Fr. JacobiFr. Jacobi could be found there seven days a week, for at least an hour or two.
It wasn’t for his love of lattes. The retired Fr. Jacobi was quite literally “meeting people where they were.”
“Every single morning, seven days a week, he would be there. He cultivated a group of at least 12 people who gathered around him. When people came through the door, he would say, ‘Here, take my card and buy yourself a coffee.’ And you know Starbucks isn’t $0.50 a cup,” said Fr. Mayworm, administrator of St. Benedict Parish in Waterford.
Fr. Jacobi, who ministered for 29 years in the Archdiocese of Detroit and for the last seven years in the Diocese of Venice, Fla., died Nov. 19 at 84.
During his priestly ministry, Fr. Jacobi was known as a helper and counselor who offered advice to all, Fr. Mayworm said, “sometimes whether they wanted it or not.”
That practice didn’t end when he retired in 2003.
“He was a humble, generous, gentle man,” said Fr. Mayworm, who lived with Fr. Jacobi in Florida for four years before himself returning to Michigan.
A “rigorously self-disciplined” priest, Fr. Jacobi was devoted to Mary and the Eucharist, attending Mass seven days a week even if he wasn’t celebrating, Fr. Mayworm said. When he wasn’t at Mass, he could be found ministering to the sick and dying in hospitals or at the gym, where he also built quite the following.
“People would come to him on the bike and chat him up constantly. He would convert people and bring them into the church through Starbucks and through the gym,” Fr. Mayworm said. “He was very much a man for others.”
If Fr. Jacobi was is good spiritual shape, he was also in peak physical shape, working out almost every day right up until the end.
"He was amazing. There was competition at the wellness center for one month of biking, who would bike the furthest. The second-place guy biked 210 miles, but Fr. Jacobi in one month was 1,013 miles. He was rigorous about that workout," Fr. Mayworm said.
Fr. Jacobi was a priest's priest who brooked no duplicity, Fr. Mayworm added.
"He could not stand to hear a lie from another person. Integrity was a big thing for him. You always knew where you stood. He did not mince words,” Fr. Mayworm said.
Fr. Jacobi was born Dec. 14, 1932, in Cambridge, Mass., and ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Detroit on Jan. 17, 1981.
His early years in ministry were spent as associate pastor of the parishes of St. Anthony, Belleville (1981); SS. Peter and Paul (Westside), Detroit (1981-84); St. William, Walled Lake (1984); and Our Lady of Sorrows, Farmington (1984-87). He also served as associate pastor of St. Colette, Livonia (1997-98); St. Jane Frances de Chantal, Sterling Heights (1998-99); and St. Paul of Tarsus, Clinton Township (1999-2003).
Fr. Jacobi pastored two parishes: Holy Cross Parish in Marine City (1987-92), and St. Clement Parish in Warren (1992-96).
A visitation for Fr. Jacobi will take place at Riverside Chapel, Simpson-Modetz Funeral Home, 5630 Pontiac Lake Road in Waterford, from 6-9 p.m. Dec. 1. He will lie in repose on Dec. 2 at St. Benedict Parish, 80 S. Lynn St., Waterford, at 10 a.m. until his funeral Mass at 11 a.m. Burial will be in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery, Southfield.
