By Leon Bent –
The Catholic Church remembers St. Damien of Molokai on May 10. The Belgian priest sacrificed his life and health to become a spiritual father to the victims of leprosy, quarantined on a Hawaiian island. Damien was so dedicated that “Molokai” almost became his surname.
St. Damien of Molokai, also called Father Damien – his original name was Joseph de Veuster. He was born January 3, 1840, in Tremelo, Belgium. He went as a missionary to the Sandwich (Hawaiian) Islands in 1863. He reached Honolulu in 1864 and was ordained a priest the same year. Damien’s final vows to the congregation involved a dramatic ceremony, in which his superiors draped him in the cloth that would be used to cover his coffin after death. The custom was meant to symbolize the young man’s solemn commitment and identification with Christ’s own death. For Damien, the event would become more significant as he would go on to lay down his life for the lepers of Molokai.
Moved by the miserable condition of the lepers whom the Hawaiian government had deported to Kalaupapa, on the island of Molokai, he volunteered to take charge of the settlement.
Damien, known for his compassion, provided spiritual, physical, and emotional comfort to those suffering from the debilitating and incurable disease. He served as both, pastor and physician to the colony, and undertook many projects to better the conditions there. He improved water and food supplies and housing, and founded two orphanages, receiving help from other priests for only 6 of his 16 years on Molokai.
The island had become a wasteland in human terms, despite its natural beauty. The leprosy victims of Molokai faced hopeless conditions and extreme deprivation, sometimes lacking not only basic palliative care but even the means of survival.
Inwardly, Fr. Damien was terrified by the prospect of contracting leprosy himself. However, he knew that he would have to set aside this fear, to convey God’s love to the lepers in the most authentic way. Other missionaries had kept the lepers at arms’ length, but Fr. Damien chose to immerse himself in their common life and leave the outcome to God.
The inhabitants of Molokai saw the difference in the new priest’s approach, and embraced his efforts to improve their living conditions. A strong man, accustomed to physical labour, he performed the Church’s traditional works of mercy – such as feeding the hungry, sheltering the homeless, and giving proper burial to the dead – in the face of suffering that others could hardly even bear to see.
Fr. Damien’s work helped to raise the lepers up from their physical sufferings, while also making them aware of their worth as beloved children of God. Although he could not take away the constant presence of death in the leper colony, he could change its meaning and inspire hope. The death-sentence of leprosy could, and often did, become a painful yet redemptive path toward eternal life.
The priest’s devotion to his people, and his activism on their behalf, sometimes alienated him from officials of the Hawaiian kingdom, and from his religious superiors in Europe. His mission was not only fateful, but also lonely. He drew strength from Eucharistic adoration and the celebration of the Mass, but longed for another priest to arrive so that he could receive the sacrament of Confession regularly.
When Joseph de Veuster was born in Tremelo, Belgium, in 1840, few people in Europe had any firsthand knowledge of leprosy, Hansen’s disease. By the time he died at the age of 49, people all over the world knew about this disease because of him. They knew that human compassion could soften the ravages of this disease.
In December of 1884, Fr. Damien discovered that he had lost all feeling in his feet. It was an early, but unmistakable sign that, he had contracted leprosy. The priest knew that his time was short. He undertook to finish whatever accomplishments he could, on behalf of his fellow colony residents, before the diseased robbed him of his eyesight, speech and mobility.
Fr. Damien suffered humiliations and personal trials during his final years. An American Protestant minister accused him of scandalous behaviour, based on the mistaken contemporary belief that leprosy was a sexually transmitted disease. He ran into disagreements with his religious superiors, and felt psychologically tormented by the notion that his work had been a failure.
In 1884 he contracted leprosy and refused to leave for treatment. In the end, priests of his congregation arrived to administer the last sacraments to the dying priest. During the Spring of 1889, Fr. Damien told his friends that he believed it was God’s will for him to spend the upcoming Easter not on Molokai, but in heaven.
He died of leprosy during Holy Week, on April 15, 1889. He was originally buried at the colony, as he requested, but his remains were later transferred to Leuven in 1936. His right hand was returned to his original grave in 1995.
St. Damien of Molokai was beatified in 1995. Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in 2009.
Leon Bent is an ex-Seminarian and studied the Liberal Arts and Humanities, and Philosophy, from St. Pius X College, Mumbai. He holds Masters Degree in English Literature and Aesthetics. He has published three Books and have 20 on the anvil. He has two extensively “Researched” Volumes to his name: Hail Full of Grace and Matrimony: The Thousand Faces of Love. He won The Examiner, Silver Pen Award, 2000 for writing on Social Issues, the clincher being a Researched Article on Gypsies in India, published in an issue of the (worldwide circulation) Vidyajyoti Journal of Theological Reflection, New Delhi. On April, 28, 2018, Leon received the Cardinal Ivan Dias Award for a research paper in Mariology.
Leon Bent regularly writes for 9 Catholic Magazines, Journals and Web Portals, worldwide – occasionally, the reach is over 5 million readers.