JESUS CARITAS EST: Catholic News World : Sunday May 10, 2015

Sunday, May 10, 2015

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2015

#PopeFrancis “we remember with gratitude and affection all mothers.” #MothersDay

Free Catholic #Movie MOLOKAI of #Hawaii - Stars Peter O'Toole and David Wenham

#PopeFrancis to #MarchforLife “It is important to work together to defend and promote life.”

#Cuba 's President Thanks #PopeFrancis for new relations with #USA at Vatican

Happy #MothersDay ! Beautiful Prayer Song to Mothers by #CelineDion - SHARE

Sunday Mass Online : Sunday May 10, 2015 - 6th of Easter

Saint May 10 : St. Antonius of Florence - Patron against Fevers - Died 1459

Saint May 10 : St. Damien of Molokai - Patron of #AIDS / #HIV patients and Lepers - Died 1889

Pope Francis, Regina coeli for May 10, 2015 - AP

10/05/2015 14:34

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis offered Mother’s Day greetings to all mothers, everywhere, on Sunday. “Today in many countries celebrate Mother's Day,” he said, addressing the great crowd of pilgrims and tourists gathered beneath the window of the Papal apartments that looks down on St. Peter’s Square to pray the Regina coeli with him, “we remember with gratitude and affection all mothers.”

Departing from his prepared text, Pope Francis went on to ask a round of applause for all mothers present in the Square. “That applause embraces all mothers, all our dear mothers: those who live with us physically, but also those who live with us spiritually. The Lord bless them all, and may the Mother of God, to whom this month is dedicated, watch over them all.”Ahead of the traditional prayer of Marian devotion at Eastertide, Pope Francis reflected on the Gospel reading of the day, drawn from the 15th chapter of the Gospel according to St. John. “This is my commandment: love one another as I love you,” he said, quoting the Gospel text, which goes on to say, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

“Therefore,” said Pope Francis, “this Word of the Lord calls us to love each other, to desire the good for one another, even if we do not always understand each other, even if we do not always geta long – but it is preciesly there, that we see what Christian love is.”

Free Catholic #Movie MOLOKAI of #Hawaii - Stars Peter O'Toole and David Wenham

#PopeFrancis to #MarchforLife “It is important to work together to defend and promote life.”

Cardinal Raymond Burke at Italy's fifth March for Life. At the Regina Coeli address, Pope Francis greeted all those participating in the March. - RV

10/05/2015 17:15

(Vatican Radio) During his Regina Coeli address on Sunday, Pope Francis greeted participants in Italy’s fifth annual March for Life. “I greet all those participating in the initiative for life taking place this morning in Rome,” the Pope said. “It is important to work together to defend and promote life.”

Among those taking part in the March was Cardinal Raymond Burke, the Patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta. Speaking with Vatican Radio, Cardinal Burke said, “St John Paul II urged us, in his wonderful encyclical letter on the Gospel of Life, to make public manifestations to demonstrate the incomparable beauty, the inviolability of innocent, defenceless human life.” He said the March is “very important in Italy as a sign of the Italian peoples dedication to the apostolate for the restoration of the respect for all human life, from the moment of conception to the moment of natural death.”

Cardinal Burke also mentioned the international aspect of the March for Life. “It’s wonderful to see the international participation” in the March, he said. “So many come from various countries because they want to join the Italian people in their testimony to the dignity of human life, created in God’s own image and redeemed by our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Listen to Cardinal Raymond Burke speaking about Italy’s annual March for Life:

#Cuba 's President Thanks #PopeFrancis for new relations with #USA at Vatican

Pope Francis and Cuba's President Raul Castro, May 10, 2015 - REUTERS

10/05/2015 11:

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis received the President of Cuba, Raul Castro, on Sunday morning in private audience at the Vatican. A note from the Director of the Press Office of the Holy See, Fr. Federico Lombardi, SJ, explains that Castro arrived at 9:30 AM, and stayed a little over an hour, during the course of which the Pope and the President spent considerable time in conversation in the Holy Father’s study inside the Paul VI Hall.

The meeting between the Pope and the President lasted over 50 minutes, and was very friendly. The President told reporters before leaving the Vatican that he had thanked the Holy Father for the active role he played in favor of improving relations between Cuba and the United States of America, and also presented to the Pope the sentiments of the Cuban people – sentiments of expectation and preparation for the Holy Father’s visit the island in September.

The note also reports a significant exchange of gifts: the President of Cuba gave the Pope a precious commemorative medal of the Cathedral of Havana, and a framed work of contemporary art, which depicts a large Ccross composed of the relics of wrecked barges, before which is present a migrant in prayer. The Cuban artist Kcho, who was present, told the Pope that he was inspired by Francis’ great commitment to bringing the plight of migrants and refugees to the attention of the wider world, especially through the Pope’s visit to the Mediterranean island of Lampedusa. The Pope gave the President a copy of his Apostolic Exhortation, Evangelii gaudium, and a large medallion which represents St. Martin in the act of covering the poor with his cloak. The Pope noted that he was particularly happy to give this last gift, as it recalls not only the duty to help and protect the poor, but also actively to promote dignity.

Vatican Radio) "If the Pope keeps going the way he’s going, I’ll come back to the Catholic Church." These were just some of the words the President of Cuba, Raul Castro spoke during the course of a press conference following his audience with Pope Francis on Sunday morning.Regarding the Holy Father’s upcoming visit to Cuba, Castro said that he would be present at all the Masses Pope Francis is to celebrate during his stay on the island.Castro also spoke of a general opening of Cuba's ruling Communist Party to religious believers. "I am from the Cuban Communist Party, that doesn't allow (religious) believers, but now we are allowing it, it's an important step," Castro said.The session with journalists immediately followed Castro’s meeting with Italy’s Prime Minister, Matteo Renzi, which also took place on Sunday morning.

Happy #MothersDay ! Beautiful Prayer Song to Mothers by #CelineDion - SHARE

This is a Beautiful Dedication to Mothers by Celine Dion. It has been viewed over 1 million times. This Mother's Day Share this Video and show everyone the blessing of Mothers.
"Because You Loved Me"

For all those times you stood by me
For all the truth that you made me see
For all the joy you brought to my life
For all the wrong that you made right
For every dream you made come true
For all the love I found in you
I'll be forever thankful baby
You're the one who held me up
Never let me fall
You're the one who saw me through through it all

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

You gave me wings and made me fly
You touched my hand I could touch the sky
I lost my faith, you gave it back to me
You said no star was out of reach
You stood by me and I stood tall
I had your love I had it all
I'm grateful for each day you gave me
Maybe I don't know that much
But I know this much is true
I was blessed because I was loved by you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

You were always there for me
The tender wind that carried me
A light in the dark shining your love into my life
You've been my inspiration
Through the lies you were the truth
My world is a better place because of you

You were my strength when I was weak
You were my voice when I couldn't speak
You were my eyes when I couldn't see
You saw the best there was in me
Lifted me up when I couldn't reach
You gave me faith 'coz you believed
I'm everything I am
Because you loved me

I'm everything I am

Because you loved me

Sunday Mass Online : Sunday May 10, 2015 - 6th of Easter

Sixth Sunday of Easter
Lectionary: 56

Reading 1ACTS 10:25-26, 34-35, 44-48

When Peter entered, Cornelius met him
and, falling at his feet, paid him homage.
Peter, however, raised him up, saying,
“Get up. I myself am also a human being.”

Then Peter proceeded to speak and said,
“In truth, I see that God shows no partiality.
Rather, in every nation whoever fears him and acts uprightly
is acceptable to him.”

While Peter was still speaking these things,
the Holy Spirit fell upon all who were listening to the word.
The circumcised believers who had accompanied Peter
were astounded that the gift of the Holy Spirit
should have been poured out on the Gentiles also,
for they could hear them speaking in tongues and glorifying God.
Then Peter responded,
“Can anyone withhold the water for baptizing these people,
who have received the Holy Spirit even as we have?”
He ordered them to be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ.

Responsorial PsalmPS 98:1, 2-3, 3-4

R. (cf. 2b) The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
or:
R. Alleluia.
Sing to the LORD a new song,
for he has done wondrous deeds;
His right hand has won victory for him,
his holy arm.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
or:
R. Alleluia.
The LORD has made his salvation known:
in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.
He has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness
toward the house of Israel.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
or:
R. Alleluia.
All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.
Sing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;
break into song; sing praise.
R. The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.
or:
R. Alleluia.

Reading 21 JN 4:7-10

Beloved, let us love one another,
because love is of God;
everyone who loves is begotten by God and knows God.
Whoever is without love does not know God, for God is love.
In this way the love of God was revealed to us:
God sent his only Son into the world
so that we might have life through him.
In this is love:
not that we have loved God, but that he loved us
and sent his Son as expiation for our sins.

AlleluiaJN 14:23

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Whoever loves me will keep my word, says the Lord,
and my Father will love him and we will come to him.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

GospelJN 15:9-17

Jesus said to his disciples:
“As the Father loves me, so I also love you.
Remain in my love.
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.

“I have told you this so that my joy may be in you
and your joy might be complete.
This is my commandment: love one another as I love you.
No one has greater love than this,
to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command you.
I no longer call you slaves,
because a slave does not know what his master is doing.
I have called you friends,
because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father.
It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you
and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain,
so that whatever you ask the Father in my name he may give you.
This I command you: love one another.”

, 2015

Saint May 10 : St. Antonius of Florence - Patron against Fevers - Died 1459

St. Antonius of Florence

ARCHBISHOP, CONFESSOR

Feast: May 10

Information:

Feast Day: May 10

Born: 1 March 1389 at Florence, Italy

Died: 2 May 1459 at Florence, Italy

Canonized: 31 May 1523 by Pope Adrian VI

Patron of: against fever

St. Antoninus, or Little Antony, was born at Florence in 1389. His parents, named Nicholas Pierozzi and Thomassina, were noble citizens of that place, and he was the only fruit of their marriage. From the cradle he was modest, bashful, docile, and had no inclination but to piety, being even then an enemy both to sloth and to the amusements of children. It was his only pleasure to read the lives of saints and other good books, to converse with pious persons, or employ himself in prayer, to which he was much given from his infancy. Accordingly, if he was not at home or at school, he was always to be found at St. Michael's church before a crucifix, or in our Lady's chapel there. And whether he applied himself to that holy exercise in his closet or the church, he always kneeled or lay prostrate, with a perseverance that astonished everybody. By the means of a happy memory, a solid judgment, and quick penetration, assisted by an assiduous application, he became an able master at an age when others scarce begin to understand the first elements of the sciences. But his passion for learning was not equal to his ardor to perfect himself in the science of salvation. In prayer, he begged nothing of God but his grace to avoid sin, and to do his holy will in all things. F. Dominic, a learned and holy preacher of the order of St. Dominic, afterwards made cardinal, archbishop of Ragusa, and legate of the holy see, was then employed in building a convent at Fiesoli, two miles from Florence. Antoninus was wonderfully delighted with the unction of his sermons, and never went out of Florence but to converse with that apostolic man, to whom he applied at last for the Dominican habit. The father judging him as yet too young, and his constitution too tender for so strict a life of perpetual abstinence, frequent fasts, long watchings, and other rigors, advised him to wait yet some years, and bid him first study the canon law, adding, that when he should have learned Gratian's decree by heart, his request should be granted. So dry and difficult a task would have seemed to another equivalent to an absolute refusal. However, Antoninus set about it, and joining prayer and severe mortifications with his studies, made an essay of the ]life to which he aspired; and in less than a year presented himself again to the prior of Fiesoli; and by answering his examination upon the whole decree of Gratian, gave him a surprising proof of his capacity, memory, and fervor. The prior hesitated no longer, but gave him the habit, he being then sixteen years of age. The young novice was most exact in complying with every point of the rule, and appeared the most humble, the most obedient, most mortified, and most recollected of his brethren. Being advanced to the priesthood, he augmented his exercise of piety; he was never seen at the altar but bathed in tears. Whether sick or well, he day always on the hard boards; and so perfectly had he subjected the flesh to the spirit, that he seemed to feel no reluctance from his senses in the service of God. He was chosen very young to govern the great convent of the Minerva in Rome, and after that, was successively prior at Naples, Cajeta, Cortona, Sienna, Fiesoli, and Florence: in all which places he zealously enforced the practice of the rule of St. Dominic, and more by his actions than words. Besides his domestic employments he preached often, and with great fruit. The works which he published increased his reputation. He was consulted from Rome, and from all quarters, especially in intricate cases of the canon law. The learned cardinal de Lucca reckons him among the most distinguished auditors or judges of the Rota, though we do not find at what time he discharged that office. He was chosen vicar or general superior of a numerous reformed congregation in his order. He would not remit any thing in his austerities or labors when exhausted by a decay, of which however he recovered. Pope Eugenius IV called him to the general council of Florence; and he assisted in quality of divine at all its sessions, and at the disputations with the Greeks. During his stay at Florence he was made prior of the convent of St. Mark in that city, for which Cosmus of Medicis, called the father of his country, was then building a sumptuous church, which pope Eugenius IV. consecrated. After having established in this house the true spirit of his order, he visited his convents in Tuscany and Naples.

While employed in introducing the primitive discipline of his order in the province of Naples, the see of Florence became vacant by the death of its archbishop. The intrigues of several candidates protracted the election of a successor. But pope Eugenius IV. no sooner named F. Antoninus to the Florentines, as possessed of the qualities they had desired in their future bishop, namely, sanctity, learning, and experience, and his being a native of their own city, than they all acquiesced in his choice. Antoninus, who had then been two years absent from Florence, employed in the visitation of his monasteries, was equally surprised and afflicted that he should have been thought of for so eminent a dignity. And that he might escape it, he set out with the design of concealing himself in the isle of Sardinia; but being prevented in the execution, he was obliged to go to Sienna, whence he wrote to the pope, conjuring his holiness not to lay that formidable burden on his weak shoulders, alleging his being in the decline of life, worn out with fatigues and sickness; enlarging also upon his great unworthiness and want of capacity; and begging that he would not now treat him as an enemy whom he had honored with so many marks of friendship. He could not close his letter without watering it with his tears. The pope, however, was inflexible, and sent him an order to repair without delay to his convent at Fiesoli. He wrote at the same time to the city of Florence, to acquaint, them that he had sent them an archbishop to their gates. The principal, persons of the clergy and nobility, with Cosmus of Medicis at their head, went out to compliment him on that occasion; but found him so averse to the dignity, that all their entreaties to take it upon him were to no purpose, till the pope, being again applied to in the affair, sent him an order to obey, backing it with a threat of excommunication if he persisted in opposing the will of God. After many tears, Antoninus at last complied; he was consecrated and took possession of his bishopric in March, 1446. His regulation of his household and conduct was a true imitation of the primitive apostolic bishops. His table, dress, and furniture showed a perfect spirit of poverty, modesty, and simplicity. It was his usual saying, that all the riches. Of a successor of the apostles ought to be his virtue. He practiced all the observances of his rule as far as compatible with his functions. His whole family consisted of six persons, to whom he assigned such salaries as might hinder them from seeking accidental perquisites, which are usually iniquitous or dangerous. He at first appointed two grand vicars, but afterwards, to avoid all occasions of variance, kept only one; and remembering that a bishop is bound to personal service, did almost every thing himself, but always with mature advice. As to his temporalities, he relied entirely on a man of probity and capacity, to reserve himself totally for his spiritual functions. He gave audience every day to all that addressed themselves to him, but particularly declared himself the father and protector of the poor. His purse and his granaries were in a manner totally theirs; when these were exhausted, he gave them often part of his scanty furniture and clothes. He never was possessed of any plate, or any other precious moveables, and never kept either dogs or horses; one only mule served all the necessities of his family, and this he often sold for the relief of some poor person; on which occasion, some wealthy citizen would buy it, to restore it again as a present to the charitable archbishop. He founded the college of St. Martin, to assist persons of reduced circumstances, and ashamed to make known their necessities, which establishment now provides for above six hundred families. His mildness appeared not only in his patience in bearing the insolence and importunities of the poor, but in his sweetness and benevolence towards his enemies. One named Ciardi, whom he had cited before him to answer certain criminal accusations, made an attempt on his life; and the saint narrowly escaped the thrust of his poniard, which pierced the back of his chair. Yet he freely forgave the assassin, and praying for his conversion, had the comfort to see him become a sincere penitent in the order of St. Francis.

The saint wanted not courage whenever the honor of God required it. He suppressed games of hazard; reformed other abuses in all orders preached almost every Sunday and holiday, and visited his whole diocese every year, always on foot. His character for wisdom and integrity was such, that he was consulted from all parts, and by persons of the highest rank, both secular and ecclesiastical: and his decisions gave so general a satisfaction, that they acquired him the name of Antoninus the counsellor. Yet this multiplicity of business was no interruption of his attention to God. He allowed himself very little sleep. Over and above the church office, he recited daily the office of our Lady, and the seven penitential psalms; the office of the dead twice a week, and the whole psalter on every festival. In the midst of his exterior affairs he always preserved the same serenity of countenance, and the same peace of mind, and seemed always recollected in God. Francis Castillo, his secretary, once said to him, bishops were to be pitied if they were to be eternally besieged with hurry as he was. The saint made him this answer, which the author of his life wished to see written in letters of gold: "To enjoy interior peace, we must always reserve in our hearts amidst all affairs, as it were, a secret closet, where we are to keep retired within ourselves, and where no business of the world can ever enter." Pope Eugenius IV. falling sick, sent for Antoninus to Rome, made his confession to him, received the viaticum and extreme-unction from his hands, and expired in his arms on the 23d of February, 1447. Nicholas IV succeeded him. St. Antoninus having received his benediction, hastened to Florence, where a pestilence had begun to show itself, which raged the whole year following. The holy archbishop exposed himself first, and employed his clergy, both secular and regular, especially those of his own order, in assisting the infected; so that almost all the friars of St. Mark, St. Mary Novella, and Fiesoli were swept away by the contagion, and new recruits were sent from the province of Lombardy to inhabit those houses. The famine, as is usual, followed this first scourge. The holy archbishop stripped himself of almost every thing; and by the influence of his words and example, many rich persons were moved to do the like. He obtained from Rome, particularly from the pope, great succors for the relief of the distressed. Indeed, the pope never refused any thing that he requested; and ordered that no appeals should be received at Rome from any sentence passed by him. After the public calamity was over, the saint continued his liberalities to the poor; but being informed that two blind beggars had amassed, the one two hundred, and the other three hundred ducats, he tool; the money from them, and distributed it among the real objects of charity; charging himself, however, with the maintenance of those two for the rest of their lives. Humility made him conceal his heroic practices of penance and piety from others, and even from himself; for he saw nothing but imperfections even in what others admired in him, and never heard any thing tending to his own commendation without confusion and indignation. He formed many perfect imitators of his virtue. An accident discovered to him a hidden servant of God. A poor handicraftsman lived in obscurity, in the continual practice of penance, having no other object of his desires but heaven. He passed the Sundays and holidays in the churches, and distributed all he gained by his work, beyond his mean subsistence, among the poor, with the greatest privacy; and kept a poor leper, serving him and dressing his ulcers with his own hands, bearing the continual reproaches and complaints of the ungrateful beggar, not only with patience, but also with joy. The leper became the more morose and imperious, and carried complaints against his benefactor to the archbishop, who, discovering this hidden treasure of sanctity in the handicraftsman, secretly honored it, while he punished the insolence of the leper.

Florence was shook by frequent earthquakes during three years, from 1453, and a large tract of land was laid desolate by a violent storm. The saint maintained, lodged, and set up again the most distressed, and rebuilt their houses. But he labored most assiduously to render these public calamities instrumental to the reformation of his people's manners. Cosmus of Medicis used to say, that he did not question but the preservation of their republic, under its great dangers, was owing chiefly to the merits and prayers of its holy archbishop. Pope Pius II. has left us, in the second book of his Commentaries, a most edifying history of the eminent virtues of our saint, and the strongest testimonies of his sanctity. The love of his flock made him decline a secular embassy to the emperor Frederic ill. God called him to the reward of his labors on the 2d of May, 1459, in the seventieth year of his age, the thirteenth of his archiepiscopal dignity. He repeated on his death-bed these words, which he had often in his mouth during health, "To serve God is to reign." Pope Pius II. being then at Florence, assisted at his funeral. His hair-shirt and other relics were the instruments of many miracles. He was buried, according to his desire, in the church of St. Mark, among his religious brethren, and was canonized by Adrian VI. in 1523. His body was found entire in 1559, and translated with the greatest pomp and solemnity, into a chapel prepared to receive it in the same church of St. Mark, richly adorned by the two brothers Salviati, whose family looks upon it as their greatest honor that this illustrious saint belonged to it. Nor is it easy to imagine any thing that could surpass the rich embellishments of this chapel, particularly the shrine; nor the pomp and magnificence of the procession and translation, at which a area number of cardinals, bishops, and princes from several parts assisted, who all admired to see the body perfectly free from corruption, one hundred and thirty years after it had been buried.

The venerable Achard, bishop of Avranches, in his excellent treatise On Self-denial, reduces the means and practice of Christian perfection to seven degrees of self-renunciation, by which he is disposed for the reign of love in his soul. These degrees he otherwise calls seven deserts of the soul. The first is the desert of penance. The second of solitude, at least that of the heart. The third of mortification. The fourth of simplicity of faith. The fifth of obedience. The sixth of the pure love of God. The seventh of zeal for his honor in the salvation of our neighbor. For a man, first, is to renounce sin by sincere repentance. Secondly, the world by solitude. Thirdly, the flesh by the mortification of his senses. Fourthly, though reason is man's most noble excellency, yet this being obscured and often blinded by the passions, easily becomes the seat of pride, and leads into the most dangerous precipices and errors. Man is therefore bound to humble his reason by keeping it in due subordination, and in a certain degree to renounce it by simplicity of heart and sincere humility. And this is so far from being against reason, that it is the sovereign use of reason. Fifthly, a man is moreover obliged to renounce his own will by perfect obedience. Sixthly, he must moreover renounce all that he is by the pure love of God, which ought to have no bounds. Seventhly, none but one who has tasted the sweetness of heavenly contemplation, knows how incomparable an advantage he renounces who deprives himself of it. Yet zeal for our neighbor's salvation, and tender compassion for his spiritual miseries, move the saints sometimes to prefer toils and sufferings to its pure delights and charms. By these rules we see by what degrees or means pious pastors attain to the apostolic spirit of their state, and how heroic their sacrifice is. Source EWTN - Image source: Google

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Saint May 10 : St. Damien of Molokai - Patron of #AIDS / #HIV patients and Lepers - Died 1889

St. Damien of Molokai

MISSIONARY PRIEST

Feast: May 10

Information:

Feast Day:	May 10
Born:	January 3, 1840, Tremelo, Belgium
Died:	April 15, 1889 (aged 49), Kalaupapa, Molokai, Hawaii
Beatified:	June 4, 1995, Rome by Pope John Paul II
Canonized:	October 11, 2009, Rome by Pope Benedict XVI
Major Shrine:	shrine Leuven, Belgium (bodily relics), Maui, Hawaii (relics of his hand)
Patron of:	People with leprosy, people with HIV and AIDS, outcasts, the State of Hawaii

Introduction

Every age has its stories of heroic men and women whose faith challenges them to reach out in heroic love and service to alleviate the sufferings of their brothers and sisters.

This is the story of one such hero. He was born Joseph De Veuster, a Belgian farm boy. He is known now to all the world as Damien the Leper. His bronze figure graces the statuary hall in Washington, D.C.

Damien's compassion for the lepers led him to spend sixteen years in the "living graveyard that was Molokai," where he died at the age of forty-nine in service to people suffering from the terrible disease of leprosy.

Damien never lost sight of his life's purpose, despite the many difficulties and sufferings he bore. It was only his faith that enabled him to endure the trials that his life's work caused him.

We hope that you enjoy this story and find it a source of strength and encouragement.

The Fateful Words...

He read the letter, over and over. "You may stay as long as your devotion dictates...." The words exploded against his mind and shook his heart. Again, and once again, he read them. They were the most welcome words he had ever received.

He stood and listened to the sounds about him. Soft, cool breezes gently swept across his island. The palm trees along the shore bowed before the refreshing winds and clapped their great fronds in joy. Bright morning sunlight played over the trees, turning the leaves, now silver, blue. The Pacific waves rolled tranquilly against the rocky shores. The green and white waters rose and fell; the ocean's motion never stopped, day or night. The restless power locked in the Pacific's waves mirrored the surging energies locked within his own heart.

He was a priest—a simple man. His parents were Belgian farmers. Nature had prepared his square, sturdy, and well-developed body to till the soil. God had summoned him to labor in a different field—to cultivate a more violent harvest. The words he now read hammered home this summons.

The letter, from his superiors, gave the priest, Father Damien De Veuster, permission to stay where he was and where he, in the springtime of 1873, longed with all his heart to be. On Molokai, one of the Hawaiian Islands. Father De Veuster, thirty-three, had already served nine years in the Hawaiian missions. He was a member of the Fathers of the Sacred Hearts, who had pioneered Catholicism in the islands.    These religious had faced and overcome enormous problems since their arrival in 1827. Now they faced a new and frightful challenge, a leprosy epidemic. To halt the spread of the dread disease, the Hawaiian government had isolated several hundred lepers at Kalawao, on the island of

Molokai. Catholic lepers there begged for a priest. Many missioners, despite danger of contagion, had offered to go. The Bishop, Louis Maigret, and Father Modeste, the religious superior of the Sacred Hearts Fathers, had selected Damien to begin the mission. Both were reluctant to put such a crushing burden pemanently on this young priest's square and sturdy shoulders. The Bishop and Father Modeste knew the bitter work that had to be done; they hesitated to demand that this one man do so much of it.

Thirteen years before, while a student for the priesthood in France, Damien had symbolically faced and accepted death. At the public profession of his final vows, as was the religious custom of the times, his superiors covered him with a funeral pall. He had truly believed then that only by accepting death would he discover life. Now, thirteen years later, he was putting his dedication to the test. He sought to serve the most pitiful of all men, the lepers of Molokai. By so doing, in the words of Robert Louis Stevenson, "he shut to, with his own hands, the doors of his own sepulchre."

Men Discover Hawaii

The Hawaiian Islands, one of the most beautiful places in all of God's creation, were one of the last places on earth that men discovered. God was saving, it seems, his choicest gift for the last. Polynesian explorers, the first men to find the islands, settled there about eight centuries after Christ's birth. A thousand years later, during the American Revolution, British sailors, under Captain Cook, were the first Europeans to reach this paradise.

Europeans found about three hundred thousand people on the islands. The natives, cheerful, unspoled, easy-going unless provoked, were generous, delighted in sports and athletic contests. A highly organized native religion dominated every aspect of Hawaiian life.

Living was easy in the islands. The people readily obtained fish, fruit, vegetables, and meat. Hawaiians lived in little homes constructed of palm branches. Daily life was pleasant, cheerful, uncomplicated.

As contact with the outside world increased, the Hawaiians, with no immunity to European and Asiatic diseases, suffered    immensely. Smallpox, influenza, cholera, tuberculosis, venereal disease, struck savagely and pitilessly. Within a hundred years of the white man's arrival, the native population dropped from three hundred thousand to fifty thousand people. In the long litany of ills decimating the Hawaiian people, none was more vicious than leprosy. This hideous disease cut an evil swath through the defenseless natives of our planet's Last Eden.

Leprosy

One of man's oldest curses, leprosy for centuries defied cure or remedy. To prevent its spread, Moses had separated and isolated Jews afflicted by it from the community. Roman legions and, later, Crusaders brought the disease to Europe. Authorities, having no better remedy than Moses, ordered lepers segregated from the cities and towns. Lepers were ordered to wear bells around their necks to warn people of their approach. By the year 1000, monks had constructed more than two thousand leper hospitals in Europe. They were called Lazar houses after the Gospel's poor leper, Lazarus. Friars often lived in hidden leper settlements, serving the outcasts' physical and spiritual needs. Although the disease ran its course through western Europe, by the turn of the nineteenth century the memory of it remained sunk in the white man's brain like the terror of a nightmare. Even today the word "leprosy" evokes in the minds and hearts of people who have never seen a leper, the strangest sensations of fear and repulsion.

The first authenticated case of leprosy appeared in Hawaii in 1840. Within thirty years the disease reached epidemic proportions among the defenseless Hawaiians. Authorities, helpless and ill-equipped, adopted the only policy they knew, the policy of segregation. In 1868, the Hawaiian government established a leper settlement on the island of Molokai, and officials were dispatched to round up the lepers. Ideally equipped by nature for its grim purposes, Molokai became an island of sorrow in the wild beauty of the Hawaiian chain. Its very name struck terror in the Hawaiian heart.

Hawaiians gave little thought to tommorow; and had no worries about robbers, since village families held all things in common. They ate, slept and worked on the family straw mat.

Karokina

Her name was Karokina. Mother of three children, she lived in a tiny fishing village on the island of Hawaii. Her life was simple, serene; her home, a lean-to built of palm branches. Affection, laughter and song characterized Karokina's home life. She loved to watch the sun cast down silver jewels of light upon the green ocean. The gods were close to Karo. Every so often, Pele, goddess of fire, whose footsteps the medicine men declared had formed their islands, hurled smoke and fire from a nearby volcano. Then Karo knew fear. The blue skies turned to black, the ocean hissed as hot lava and firestones poured into its bosom. The sun and moon hid their faces behind the great clouds of steam that rose from the heaving seas.

A lake of fire springs from the heart of a Hawaiian mountain. Centuries after volcanic explosions had formed the islands, their people were blessed by the fire of love in one man's heart.

Then the winds cleared the air, and Karo's fear passed. Karo loved her islands most in the spring, when the poinciana trees burst into masses of scarlet, orange and gold bossoms, and pink flowers popped out from the green canopies of the monkey pod trees. It was during a springtime of great joy and beauty that white men from Honolulu came to Karo's village. They were searching for natives who had that strange disease white men called leprosy.

Karo had the illness. She knew a few years ago, when her hand brushed against a smoldering log. Karo felt no pain. The terrible illness had begun its frightful work. Her face's gentle features gradually withered. Her eyes narrowed, and her ears enlarged. The disease ate her energy, and she knew fever and weakness. Karo's husband and children sorrowed at her plight and did all they could to comfort her. They, of course, kept her at home. Her husband heard that the government was rounding up lepers and sending them to Molokai. "How cruel," he complained to his neighbors, "to separate mother or father or children from home when they need the family most. If the white man wishes to treat his sick differently than Hawaiians do, why doesn't he go away and leave us alone? He forced his cruel illness on us and now he is forcing his brutal cures."

There were other lepers in Karo's village. Some heard the white man coming and hid in the great volcano caves. Others found hiding places and holes in the jungle floor. But for Karo it was too late. The hunters took her at gunpoint to a government schooner. Her husband tried to stop them, but he was helpless. Karo's children wailed and wept piteous tears of despair. White men spoke of their god as a god of mercy. Yet they showed no mercy.

Karo's captors took her first to Honolulu, where they herded    her together with lepers from other islands. Some where more disfigured and ill than she was. Many could not walk; others could barely crawl. But the police forced them all on board the ship that was to take them to Molokai in this February of 1873. The ship's crew looked on the unfortunates with horror.

After several hours on the open sea, the schooner, full of weeping, crying and terrorized sick, arrived off the Molokai colony's shore. There was no harbor, no dock. The captain and crew, afraid to bring the vessel too close to the rocky beach, drove and hurled the lepers into the surf. Some drowned. Others miraculously survived. On torn and bleeding feet they stumbled up on the harsh volcanic rock, numb and cold.

There was no one to greet them. No one to warm them. Many survived the pounding surf only to die from exhaustion on the inhospitable beach. Karo dragged herself to shore. Eventually she found a little cave to shelter her shivering body. Wild fruit helped nourish her. There was little food. She soon joined another group of lepers. They told her to forget home. All of them were condemned. They might as well reach for whatever wild joys they could possess before merciful death claimed them.

"In this place," a man advised Karo, "there is no law." Sexual immorality, brawling, drunkenness, robberies, and orgiastic dancing, fueled by liquor made from tree roots, characterized the lives of lepers. Nobody cared. When lepers died, their poor bodies were thrown into graves so shallow that pigs and dogs grew fat feasting on their flesh.

Karo despaired and died.

The Outside World

Between 1866 and 1873, seven hundred and ninety-seven lepers arrived at Molokai. Almost half died. Public indignation mounted. The Board of Health, which natives wryly dubbed the "Board of Death," sought to improve conditions. The government granted an increase in leper food and clothing rations, and appointed a superintendent to restore law and order to the colony. The press kept up a drum-fire of complaints about the ill-treatment and disorder of Molokai. In April, 1873, Walter Gibson, a colorful and clever politician, wrote in Nuhou, a Hawaiian newspaper; "If a noble Christian priest, preacher or Sister should be inspired to go and sacrifice a life to console these poor wretches, that would be a royal soul to shine forever on a throne reared by human love."

Despite the fulsome prose, Gibson was trumpeting a call, a challenge. There were indeed several men in the islands, only too willing to respond. They were good shepherds, searching for a flock for which they could lay down their lives. They were priests and Brothers of the Sacred Hearts. One of them was Father Damien De Veuster. Call it presentiment, prophecy, or anything you wish, but Damien had known for some time that he would eventually go to Molokai. In April, 1873, he wrote his Father General in Europe about his mission in Kohala, Hawaii, where he was stationed. "Many of our Christians here at Kohala also had to go to Molokai. I can only attribute to God an undeniable feeling that soon I shall join them.... Eight years of service among Christians you love and love you have tied us by powerful bonds." And join them he did. In early May, 1873, Father Damien's superiors approved his request to serve at the leper settlement.

The New Pastor

Bishop Maigret accompanied Damien to Molokai. The Bishop proudly presented the new pastor to the Catholic lepers. The joy of their welcome and Damien's excitement upon finally arriving at Molokai, dimmed the fact that he carried with him little more than his Breviary. Sacred Hearts religious previously had built a tiny chapel on Molokai, and had dedicated it to St. Philomena. For his first rectory, Damien used the shelter of a pandanus tree, beside the little church. The pandanus offered hospitality to all passing creatures, centipedes, scorpions, ants, roaches and, finally, fleas. Cats, dogs and sheep found shelter under the tree's kind branches. Damien settled in comfortably. A large rock on the side of the tree served as his dinner table. During these first weeks the new missionary took normal precautions to avoid contagion.

With the lepers' help, Damien added the rear wing to Molokai's chapel. He also built the rectory (left). The priest was a skillful carpenter. No construction project daunted him.

But if Damien protected his body, there was nothing he could do to protect his eyes or ears or sense of smell from the shock of contact with the leper. Here at Kalawao, the priest had opened a door to hell. Victims of the disease were all about him, their bodies in ruins, their faces ravaged and smashed by the coracious bacillus of leprosy. The constant coughing of the sick was the colony's most familiar sound. Gathering up his enormous resources of courage, Damien began to approach the lepers one by one. Their breath was fetid; their bodies, already in a state of corruption, exuded a most foul odor. One of his first visits was to a young girl. He had found that worms had eaten her whole side.

"Many a time," he wrote as he recalled these first days, "in fulfilling my priestly duties at the lepers' homes, I have been obliged, not only to close my nostrils, but to remain outside to breathe fresh air. To counteract the bad smell, I got myself accustomed to the use of tobacco. The smell of the pipe preserved me somewhat from carrying in my clothes the obnoxious odor of our lepers."

Molokai was a colony of shame, peopled by lost souls and smashed bodies. Medical care was minimal. Even if decent care were provided, Hawaiians distrusted the white man's medicine, preferring their own witch doctors, or kahuna. White doctors sporadically appeared at government expense.    These physicians lived in terror of contagion. One doctor examined lepers' wounds by lifting their bandages with his cane. Another left medicine on a table where lepers could collect it without touching him.

Life was grotesque on Molokai. Ambrose Hutchinson, a veteran of half a century in the colony, describes an incident in the settlement's early days. "A man, his face partly covered below the eyes, with a white rag or handkerchief tied behind his head, came out from the house that stood near the road. He was pushing a wheelbarrow loaded with a bundle, which, at first, I mistook for soiled rags. He wheeled it across the yard to a small windowless shack.... The man then half turned over the wheelbarrow and shook it. The bundle (instead of rags it was a human being) rolled out on the floor with an agonizing groan. The fellow turned the wheelbarrow around and wheeled it away, leaving the sick man lying there helpless. After a while the dying man raised and pushed himself in the doorway; with his body and his legs stretched out, he lay there face down."

Molokai was a chamber of horrors. But the Hawaiian government (which at this time was independent of the United States and headed by native royalty) had not planned it that way.

Plans Gone Awry

The Board of Health had put much thought into the leper settlement's establishment. It chose Molokai because its geography was ideal for enforcing the isolation and segregation policy. Like other Hawaiian islands, Molokai was formed by a volcanic eruption from the ocean floor. As the fires under the crust of the earth exploded upward, Molokai rose out of the sea, a spectacular palisade reaching three to four thousand feet above the ocean. A later eruption within the high island poured hot lava into the sea. The volcanic flow piled up until it formed a shelf at the base of Molokai's high cliffs. This peninsula sticks out into the ocean like a dirty brown furrowed tongue. There is no way to leave the peninsula except to plunge into the ocean or to climb up the huge vertical precipice surrounding the peninsula on three sides. The Board of Health knew that the peninsula was a natural prison, for no one suffering the ravages of leprosy could possibly scale the cliffs surrounding the colony. Most of Molokai's non-leper population lived on the high plateau which embraces more than ninety percent of the island's land area. The leper colony was established at Kalawao on a part of the peninsula described above.

Molokai's first lepers lived on, died on, and were buried in their mats. Authorities expected these poor people, weakened and crippled by their disease, to till the rich soil, raise cattle, and feed themselves. At first the government provided a few miserable grass huts for shelter. Abandoned lepers perished from hunger and cold.

Molokai's palisades are covered with heavy green vegetation.    Great cataracts of water from the frequent rainstorms that lash Molokai, plunge down her cliffsides. At certain seasons of the year, winds carrying chill and dampness, cascade down from the mountains onto the leper colony. Huddled in their flimsy huts, the lepers suffer grievously from the cold. "A heavy windstorm," Damien reported after arrival, "blew down most of the rotten abodes, and many a weakened leper lay in the wind and rain with his blanket and wet clothing."

Father Damien was deeply moved by leper children. He struggled to preserve them from the physical and moral corruption of Molokai.

Damien's Colony Of Death

At the outset of his mission Damien aimed to restore in each leper a sense of personal worth and dignity. To show his poor battered flock the value of their lives, he had to demonstrate to them the value of their deaths. And so he turned his attention first to the cemetery area beside his little chapel. He fenced it around to protect the graves from the pigs, dogs, and other scavengers. He constructed coffins and dug graves. He organized the lepers into the Christian Burial Association to provide decent burial for each deceased. The organization arranged for the requiem Mass, the proper funeral ceremonies, and sponsored a musical group that played during the funeral procession.

Damien continued to minister to the sick, bringing the Sacraments of confession and Holy Communion and annointing bedridden lepers. He washed their bodies, bandaged their wounds and tidied their rooms and beds. He did all he could to make them as comfortable as possible.

He encouraged lepers to help him in all his activities. With their assistance he built everything from coffins to cottages. He constructed the rectory, built a home for the lepers' children. When the colony expanded along the peninsula to Kalaupapa, he hustled the lepers into construction of a good road between Kalawao and Kalaupapa. Under his direction, lepers blasted rocks at the Kalaupapa shoreline and opened a decent docking facility. Damien taught his people to farm, to raise animals, to play musical instruments, to sing. He watched with pride as the leper bands he organized marched up and down playing the music Hawaiians love so well. No self-pity in this colony. Damien's cheerful disposition and desire to serve touched the lepers' hearts without patronizing or bullying them. Little by little their accomplishments restored the sense of dignity their illness threatened to destroy.

Under Damien's vigorous lead, a sense of dignity and joy—and order replaced Molokai's despair and lawlessness. Neat, painted cottages, many of which the priest himself constructed, replaced the colony's miserable shacks.

He harried the government authorities. In their eyes he was "obstinate, headstrong, brusk and officious." Joseph Dutton later on speaks of him as "vehement and excitable in regard to matters that did not seem to him right, and he sometimes said and did things that he afterwards regretted..., but he had a true desire to do right, to bring about what he thought was best. No doubt he erred sometimes in judgement.... In certain periods he got along smoothly with everyone, and at times he was urgent for improvements. In some cases he made for confusion, as various government authorities would not agree with him."

In all things his lepers came first. It would be a mistake, however, to think of Damien as a single-minded fanatic. He was a human being who was quick to smile, of pleasant disposition, of open and frank countenance.

No one could deny that he was a headstrong person. But no one who knew him could deny that he was a man of warm and tender heart. He quickly forgave injuries and never bore a    grudge.

Charles Warren Stoddard, an American writer, first visited Molokai in 1868, five years before Damien's arrival. He returned in 1884. In place of the miserable huts of the colony's beginning, Stoddard now found two villages of white houses, surrounded by flower gardens and cultivated fields. Molokai boasted a decent hospital, a graveyard, and two orphanages filled with children. But what delighted Stoddard most of all was that the men and women, instead of rotting in the slime, awaiting death, were out horseback-riding.

In 1888, the Englishman Edward Clifford visited Damien. "I had gone to Molokai expecting to find it scarcely less dreadful than hell itself," Clifford wrote, "and the cheerful people, the lovely landscapes, and comparatively painless life were all suprises. These poor people seemed singularly happy."

Clifford asked lepers if they missed not being back home. They replied, "Oh, no! We're well off here. The government watches over us, the superintendent is good, and we like our pastor. He builds our houses himself, he gives us tea, biscuits, sugar and clothes. He takes good care of us and doesn't let us want for anything."

The Holy Man

Damien was completely aware of the Hawaiians' childlike nature. Simple, generous, hospitable people, the Hawaiians were most attractive. They remained, however, children of Adam and could be licentious, lazy, and, at times, mean-spirited. Damien was not blind to their defects. Ambrose Hutchinson describes the immorality that continued to plague the colony despite Damien's best efforts.

Drinkers and dancers met in a remote area of the leper settlement called "the crazy pen." From time to time Damien    raided this scabrous spot, and with his walking stick he broke up dancing and knocked over the liquor bottles. Hutchinson writes: "The hilarious feasters made a quick getaway from the place through the back door to escape Damien's big stick. He would not hesitate to lay it on good and hard on the poor hapless one who happened to come within reach of his cane."

His disciplinary measures did not hurt church attendance. The lepers came to St. Philomena's in such numbers that he had to enlarge the chapel. But even expanded facilities could not contain the worshipers. On Sundays, overflow crowds peered through the church windows to participate in the divine services.

Visitors never forgot the sights and sounds of a Sunday Mass at St. Philomena's Chapel. Damien, clear-eyed and devout, stood at the altar. Strong, muscular, a picture of vitality and health, the priest's face was kind and his concern for the people evident. His lepers gathered around him on the altar. Some were blind. They constantly coughed and expectorated. The odor was overpowering. Yet Damien never once wavered or showed his disgust. Damien placed, of all things, poor boxes in the church. Because the blind often missed the slot, the pastor placed a little bell inside the    poor box. When the sightless leper's coin had dropped safely    into the box, the bell rang.

Hawaiians love to sing, and St. Philomena's choir had no shortage of candidates. Because leprosy often attacked vocal cords, leper voices produced peculiar sounds. Nevertheless, the choir sang joyfully.

Damien's life was suffused with horror, yet he refused to be broken by it and refused to permit his little flock to be swept into despair. He ran foot races for the sports-loving lepers, even though some of them had no feet. He formed a band, even though some had few fingers to play the instruments. One witness reported two organists who played at the same time, managing ten fingers between them.

Damien—A World Figure

News of Damien's deeds spread from Hawaii to Europe to America. The priest of Molokai became front-page news. Funds poured in from all over the world. An Anglican priest,    Reverend Hugh Chapman, organized, through the help of the    London Times, a highly successful fund drive. Damien's notoriety and fund-raising drew the ire of the Hawaiian government and his own religious superiors. Both accused him of playing the press for his own selfish reasons. The government was unhappy, because it felt Damien's begging gave the Hawaiian effort to combat leprosy a bad image. Walter Gibson, Prime Minister of the Hawaiian king, felt that his government was most generous toward the lepers. It was spending fifty thousand dollars a year, which represented five percent of its total taxes, on leper care. No other government in the world could point to such a proud health-care record.

The superiors of the Sacred Hearts mission were distressed because they felt Damien was giving the Congregation's Fathers and Brothers a bad image. The press made it seem as    if he were the only Sacred Hearts missionary willing to serve the colony. His superiors knew this was not true. And they took it as an affront to the whole Congregation. His superiors further accused Damien of being a "loner" because of his unhappy relationship with the three assistants they had sent him at different times. In all fairness, it probably is true that no one else could have lived with any of the three priests. But no one was more irritated by Damien's fame than Hawaii's Yankee missionaries.

Stern Puritan divines felt leprosy was the inevitable result of the Hawaiian people's licentiousness. In their puritanical judgement the Hawaiian people were corrupt and debased. The segregation policy would have to be enforced to hasten the inevitable physical and moral collapse of the essentially rotten Hawaiian culture. There were medical doctors who were so convinced of an essential connection between leprosy and sexual immorality that they insisted that leprosy could be spread only through sexual contact.

When Damien entered his prison at Molokai, he had to make a decision. He believed that the Hawaiians were basically good and not essentially corrupt. And now he had to show them belief, regardless of the price. Thus, somewhere during the first part of his stay he made the dread decision to set aside his fear of contagion. He touched his lepers, he embraced them, he dined with them, he cleaned and bandaged    their wounds and sores. He placed the host upon their battered mouths. He put his thumb on their forehead when he annointed them with the holy oil. All these actions involved touch. Touch is, of course, necessary if one is to communicate love and concern. The Hawaiians instinctively knew this. And that is why the Hawaiians shrank from the Yankee divines. Although these Yankee religious leaders expended much money on their mission endeavors, few Hawaiians joined their churches. The islanders sensed the contempt in which the puritan minds held them.

On this altar which he constructed, Father Damien celebrated    Mass each day. From the Eucharist, the priest drew strength    to continue his lonely and perilous mission. After leprosy claimed him, and he entered into his "peculiar Golgotha," he found his deepest consolation and hope in the Mass.

Damien was not, as we have noted, blind to the Hawaiians' very real faults. Many Hawaiians, by their irregular sexual habits, greatly contributed to the spread of leprosy. But Damien knew that was not the only way the disease was communicated. Above all, he rejected the insufferable notion that God had laid this disease as a curse upon these people, to wipe them off the face of the earth. Damien hated leprosy. He didn't see it as a tool of a vengeful God. He saw it as a suffering that man must eliminate. God loved the leper. No man had the right to scorn him.

Thus, very early in his apostolate at Molokai, Damien was impelled to identify himself as closely as possible with his lepers. Long before he had the disease, he spoke of himself and the people of Molokai as "we lepers." Six months after his arrival at Kalawao he wrote his brother in Europe: "...I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ. That is why, in preaching, I say 'we lepers'; not, 'my brethren....'"

Damien embraced the leper but not leprosy. He lived in great    dread of the disease. When he first experienced leprosy's symptomatic itching, while still a missionary at Kohala, some years before he went to Molokai, he knew then that the loathing diseased threatened him. Even when the disease had run a good bit of its brutal course through his body, he still at times seemed to refuse to admit he was a victim. But leprosy finally claimed him. It was the final price God exacted from Damien to show his sense of community and oneness with his poor afflicted flock.

Some said there was a connection between leprosy and venereal disease. In order to witness against those who claimed leprosy could only be spread by sexual contact, Damien submitted to the indignity of having his blood and body examined in detail after he had contracted the disease. Doctor Arning, a world-famous specialist in the disease, reported, after examination, that Damien had no sign of syphilis. In a signed statement dictated to Brother Joseph Dutton, his co-worker, Damien wrote, "I have never had sexual intercourse with anyone whomsoever."

History has borne out the wisdom of Damien's decision to take these embarrassing measures. Shortly after Damien's death, a Yankee divine of Honolulu, Doctor Charles McEwen Hyde, bitterly attacked the priest's moral life. The good clergyman opined that Damien got leprosy because he was licentious.

Father Damien was not lacking defenders. In a magnificent statement, Robert Louis Stevenson, who had visited Molokai after Damien's death, rose to champion the priest's cause. The author's defense of Damien rested upon the complete sacrifice the man made of his life. A sacrifice no Yankee missionary in Hawaii had duplicated.

The Knight Commander

The Hawaiian government decorated Father Damien with the    Cross of the Royal Order of Kalakaua (above, left). The priest accepted the award but rarely wore the medal. In later stages of his own illness, Damien remarked, "The Lord decorated me with his own particular cross—leprosy."

If some white missionaries scorned Father Damien, most Hawaiians loved him. In September 1881, Hawaiian Princess    Liliuokalani visited Molokai. The Princess, moved deeply by    the lepers' suffering, was unable to give the speech she had prepared. Leaving Molokai with a broken heart, she returned    to Honolulu and requested Father Damien to accept the Hawaiian Order of Knight Commander of the Royal Order of    Kalakaua in recognition of his "efforts in alleviating the distress and mitigating the sorrows of the unfortunate." With pleasure, Damien accepted the award. He felt it would bring attention to his lepers. There were many Americans, too, both in Hawaii and on the mainland, who recognized the work that Damien was doing and who sent, with characteristic American generosity, funds and other forms of help to him. In Honolulu, American Protestants were among his most generous benefactors. Opening their hearts and their purses to Damien, they sent him food, medicines, clothing, and all sorts of help for his mission.

My Insupportable Melancholy

Damien was alone of the frontier of death. His loneliness oppressed him. He speaks of his "black thoughts" and the "insupportable melancholy that arose from his lack of religious companionship." The Board of Health remonstrated    with him because, ignoring the isolation policy, he climbed up and down the palisades to build chapels and to bring the Sacraments to the healthy people who dwelt on Molokai's plateau. His superiors were displeased with his trips to Honolulu. They felt he gave bad example in the face of the government's policy on segregation of lepers. Furthermore, two Sacred Hearts Fathers, laboring in other parts of the Hawaiian Islands, had contracted leprosy. The superiors did not want to force them to Molokai. They felt that Damien, by leaving the colony, might just precipitate a government crackdown.

He continually begged his superiors for a confrere, not only to assist him in the ever-mounting work, but also to provide spiritual comfort for him. He hungered above all for a priestly companion to whom he could confess and receive the Sacrament of Penance. His writings reveal his concern that he would forget the true purpose of his life. In a little notebook, he counseled himself: "Be severe toward yourself, indulgent toward others. Have scrupulous exactitude for everything regarding God: prayer, meditation, Mass, administration of the Sacraments. Unite your heart with God.... Remember always your three vows, by which you are dead to the things of the world. Remember always that God is eternal and work courageously in order one day to be united with him forever."

During one time when the isolation policy was being strictly enforced, a ship's captain, reacting to the government's orders, forbade Damien's bishop to disembark on Molokai. In order to see the bishop, Damien sailed out to the boat. The captain refused Damien's request to board. The priest pleaded in vain with the captain, saying that he wanted to confess his sins. "Bishop," the priest called to the boat, "will you hear my confession from here?" The bishop consented, and Damien in an exercise of humility that touched all who witnessed it, confessed his sins aloud to the bishop.

Damien The Leper

One day in December, 1884, while soaking his feet in extremely hot water, Father De Veuster experienced no sensation of heat or pain. The evil disease he had battled for so long now claimed him. In his last years he engaged in a flurry of activity. He hastened to complete his many building projects, enlarge his orphanages, organize his work. Help came from four unexpected sources. A priest, a soldier, a male nurse, and a nun. The soldier, Joseph Dutton, was the most unusual man. He had survived Civil War combat, a broken marriage, several years of hard drinking, to show up on Molokai's shores in July, 1886. He stayed forty-five years without ever leaving the colony. He served the lepers of the Baldwin Home for Boys. Joseph was never seriously ill until just before his death in 1931. He was just short of eighty-eight. Another layman, James Sinnett, a man who had a colorful and checkered career, during which he gained some experience in nursing in Mercy Hospital, Chicago, came to Molokai eight months before Father Damien died. The leper priest called him "Brother James." He nursed Father Damien during the final phase of his illness, and closed his eyes in death. During the last days of Damien's life, Sinnett served as his secretary. He was faithful to the very end, and when Damien died, Sinnett left the colony. Nothing was heard from him thereafter.

Father Louis-Lambert Conrardy, a fellow Belgian, joined Father Damien May 17, 1888. Archbishop William Gross of    Oregon generously permitted Father Conrardy to leave his own priest-poor area to labor in Molokai. Archbishop Gross wrote of Conrardy: "I have trampled all over Oregon with Father Conrardy and he is a noble, heroic man.... Though he knows and realizes perfectly that he might succomb to the disease, his voluntary going is real heroism." Conrardy and Damien joined in their unreserved dedication to the lepers. Along with this, Conrardy provided the spiritual and social companionship that Damien so desperately craved.

The Sister who now offered at this critical junction support for Damien and his work, was Mother Marianne Kopp, Superior of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse, New York, who served the Honolulu leper hospital. Damien requested Mother Marianne to send Sisters to care for the girls' orphanage at Molokai. Damien promised her that not one of her Sisters would ever be afflicted with leprosy. The Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse are still at Molokai. To this day, not one of them has ever contracted leprosy.

Damien's Last Days

In October, 1885, Damien wrote his superior, Father Leonor Fouesnel, in the Hawaiian Islands: "I am a leper. Blessed be the good God. I only ask one favor of you. Send someone to this tomb to be my confessor." (This was three years before Conrardy's arrival.) He wrote his General in Rome, "I have been decorated by the royal Cross of Kalakaua and now the heavier and less honorable cross of leprosy. Our Lord has willed that I be stigmatized with it.... I am still up and taking care of myself a little. I will keep on working...."

The announcement that Damien had leprosy hit his own religious superiors, Father Fouesnel and his bishop, Hermann Koeckemann, like a thunderbolt. Damien was the third Sacred Hearts missionary stricken with leprosy. To prevent further infection, Father Fouesnel forbade Damien to visit the mission headquarters of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in Honolulu. "If you come," Father Superior advised Damien, "you will be relegated to a room which you are not to leave until your departure." Father Fouesnel suggested that if Damien insisted on coming to Honolulu, he stay at the    Franciscan Sisters' leper hospital. "But if you go there," the superior counseled, "please do not say Mass. For neither Father Clement nor I will consent to celebrate Mass with the    same chalice and the same vestments you have used. The Sisters will refuse to receive Holy Communion from your hands." One can understand the superior's concern. But Damien was being forced, nevertheless, to consume the bitter    wine of loneliness to its dregs. He now knew not only the physical sufferings of Christ but the harrowing loneliness and abandonment of his Savior. Damien did go to Honolulu and remained at the leprosarium from July 10 to 16. It was during the time that he arranged with Mother Marianne to come to Molokai. He spoke of his rejection by his own as "the greatest suffering he had ever endured in his life."

The Sorrowful Mother

Catherine De Veuster, Damien's mother, had lived all these years on the occasional letters he wrote to her from Molokai. He had tried to keep her from the news of his leprosy. But inevitably she found out. Someone advised her that the newspapers said, "the flesh of the leper priest of Molokai was falling off in hunks." It was too much for Catherine. Now eighty-three years of age, a widow for thirteen years, the shock of the sufferings of her son broke her old heart. On April 5, 1886, about four in the afternoon, turning her eyes for the last time toward the image of the Blessed Mother and the picture of her son, she bowed her head in that direction and died calmly and peacefully.

Doctor Mouritz, medical attendant at Molokai, charted the progress of the physical dissolution of Damien's body. He writes: "The skin of the abdomen, chest, the back, are beginning to show tubercles, masses of infiltration.... The membranes of the nose, roof of the mouth, pharynx, and larynx are involved; the skin of his cheeks, nose, lips, forehead, and chin are excessively swollen.... His body is becoming emaciated."

An ever-deepening mental distress accompanied Damien's physical dissolution. A severe depression, as well as religious scruples, now plagued the leper priest. Damien felt he was unworthy of heaven. The rejection by his religious superiors left him in near disarray. Once he claimed: "From the rest of the world I received gold and frankincense, but from my own superiors myrrh" (a bitter herb). His superiors complained about Father Conrardy's presence on Molokai. Conrardy was not a religious of the Sacred Hearts, and they felt that Damien had encouraged his presence there as a reproach to their ineffectual efforts to provide him with a companion. Soon after Damien's death, the Sacred Hearts superiors maneuvered Father Conrardy out of the colony.

As death approached, Father Damien engaged in a flurry of activity. He worked as much as his wounded and broken body would permit him. He wrote his bishop, entreating not to be dispensed from the obligation of the Breviary, which he continued to recite as best he could as his eyes failed. The    disease invading his windpipe progressed to such an extent that it kept him from sleeping more than an hour or two at night. His voice was reduced to a raucous whisper. Leprosy was in his throat, his lungs, his stomach, and his intestines. After ravaging his body outwardly, it was now destroying him from within.

As the end drew near, there were priests of his own Congregation to hear his confession. They had come with the    Franciscan Sisters. On March 30, one of them, a Father Moellers, heard Damien's last confession. The leper priest had requested a funeral pall, which the Sisters made from him and delivered from Honolulu. It arrived the same day. Two more weeks of suffering, and on April 15, 1889, Damien died. It was Holy Week. Some weeks before, Damien had said that the Lord wanted him to spend Easter in heaven.

Once he had written, "The cemetery, the church and rectory form one enclosure; thus at nighttime I am still keeper of this garden of the dead, where my spiritual children lie at rest. My greatest pleasure is to go there to say my by beads and meditate on that unending happiness which so many of them are enjoying." And now it was his turn to occupy a little plot of ground in "his garden of the dead."

He no longer meditated on that unending happiness, but now    most surely possessed it. Long ago he had selected the precise spot for his grave amid the two thousand lepers buried in Molokai cemetery. Coffin bearers laid him to rest under his pandanus tree. It was the same tree that had sheltered him the day he read those fateful words: "You may    stay as long as your devotion dictates...." Source: EWTN

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