Trappist Father Harold K. Meyer(HCH file photo)
Sacred Hearts provincial turned Trappist was Molokai’s first native priest
By Patrick Downes
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Trappist Father Harold Kiheipua Meyer, a former provincial of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts who joined the monastic life 50 years ago, died at age 91 on June 26 at the Abbey of Our Lady of New Clairvaux in Vina, California. He was a priest for 61 years.
Father Meyer was born on Sept. 24, 1931, in Kalae, Molokai, to Penni (Henry) and Vera Silva Meyer. Proud of his native Hawaiian heritage, he was the great-grandson of Rudolph Wilhelm Meyer, a German immigrant who served as superintendent of the Hansen’s disease settlement on Molokai and worked closely with St. Damien and St. Marianne.
Father Meyer served in the U.S. Army from 1951 to 1954, stationed in Germany where he operated power equipment and did diesel maintenance and repair. Upon his honorable discharge, he enrolled in Sacred Hearts Seminary in Hauula, Oahu. He completed his seminary and theological studies in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire and returned to Hawaii to earn a degree in English from the University of Hawaii.
Father Meyer was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts on June 30, 1962, at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace. He was Molokai’s first native priest. Well respected, he rose in responsibility within his community beginning as a seminary teacher. In July 1966 he was named provincial superior.
Since his seminary days he had felt the attraction of the contemplative life from reading books by Trappist Thomas Merton and others. He answered a call to be a Trappist-Cistercian monk, entering the Vina monastery in 1973.
“I really like the quiet prayer, manual labor, singing in choir, and frequency of going to church here,” Father Meyer said in a 2014 Hawaii Catholic Herald interview. “Where else could I find all of these together?”
In his 50 years of monastic life, Father Meyer served in temporal management. He was the monastery’s prune orchardist from 1978 to 1992. According to his monastery community’s remembrance of him, “his meticulous eye for detail and organization created what might have been the best tended prune orchards in California in those years.”
In 1994 he joined Vina’s foundation in Taiwan, Holy Mother of God Monastery. He diligently studied Mandarin and remained two years. Upon his return to Vina, he served as monastery cellarer and then as monastery procurator (buyer) until his deteriorating health caused him to retire from regular responsibilities in 2015.
“Father Harold had a strong work ethic,” said his community. “He was a determined person, but this was tempered with gentleness and care for the well-being of others.”
“Father Harold suffered from both Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s in his last years,” his community said. “Through all this diminishment he remained committed to the Divine Office, the common life, and to manual labor until three days before his death.”
