Now they must live out their call, which I am sure will have its ups and downs, its joys and doubts. But they have committed themselves to serve the Lord and his Church in this particular calling, and I know the Lord will give them the grace, strength and wisdom to fruitfully live their vocation.”
