May 10. Father Damien. A young man named Pamphille prepared for ministry and intended to serve in Hawaii, but when the time came, he was who was too ill to go. His younger brother went to serve in Hawaii in Pamphille’s stead. That younger brother came to be known as Father Damien.
When he heard about the miserable condition of lepers on the island of Molokai, he volunteered to serve there. And he spent the next eight years trying to get permission to go to Molokai and ministering on the big island of Hawaii. On this date in 1873, Father Damien arrived at the leper colony of Kalaupapa on Molokai.
For the next sixteen years, he lived among the lepers and provided spiritual, emotional, and physical comfort.
While on the island, Father Damien founded schools, orphanages, bands, and choirs. He improved food and water supplies, developed better housing conditions, and planted trees. In 1884, Father Damien contracted leprosy, and he died from it in five years later. This is his story.
Whatever you’ve got to give, give it freely. Give it often. Give it all.
In 1866, the Hawaiian government forced everyone with leprosy to move to the remote island Molokai. The place became a colony of lepers, forgotten and herded together like cattle with Mad Cow Disease.
Life on the island was thick with hopelessness. The people suffering from this nerve-killing disease knew death would take them, so morality just didn’t matter. The island turned lawless and brutal. The strong overpowered the weak, and women and children were often horribly mistreated.
Into this abyss of suffering, Father Damien wanted to serve. He’d already spent nine years in Hawaii trying to get permission before he was finally allowed to go to Molokai.
And by the time he arrived, things had gotten so bad that all the men and women with leprosy thought of themselves as less than human. They believed they weren’t worthy of love.
Father Damien began to give the lepers all he had.
At first, he looked down on the lepers, too. But he soon discovered that a leper’s awful self-concept could be changed. These people, who nobody would dare touch, needed Father Damien’s healing hand.
He walked past the already dead—rotting bodies on the ground that gave off a repulsive order. And he realized that for the lepers to have dignity in their lives, they had to have dignity in their deaths. So, he established a decent cemetery and burial procedures.
Over time, he talked about the lepers he worked with as “his sons and daughters.” Father Damien became part of their community. He touched the lepers often, even though his supervisors in the church told him not to. He hugged his sons and daughters and kissed them. He bathed their wounds. He put his thumb on their foreheads and blessed them. Father Damien knew to touch their souls, he had to touch their bodies.
One day, Father Damien filled a bucket with hot water to wash his feet. When he lowered his feet into the water, he felt no heat. He knew this meant he had contracted the disease. In one of his last letters to his brother in Europe, he wrote, “I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ. That is why, in preaching, I say ‘we lepers’…”
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God – this is your true and proper worship” (Romans 12:1 NIV).
Here’s a challenge for you: what can you do to offer God your body as a living sacrifice today? Whatever you’ve got to give, give it freely. Give it often. Give it all.
The Editors of Encyclopedia Britannica. “St. Damien of Molokai.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica.com. April 11, 2020 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Saint-Damien-of-Molokai.
“Father Damien.” National Park Service. Accessed August 7, 2020.
https://www.nps.gov/kala/learn/historyculture/damien.htm.
http://www.nps.gov/kala/learn/historyculture/damien.htm
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2016/05/04/the-suffering-and-faith-of-saint-damien-of-molokai/
Story read by Blake Mattocks