Over the years I learned a little more about the man, enough to have him become a hero to me. I recently read Damien the Leper by John Farrow. This book further established that notion.
He was born Josef De Veuster in Belgium, but when he became a priest, yes, a Catholic Priest, he changed his name to Damien. He was sent to Hawai’i as a missionary and was serving effectively on the Big Island when he heard about Molokai. Actually, he was attending a conference, heard the need for someone to minister to the lepers exiled to Molokai and volunteered himself.
At the time, this leper colony was a hopeless, lawless place. Leprosy was spreading like a plague and lepers were being rounded up, dropped off, and left to die. Damien knew that by going to this place, he would contract leprosy and die himself. Still, he went.
He visited them, cared for them, washed their open sores, built their houses, built a chapel, fed them, ate with them, created an orderly society, built their coffins (probably, nearly a thousand!) and dug their graves, and buried them. All of these lepers were Hawaiians. He was the only white man among them. Yet, he was so beloved by these folk that he was given a Hawaiian name, Kamiano.
I am not ashamed to act as mason or carpenter, when it is for the glory of God. These ten years I have been on the mission I have built a church or chapel every year. The habit I had at home of practising different kinds of work, is of immense use to me here." - Father Damien in a letter to his parents.
Listen to a leper describing him, "He overwhelms us with his...care, and he himself builds our houses. When any one of us is ill, he gives him tea, biscuits and sugar; and to the poor he gives clothes."
Damien is to me a hero, a person to look up to and emulate.
I know, there may be people thinking, “But, he was Catholic.” And others, even more strongly, “He was a stinking Catholic! You know how those Catholics believe all that heretical stuff. He was probably trying to earn his salvation by going to Molokai. Catholics are like that, y’know.” There were people in his own day who offered the same objections.
I only see out of one eye, but I am not so blind as to know that he and I might have disagreed on some things. But, listen to his heart:
I wish to give myself unconditionally to the poor lepers. The harvest appears to be ripe here. Pray, and ask others to pray both for me and for all.
My greatest pleasure is to serve the Lord in his poor children rejected by other people.
I make myself a leper with the lepers to gain all to Jesus Christ.
Here was a man who was full of the love of God. His love for Jesus moved him to give his life for these lepers.
Queen Liliuokalani spent a day visiting him in Molokai. As she was preparing to return to Honolulu, she told Damien it was hard to believe anyone should stay in this tragic place of his own free will.
“It is my work. You see, Madame, they are my parishioners.”
“Your parishioners . . . and my people.”
He led a worship service every morning. He usually began with, “My brethren…” one morning he began the service, “We lepers…” He had so identified himself with them that he now had leprosy and he eventually died of it.
Having no doubts about the true nature of the disease, I am calm, resigned, and very happy in the midst of my people. God certainly knows what is best for my sanctification and I gladly repeat: ‘Thy will be done.’
He was a man and had his own peculiar faults etc. but I don’t know that I have ever even met anyone as full of the love of God as he was. One of the charges against him was “he had fallen into something of the ways and habits of thought of a Kanaka” – that is, he lived and ate like a Hawaiian. He became one of them. I think this is more a compliment!
Eventually, Damien died of leprosy. He gave his life in loving service to the Lord and for these people. What an example! I fully expect Damien to shine brightly in the kingdom of Christ. Because of all his work and sacrifice? No, because of the grace of God. And it was this very grace that empowered him to labor so abundantly. He is a testimony to grace as well as a trophy of grace.
What an interesting post a couple of days before Christmas, yet, I think a fitting one. Christmas is the celebration of the love of God and the gift of His Son. Damien is the story of a man who knew that love and lived out that gift.
Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.
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