Joseph de Veuster to Saint Damien the Leper

The Leper Colony

Today Molokai Island is a delightful tourist attraction and part of the American paradise. In the order of size, it's the 5th largest Hawaiian island in the chain.  

The Molokai of St. Damien, however, was a dumping ground for over 100 years for those who suffered from leprosy. Lepers were literally thrown over the side of the boat and left to either reach hell on earth or drown in the process. Today however, Hansen’s disease is on the decline and few lepers in Hawaii are no longer banished and forgotten.

Joseph de Veuster (1840-1889), a 19th century Belgian teen, followed his older brother into the priesthood. He chose to take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. Later, he made an even more radical choice, to be the priest in residence to the lepers stuck on Molokai’s Kalaupapa Peninsula which juts out into the ocean in the shape of a thumb. Hemmed in on all sides by towering cliffs, it was a perfect prison. Damien entered it as a spiritual liberator at the age of 33. He did't make it out alive...succombing to the disease at the age of 49. 

The Great Exchange

Catholic Christian spirituality takes many forms of expression, think of all the different charisms in the various religious orders. The one thing they all have in common is centered on a deep and mysterious paradox. In order to gain divine life, you must first lose your earthly life. In order for your soul to soar, your body given in service, must necessarily degrade. The scale, the scope and the intensity of this exchange may look different for different people.

Joseph now called, Damien understood this 'exchange' principle. He wrote,  “... but for us, Christians or religious, who look upon ourselves as exiles here below, and who long only for the dissolution of the body that we may enter our true country, there is, it appears to me, only joy and blessedness in the thought that each moment we get nearer to the last hour of our life”. 

Damien knew the risks of coming into contact with the lepers. At first he took precautions. By doing so he extended the duration of his sacrificial and life-giving mission. He had to know it wouldn’t end well. He too would become a leper and die. Though he was not canonized as a martyr Saint, he actually did do martyrdom, just not all at once. 

Little by little as Damien’s leperous body began to crumble and become distorted, his heart was changing too. This slow change was evident in how he referred to the inhabitants in the leper colony. 

On the eve of his voyage to Hawaii, he wrote letters to his parents about the lepers. Very early in his mission he referred to them as ‘brutes’. “...men who are uncivilized, and, according to some accounts, more like brutes than human beings”.

Upon getting to know the lepers he referred to them as ‘the lepers’. “If it wasn’t for the constant presence of our Lord in the chapel, I could never have endured my lot with the lepers”.  

Then, as he poured himself out day after day, using his strong, stocky and sturdy body to build huts and chapels, dig graves and irrigation channels, bandage wounds and consecrate the Eucharist, he began to change inside. He started to call the lepers his friends. 

After observing nightly adoration in his small handmade chapel, and after being their everything, he began to refer to them as ‘my children’. "So far, my children, you have been left alone and uncared for. But you shall be so no longer”. 

Finally, when his heart was completely won over and his sanctification nearly complete he, like Jesus, became one with his flock by saying ‘we lepers’.  Damien, now known as Saint Damien said, “We lepers observe nightly adoration…”. 

We Lepers

As a way of announcing to his faithful parishioners that he too had contracted the disease, he started his homily with the ominous but beautiful words, “We lepers’. He had completed the exchange. As his broken body became misshapen and distorted, weakened to the point of death, his soul became like a dazzling and radiant gem, hardened by the union with the Eucharist and polished by the sweat of service. 

There’s a well known holy card (above) with two images of St. Damien, in stark contrast, side by side. On the left young, handsome, muscular, newly ordained Father Damien and on the right broken down, leperous, older Saint Damien. Those photos, side by side, are a picture of the exchange. That's what holiness looks like.

In pouring himself out for the lepers through a 16 year slow motion martyrdom, St. Damien exchanged health for sickness, hubris for humility, indifference for love, selfishness for selflessness, and ultimately life for death. 

Feast Day: May 10, Patron Saint of Lepers, St. Damien pray for us!