Courtesy photo
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Maryknoll Sister Isabel Rabbon, a Maui native, devoted her life to “making God’s love visible” wherever she went, whether it was Chile, the U.S. mainland or back home in Hawaii. She held multiple roles throughout her 67 years as a Maryknoll sister, including teacher, catechist, pastoral associate and hospital volunteer.
Sister Rabbon, who was born in Wailuku on June 17, 1933, died May 19 at the Maryknoll Sisters Center in Maryknoll, New York. She was 90 years old.
Sister Rabbon graduated from St. Anthony High School in Wailuku and attended Marymount College in Salina, Kansas, earning a bachelor of arts degree in elementary education in 1954. She returned to Hawaii and taught at Lanai City Elementary School on Lanai for two years before flying to Maryknoll, New York, to enter the Maryknoll Sisters order.
Sister Rabbon made her first profession of vows in New York in 1959 and her final profession six years later in Santiago, Chile, with the Maryknoll Sisters Chile Region. She worked in Chile for 10 years as a teacher and pastoral minister before returning to the mainland.
While in Chile, Sister Rabbon recalled in the reflection she wrote marking her 60th jubilee of profession, she met a man who inquired about a ring she was wearing. It bore the Greek letters “chi” and “rho,” the first two letters for “Kristos,” or Christ.
“I received the ring right after making public vows of poverty, chastity and obedience, responding freely to the call to follow Jesus in mission as a Maryknoll Sister,” Sister Rabbon wrote. “With joy and gratitude to God for these past 60 years of my life, I continue to journey with my Maryknoll community, ‘making God’s love visible’ wherever we may be.”
Sister Rabbon briefly worked on the mainland before being assigned to the Maryknoll Sisters’ Central Pacific Region, returning to Hawaii in 1979 to work as a pastoral associate at several churches on Molokai. She also was a pastoral associate on Lanai before another short return to the mainland to work in the sisters’ vocation ministry.
She retired to Oahu but remained busy — visiting the elderly at Wahiawa Hospital, leading a Scripture class at Hawaii State Hospital and ministering at St. Anthony Church in Kailua.
Sister Rabbon’s final assignment came in 2022, when she returned to the Maryknoll Sisters Center in New York and joined the Eden Community there.
She is survived by her sister, Rufina, and brother, John.
