Two seminarians, one from Oahu, one from Vietnam

Two Diocese of Honolulu seminarians, one local and one from Vietnam, will be ordained transitional deacons on Saturday, May 20, at 8 a.m. at the Co-Cathedral of St. Theresa in Honolulu. Learn a little more about Kurt Meyer and Hai “Francis” Pham. | By Anna Weaver, Hawaii Catholic Herald

Kurt Meyer

‘One of you needs to be a priest’

To anyone who asked what they wanted their children to be someday, Kurt Meyer’s parents would respond, “We want all our sons to be priests and all our daughters to be nuns. Or whatever else they want to be.”

But the 51-year-old seminarian and soon-to-be-deacon says Frederick and Rebecca Meyer “always started with priesthood and religious life.”

Meyer grew up in the Aliamanu area of Honolulu, the second youngest of three boys and two girls. The Meyer family was very active at St. Philomena Parish in Salt Lake.

Msgr. Terrence Watanabe, St. Philomena’s pastor from 1995 to 2008, remembers seeing how much a part of the fabric of the parish the Meyers were and telling Kurt and his two brothers, “One of you needs to be a priest!”

“I just had the feeling that they had that sense of the faith and sense of service to the church and God,” Msgr. Watanabe recalled in a May 2 phone interview. “I just had the feeling that one of them might have a vocation.”

Indeed, Kurt did first consider the priesthood at about age 12, but then brushed off the idea. He joked that if you had to pick a priest from the three Meyer brothers, his older brother is “smarter and holier” and his younger brother is generally adored.

Kurt Meyer was more reserved as a young man, Msgr. Watanabe said. But the priest has enjoyed watching him becoming more outspoken on the faith over the years.

“You never know how the Spirit is moving in people’s lives,” he said.

It did take several decades for Meyer to reconsider a priestly vocation. He went to the University of Hawaii-Manoa, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA, and then worked in the field for 20 years.

What eventually brought Meyer back to the idea of a priestly vocation was being asked to work with teen parishioners at St. Philomena.

“I talk to them the same way I do to other adults,” Meyer said of young people. “So, I think they appreciate that I’m bluntly honest, maybe too much sometimes. And I have a wicked sense of humor.”

He says that even when you don’t have the answers, teens just appreciate that you listen.

They also taught him to listen to himself.

“I was working with young people and seeing how much they have to go through and how much faith they have,” he said. “And then I realized I was telling them to follow the vocation that God is calling them to, but then I myself wasn’t doing that. So, I figured I should listen to my own words and check it out. And that’s what happened.”

In 2017, he entered St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park, California. In another year he will graduate with a master’s of divinity and be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Honolulu.

At the seminary, he’s been active in student government, first as a class representative and vice president and then as student body president.

Honolulu vocations director Father Joseph “Bong” Diaz has seen Meyer’s development.

“He has grown a lot in his faith and his love of God,” he said. “He has always been open to the movement of the spirit, and he has always been open to guidance.”

Meyer says the support of his brothers and sisters has gotten him through seminary and they will be at his May 20 ordination. His late parents will be there in spirit. Meyer says about 10 seminarian friends will also be at the Mass.

He won’t have much time to relax after his diaconate ordination. He’s already scheduled to baptize the infant of a friend from St. Philomena later that same afternoon.

In June, he’ll be helping at the five-day Christian Leadership Institute (CLI) for high schoolers at St. Stephen Diocesan Center in Kaneohe. He’ll spend the rest of the break assisting at Annunciation Parish in Waimea on the Big Island. Then it’s back to St. Patrick for his final year of studies.

Lisa Gomes, the director of the diocesan Office of Youth and Young Adult Ministry, has worked with Meyer since he got involved with youth at his parish and has also worked with him at CLI. She said Meyer works well with young people.

“He’s just really good with them. He’s very personable,” she said of seeing him working with teens. “He has good energy.”

“I think he has the sense of humor to let something just go but then I also think that he has the serious aspect to him when it comes to, ‘We need to work through something,’ or ‘We need to learn this.’”

Meyer doesn’t believe he’s any more remarkable than the next person.

“I think I’m just your average guy who grew up in Hawaii,” Meyer said. “And I think some people don’t pursue the priesthood or vocations because they don’t think they’re smart enough or holy enough. And I don’t think any of us are.

“This is where you have to just trust in Jesus to hold you to the best priest or deacon you can be.”

 

Francis Pham

From the ‘little church’ of family

Hai (Francis) Pham grew up in Vinh City in central Vietnam in a multi-generational home surrounded by his seven siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, and all four of his grandparents. He is the second oldest child.

Pham’s family grows rice, potatoes and peanuts and also has a candy business. Because his town is too far from the nearest Catholic church to attend daily Mass, his family holds daily morning and evening prayers together.

Pham, 31, is not the only religious vocation in his family. Two aunts are members of the Lovers of the Holy Cross religious order, and an uncle is a priest. One of Pham’s younger brothers is also a seminarian but for the Diocese of Vinh City.

Pham said growing up in a close-knit and faithful household showed him how one’s family can be its own “little church.”

After high school, he went to college to study to be a doctor or a pharmacist but instead became a hospital manager after graduation. As part of that job, he often did social work and outreach, which led him to pursue religious life full-time.

Pham joined the Carmelites around 2011, and in June 2013 entered the order’s novitiate in New York. The following June he took his first vows and spent three years studying for his philosophy degree at the St. Joseph Jesuit Scholasticate back in Saigon. He eventually discerned out of the Carmelites.

It was Vietnam-born Sulpician Father Hy Nguyen, the rector of Assumption Seminary in San Antonio, who connected Bishop Larry Silva with Pham. Father Nguyen knew Pham’s family and also is a former priest of the Diocese of Oakland where Bishop Silva spent his entire priesthood before becoming the Diocese of Honolulu’s leader.

After being accepted as a diocesan seminarian, Pham flew directly from Vietnam to California to start his studies at St. Patrick’s Seminary in Menlo Park in 2019.

“I felt stronger in my spiritual life when I joined here,” he said of St. Patrick’s. He added that the seminarians “help each other growing up in our mission and in our relationship with God.”

In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic forced Pham and the other Diocese of Honolulu seminarians to fly back to Hawaii and spend the rest of the 2019-2020 school year taking classes virtually.

An upside to the seminary closure was that most of the seminarians stayed at St. Stephen Diocesan Center in Kaneohe where Bishop Silva lives.

“It was really good for the seminarians to get to know the bishop better,” Pham said.

Because the students were taking classes on mainland time, that left afternoons and evenings free. The men, including the bishop, took turns cooking and cleaning, walked the diocesan center grounds, and had lengthy conversations.

Because of the unexpected quality time with the bishop, Pham said he and the other seminarians half-joked that Bishop Silva was their “second vocations director.”

The Diocese of Honolulu’s actual vocations director, Father Joseph “Bong” Diaz, thinks that Pham’s previous time as a Carmelite brother helped solidify his faith life.

“His spirituality makes him thrive, most especially because he is not a native of the United States,” Father Diaz said. “With the transition of culture and language and everything, because of that spiritual foundation he already had, he is able to thrive in his formation.”

Pham may not have been raised in Hawaii but he feels a connection with the islands. For one, there are the Asian cultural influences and the Vietnamese community in Hawaii. He also loves swimming in the ocean, which is fitting to his name Hai, which means “sea” in Vietnamese.

Pham’s parents, Joseph Hoang Pham and Therese Khuong Nguyen, will be at his ordination and stay in Hawaii for two weeks. Also planning to attend are an aunt and uncle, and his brother and sister-in-law who live in Japan.

Thinking ahead to ordination day, Pham said he’s anxious, nervous and excited.

“I feel a really big change in my head and my heart,” he said of his time since joining the Diocese of Honolulu.

This summer, Pham will be assigned as a deacon to Our Lady of Perpetual Help Parish in Ewa Beach. Like fellow seminarian Kurt Meyer, Pham will return to St. Patrick’s for his final year of studies before earning a master’s degree in theology and being ordained a priest for the Diocese of Honolulu.

Pham asked Hawaii Catholics to pray for him.

“I don’t know why I chose Honolulu, like an accident, but I really love it there,” he said as he wrapped up a phone call while finishing the seminary year in California.

Paraphrasing the words of St. Peter in the Acts of the Apostles, Pham added, “I have nothing, but I have my whole heart to give.”