Feast day: 10 May
Saint Damien of Molokai
A Belgian missionary priest who volunteered to live among the exiled lepers of Molokai, rebuilt their community in dignity, contracted the disease himself and died among them.
Celebrated on 15 April in Hawaii and Belgium.
- Born
- 3 January 1840, Tremelo (Belgium)
- Died
- 15 April 1889, Kalaupapa, Molokai (Hawaii)
- Canonization
- Beatified 4 June 1995 by John Paul II; canonized 11 October 2009 by Pope Benedict XVI.
- Religious order
- Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
- Country
- Belgium and Hawaii
Biography
From Flanders to the Pacific
Jozef De Veuster, a farmer's son, entered the Sacred Hearts Fathers taking the name Damien and replaced his sick brother on the mission to the Hawaiian Islands, arriving in 1864 and being ordained in Honolulu.
Kalaupapa
The kingdom of Hawaii deported those with leprosy to the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa, where they lived without law, medicine or burial. In 1873 Damien volunteered. He dressed ulcers, built houses, coffins and a water system, organised farms, schools and choirs, and insisted the sick be treated as persons, not corpses.
'We lepers'
In 1884 he discovered he had contracted the disease and began his sermons with 'We lepers'. He worked four more years, joined at last by helpers including Saint Marianne Cope, and died on 15 April 1889 aged forty-nine. His body was returned to Belgium in 1936; his right hand was reburied at Kalaupapa in 1995.
Timeline
- 1840 — Born at Tremelo, Belgium
- 1864 — Arrives in Hawaii and is ordained priest
- 1873 — Volunteers for the leper settlement of Molokai
- 1884 — Diagnosed with leprosy
- 1889 — Dies at Kalaupapa on 15 April
- 2009 — Canonized by Benedict XVI
Dates marked ~ are traditional or debated among historians.
Symbols
Wide-brimmed hat and cassock — The missionary of the Pacific.
Wounded hands — The disease he took on with those he served.
Virtues & spiritual lessons
Self-sacrificing charity, physical courage, perseverance in isolation and refusal to separate himself from the excluded.
Importance in the Church
A universally admired model of solidarity with the outcast, honoured even by non-Catholics such as Mahatma Gandhi, and patron invoked for those rejected because of illness.
Quotes
“We lepers…”
Opening of his sermons from 1885 onwards
“I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.”
Letter to his brother Pamphile, 1873
Prayers
Prayer to Saint Damien
Saint Damien of Molokai, you left home and health to live among those whom the world had exiled. Give us your courage to draw near to the rejected, your tenderness in serving the sick, and your joy in the Eucharist that sustained you. Amen.
Prayer used in the Diocese of Honolulu.
Places
Kalaupapa, Molokai — The settlement where he served and where his right hand is buried.
Saint Anthony's Church, Leuven — Where his body rests in Belgium.
Entries are drawn from the Roman Martyrology, the General Roman Calendar, canonization records of the Holy See, and the saints' own writings. Where a date, quotation or attribution is uncertain, it is marked as such. (63 saints)