By Patrick Downes | Hawaii Catholic Herald

Deacon Frank R. Singson Sr. was some fisherman. He caught the most. The largest. Big ulua. From shore. He once cast 100 yards in a competition. He was president of his Maui fishing club. He gave it all up to become a deacon.

His wife Carmen remembers the decision. “One night he was fishing, sitting by the ocean when he just heard a voice: ‘I shall make you fishers of men.’”

Singson knew it was from the Bible and rushed home to look it up.

In Matthew’s Gospel, he found Jesus’ instruction to Peter, and the apostle’s response. Peter left his boat and nets by the Sea of Galilee to embark on his new calling.

Singson did the same thing. As Carmen tells it, he sold or gave way “thousands of dollars worth of fishing equipment” and signed up for diaconate training.

Singson was a deacon for 13 years at Christ the King Parish in Kahului, Maui. He died at Maui Memorial Medical Center on April 25. He was 77.

“Being a deacon was his first love,” Carmen said.

Singson himself remembered his calling in the Hawaii Catholic Herald shortly before his ordination in 1995.

“I really felt [God] was speaking to me,” he said. “As I come to the completion of the diaconate formation, I pray that he will continue to bless me with the Holy Spirit that I will accomplish his will for me.”

Singson was born in Paia, Maui. His father was an immigrant from the Philippines and his mother was a local woman of Puerto Rican descent.

With a degree from the California Institute to Medical Assistants in Los Angeles, he embarked on a 36-year career as an X-ray and medical laboratory technician. He was self-employed for the final 15 years.

Singson already was an active parish volunteer when he entered diaconate formation.

He and Carmen, whom he married in 1964, were long-time advocates for Catholics seeking marriage annulments. They were the first lay couple in Hawaii to receive diocesan training in that field and, according to Carmen, “helped a lot of local deacons and priests” with their marriage cases.

The two were also very involved in the Marriage Encounter movement and marriage preparation. He also was a lector and served in RCIA, parish renewal programs and the charismatic renewal.

Singson was ordained on July 22, 1995, at Christ the King Church in Kahului, one of nine members of the fourth class of permanent deacons in the diocese.

According to Singson’s pastor for the past four years, La Salette Father Efren Tomas, two parish ministries were “very close to his heart” — visiting the elderly at the Hale Makua care home and inmates at the Maui Community Correctional Center

The deacon took over the ministry to Hale Makua from Sacred Hearts Father Raphael Smulders, visiting the home every Tuesday for many years.

Singson started prison ministry on his own and, according to his wife, worked by himself for two or three years before others joined him.

Father Tomas, who remembers Singson as “a very unassuming man who stayed away from the limelight,” said he personally “continued and pursued” the Hale Makua visits and the prison ministry when the deacon got sick four years ago.

The pastor said that even when advanced illness prevented the deacon from participating in those ministries, he was pleased to be kept informed of their progress.

“He loved to know what was going on,” Father Tomas said.

Deacon Singson is survived by his wife Carmen, his sons Clifford “Kimo” Naeole, Joseph “Kepa” Naeole, Frank “Robbie” Singson Jr. and hanai son Kalani Dapitan; daughters Robyn Naeole, Rochelle “Malia” Naeole, Ruth-Jane “Leihua” Naeole and Francine “Kitty” Wayne, his sister Veronica Riveira, 15 grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, eight hanai grandchildren and 11 hanai great-grandchildren.

Singson’s funeral was on May 10 at Christ the King Church after which his body was cremated.