Jozef de Veuster was born in Belgium, took the name of “Damien” and joined the missionary Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary on his way to becoming one of the Roman Catholic Church’s best-remembered and most honored saints.
The Most Rev. Michael Sis, bishop of the Catholic Diocese of San Angelo, says the story of Father Damien, who was canonized in 2009, is tremendously inspiring.
“He felt called to become a Catholic priest and he was sent by his religious order to the Kingdom of Hawaii in 1864,” the Most Rev. Sis said. “He began his priestly ministry on the island of Hawaii, also known as the Big Island.
“In 1866 the Hawaiian government decided to send all those with leprosy (Hanson’s Disease) to a remote peninsula on the north shore of the island of Molokai in order to protect the rest of the Hawaiian population from that dreaded contagious disease for which there was no known cure.”
Sis said the lepers were taken by boat to the Kalaupapa Peninsula, which was surrounded by the Pacific Ocean on three sides and by the highest sea cliffs in the world on the other.
“In all more than 8,000 men, women and children were forcibly exiled there,” he said. “Because of the natural contours of the land, they could not escape from their quarantined colony.
“The people of Kalaupapa felt isolated and abandoned and the residents requested a priest to come and serve their spiritual needs. Father Damien volunteered, beginning his ministry there in 1873.”
The bishop said De Veuster brought consolation, hope and encouragement to the people of Kalaupapa without distinction of race or religion.
“He fought to get supplies delivered to them,” he said. “Sometimes boats would bring supplies, dropping them in the water, so the residents would have to swim out from shore to retrieve them. He personally constructed houses for many people who were unable to provide their own homes.
“When Father Damien arrived at the leper colony, he was a healthy 33-year-old priest. When he himself contracted leprosy in 1885, he began to use the expression, ‘We, lepers.’ This brought tremendous consolation to his people. He found his strength in Jesus Christ and considered himself ‘the happiest missionary in the world.’
“His life was spent in sacrifice, freely accepted, for the good of others, united to the sacrifice of Christ.”
Sis said Father Damien served selflessly for 16 years among the lepers at Kalaupapa Peninsula on Molokai.
“His leprosy grew eventually more serious and he became disfigured and died at Kalaupapa in 1889,” he said. “His mortal remains were transferred to Louvain in his native Belgium in 1936.
“Many people in Hawaii consider him to be a hero and they would like for his body to be returned there where he served so faithfully. I also hope he can be brought back to Hawaii.”
Noting that medical science found a cure for leprosy in the 1940s, Sis said the Kalaupapa Peninsula on Molokai is now a national historical park.
“I highly recommend visiting it,” he said. “I went there many years ago and met some of the residents. The empty tomb of Father Damien is next to the church.”
Hawaii became a U.S. territory in 1898 and a state in 1959 and Sis said that in the National Statuary Hall Collection in the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., there are two statues that represent Hawaii.
“One of those statues is of Father Damien,” he said. “I recommend going to see that collection when visiting Washington.”
Here are some quotations from Father Damien:
- “My greatest pleasure is to serve the Lord in his poor children rejected by other people.”
- “I would not be cured if the price of the cure was that I must leave the island and give up my work. I am perfectly resigned to my lot. Do not feel sorry for me.”
- “I feel no disgust when I hear the confessions of those near their end, whose wounds are full of maggots…This may give you some idea of my daily work. Picture to yourself a collection of huts with 800 lepers. No doctor; in fact, as there is no cure, there seems no place for a doctor’s skill.”
- “Having no doubts about the true nature of the disease, I am calm, resigned and very happy in the midst of my people. God certainly knows what is best for my sanctification and I gladly repeat: Thy will be done.”
