“Jesus, here I am”: the life and legacy of Deacon Robert Kinsey

A beautiful remembrance from The Orlando Sentinel: 

“Via mutatur, non tollitur.”

The Latin phrase is said in Roman Catholic funerals, but Robert Kinsey was known for living its guidance: “Life is changed, not ended.”

Every time Kinsey’s life was supposed to end, the three-time cancer fighter would surprise doctors and families.

“He was a tough guy,” said his eldest daughter, Maryann Abbate of Marietta, Ga. “Very determined, great resolve. When he said he was going to beat something, he was going to do it.”

Diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 1977, his daughter said Kinsey’s faith grew after a nun placed her hand on her father’s heart and told him he was healed.

Two years later he began his studying to become a deacon. The Hodgkin lymphoma would return, and a rare autoimmune disease would plague him in between, but Kinsey was committed to a life of change, not suffering.

After 31 years as a deacon at St. Peter Catholic Church in DeLand, Robert J. Kinsey died at age 80 on Jan. 4.

Brought up in a devout Catholic family, the New Jersey native, who lived in New York as a young professional, followed what he felt was a calling from God and relocated to Florida 50 years ago.

There the Jesuit college graduate would find spiritual fulfillment.

He and his wife became the epitome of a God-serving couple, with Joan Kinsey at the helm of St. Peter Catholic School as principal and he as deacon in the church.

“He believed God had spared his life,” Abbate said. “When he was being ordained, he turned to someone next to him and said, ‘Jesus, here I am,’ and he lived that out.”

Read more. 

I had the good fortune of meeting Bob a little over a year ago, when I spoke to a diaconate convocation in Orlando. He was warm, supportive, appreciative and very gracious. He had the energy and spirit of a man 20 years younger—and you would never have known he had been battling cancer. He was a gift to Orlando, and to the diaconate.

Well done, good and faithful servant.

Eternal rest grant unto him, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon him…