Sister Marcelia Maglinte (Courtesy photo)
Hawaii Catholic Herald
Sister of Charity Marcelia Maglinte devoted her life to education. Born in Kealia, Kauai, she returned home to the islands in 1985 after spending decades teaching across the mainland and continued her ministry as an educator on Kauai and Maui.
Sister Maglinte, 85, died July 4 at Mount Carmel Bluffs in Dubuque, Iowa.
She was born March 2, 1939, one of Demetrio and Marcela (Boca) Maglinte’s nine daughters. She entered the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary congregation through St. Catherine Parish in Kapaa in 1957, the same year she graduated from Kapaa High School. She attended college in Dubuque, Iowa, and in Chicago; she professed her first vows in 1960 and her final vows in 1965.
From 1962 to 1985, Sister Maglinte was an elementary school teacher in Illinois, Montana and California. When she returned to Hawaii, she taught at Kapaa and Kilauea elementary schools on Kauai and Lihikai Elementary School in Kahului, Maui; served as director of religious education at St. Catherine Church; and ministered at Maui Waena Intermediate School in Kahului and at schools in Kapaa.
She also worked as a substitute teacher at public schools in Kahului and at St. Anthony Elementary School in Wailuku.
According to a reflection she wrote for the Hawaii Catholic Herald in 2017 on the occasion of her 60th jubilee of profession, one of the highlights of her ministry was “making a pilgrimage to Father Damien’s church in Kalaupapa in 2010 and volunteering to work with Hansen’s disease patients at Damien House (run by fellow Sister of Charity Ann Credidio) in Guayaquil, Ecuador.”
Sister Maglinte is survived by sisters Cresencia “Cres” Labuguen and Gloria “Toneng” Madrid, nieces, nephews, and the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
Sister Maglinte’s funeral Mass was celebrated July 9. She was buried in the Mount Carmel cemetery.
