Saint Damien of Molokai

Leprosy has a long history in Scripture and beyond. If you are familiar with the story of Jesus’ encounter with the leper (Luke 5:12-16), or the story of the ten lepers that we hear around Thanksgiving (Luke 17:11-19), you can picture the scene. Lepers in Jesus’ time were required to announce themselves ‘unclean’ to provide fair warning to friends and strangers to keep their distance from their contagious disease. To have been diagnosed with leprosy in Biblical times was a social and emotional death sentence with no hope for physical reprieve. 

So it is no wonder why the leperous man is bold in his request to be healed of his infirmity:

‘“Lord, if you wish, you can make me clean.” Jesus stretched out his hand, touched him, and said, “I do will it. Be made clean.” And the leprosy left him immediately. (Luke 5:12-13)

In both encounters with the lepers in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus’ proximity to those who had been infected was scandalous! In a culture that took purity laws very seriously, this was no small thing.

Fast forward almost two millennia, and things hadn’t changed all that much

An outbreak of leprosy had gotten so bad in Hawaii, that by 1866 the island of Moloka'i was designated as a leper colony. Those suffering from the disease were arrested and sent to live a life separate from society. Several times a year, boats would dock to deliver persons as young as 13 to the colony (without their consent), for the protection of others. In total, nearly 8,000 people were sent to Kalaupapa leper colony, as it later came to be known.

Model of Saint Damian?

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, Jozef de Veuster of Belgium was in formation as a priest in the order of the congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, where he took the name, Damien. Around the same time, the order received a request for priests to serve the people of the Hawaiian islands. Damien’s brother had been selected to serve in this way but due to an illness acquired before departing on this mission, Damien was chosen to go in his place.

Damien arrived in Hawaii in the spring of 1864 and was ordained two months later. His first several years were spent catechizing and building churches—having no connection at all to the leper colony. It wasn’t until 1873 that Father Damien was among those asked to serve the colony of lepers. As providence would have it, he was the first to volunteer for the dangerous assignment. 

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‘My fellow lepers’

At the beginning of his assignment, he was encouraged not to touch or eat with the men and women he served, advice that he did not follow for long. There had been discussion of rotating priests so that no one was exposed to the disease for any length of time. Instead, Father Damien trusted that the Lord would protect him from the disease of leprosy as long as the Lord needed him, aware of course that his loss of health would immediately affect the work of the mission. As it turned out, Father Damien faithfully served the lepers of Kalaupapa for eleven years before contracting the disease himself. One account of his response to this surprising turn of events was that rather than addressing his congregation at Mass as ‘My dear lepers,’ he greeted them instead as, ‘My fellow lepers.’

Father Damien did what many feared to do, and suffered the consequences that many feared he would. However, he did it with the same mercy and tenderness that we see in Jesus’ encounter with the lepers. Not keeping them at arm's length out of self-protection, but living among them, making the Sacraments available, and ultimately dignifying their lives (and deaths) in ways that the world around him was not accustomed to doing.

‘Look for the sources’

While many have critiqued Saint Damien’s motives for serving the leper colony, Mahatma Gandhi had this to say of him: "The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Moloka'i. It is worthwhile to look for the sources of such heroism." Gandhi was deeply moved by the life and solidarity that Saint Damien lived while serving in the leper colony (M.S. Mehendale’s 1971 account, Gandhi Looks at Leprosy).

Look for the source, indeed! The source of Father Damien’s great tenderness toward the lepers is clear. Not only did his ministry shape the care of those suffering from leprosy worldwide, but his care for those who had been removed from everything they knew and loved, to suffer physical effects in isolation, was compassionate. His example to enter into the suffering of the people he loved was Christ-like.

Passing the baton

By the time Father Damien was too ill to serve, he was accompanied by a group of Franciscan women from Syracuse, New York, who had also accepted a call to serve the lepers of Moloka'i. Among these women was Sister Marianne Cope. She accompanied Father Damien as he died, and afterward the Franciscans took up his banner and carried on the work he had begun. Despite her many years of service to the people living on Moloka'i, Sister Marianne never contracted the disease. Saint Marianne Cope was canonized in 2012, making her the eleventh American to be named a saint. Both are deeply honored by the Church and the country for the self-sacrificing nature of their work serving the ‘untouchables’ of Hawaii during a time of need and great fear.

Saints Damien and Marianne of Moloka'i, pray for us!