Bishop Larry Silva lays his hands on the head of Michael Kamauoha ordaining him a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts Jan. 24 at St. Patrick Church. (HCH photo | Anna Weaver)
By Anna Weaver
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Bishop Larry Silva ordained Oahu native Michael “Maiki” Kamauoha as a Sacred Hearts priest on Jan. 24, the last of six ordinations to the priesthood for the religious congregation’s U.S. province that began in the fall.
Father Kamauoha, who is known to family and friends as Maiki (pronounced Mikey), was ordained at St. Patrick Church in Kaimuki, the only parish in the diocese owned and operated by the Sacred Hearts fathers and brothers.
The evening Mass was filled with personal touches: a Hawaiian oli (prayer chant) ahead of the processional, a Fijian “Kyrie Eleison,” and music led by Father Kamauoha’s cousin, Kainoa Fukumoto. His parents, Mary and Allen Kamauoha presented him with a lei and his chalice, and his siblings, Malia Walker, Miki Kamauoha, and Mahealani Raymond carried up the offertory gifts. His goddaughter, Maile Fukumoto, sang the responsorial psalm.
In his homily, Bishop Silva spoke of the challenges and rewards of priesthood. He began by describing a statue of St. Peter and Jesus that stands by the Sea of Galilee.
The sculpture shows an “almost terrified” Peter with an upstretched hand almost wanting to push away the shepherd’s staff Jesus is giving him.
“Maybe this is the way you feel in this moment Maiki,” Bishop Silva said of the act of ordination when he lays his hands on the candidate’s head. “I do not expect that you will try to move my hand away, but I do suspect that there will be a big gulp or a little gratitude that you will be kneeling so that no one can see that your knees are shaking.”
“Peter knew his answer would mean a commitment, perhaps even a dangerous one,” the bishop continued. “You are responding to that haunting question of Jesus and you will spend the rest of your life responding to that question.
“At this moment it is an easy question to answer,” he said, surrounded by family and friends on the first day of priesthood.
But “when you’re celebrating your 5,000th Mass, you may not feel the overwhelming love of Jesus as you do at your first Mass,” Bishop Silva continued, speaking of difficult days when calls to come to the hospital wake him in the middle of the night or when parishioners seek his counsel.
“When you are alone, never forget we are with you in prayer and to live and uphold you in this special vocation that Jesus has called you,” he said.
“He will give you the strength to bear whatever burdens you have to bear.”
New Sacred Hearts priest Father Michael “Maiki” Kamauoha during the eucharistic prayer at his ordination Mass at St. Patrick Church Jan. 24. (Photo courtesy of Dann Ebina)
Sacred Hearts Father Lane Akiona, the order’s U.S. provincial superior and pastor of St. Augustine Parish in Waikiki, announced at the end of Mass that Father Kamauoha will be assigned as parochial vicar at St. Augustine. “As a province, we’re extremely excited. Six ordinations,” Father Akiona said of the congregation’s slate of new priests.
Also assigned to Hawaii is the newly ordained Fijian priest, Father Patrick Joseph Tukidia, ordained Sept. 28 in Massachusetts. He and Sacred Hearts Father Eric Cruz, ordained Jan. 14 in California, vested Father Kamauoha in his stole and chasuble during the Jan. 24 ordination Mass.
Father Kamauoha’s friends and family came from Tahiti and the west and east coast for the ordination. His first Mass was at his home parish of St. Michael, Waialua, on Jan. 27.
Father Kamauoha is the oldest of four children of Allen and Mary Kamauoha. He grew up in the Haleiwa/Waialua area on Oahu’s North Shore and graduated from Kahuku High School before attending Kapiolani Community College and Leeward Community College. He then worked five years at Zippy’s Restaurant and another five years for First Hawaiian Bank.
He first considered a religious calling as a high school sophomore at a diocesan youth day organized before the 2000 Synod of the Diocese of Honolulu.
In 2012, he joined the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts, whose priests staffed his home parish of St. Michael. After temporary vows, he studied at Chaminade University of Honolulu and Holy Name University in California. When the order moved its seminarians to Pacific Regional Seminary in Suva, Fiji, he went there.
Kamauoha took perpetual vows in November 2016 at St. Patrick, Kaimuki. At that time he was discerning whether to remain a Sacred Hearts brother or pursue the priesthood.
He spent his pastoral year, 2019-2020, in Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where the U.S. congregation has its east coast headquarters, arriving a few months before COVID-19 hit the country.
Archbishop Peter Loy Chong of Suva, Fiji, ordained him to the transitional diaconate on March 19, 2022, in Sacred Heart Cathedral in Suva.
