Jack Voelkel
Father Damien, The Leper Priest (part 1)
Father Damien, the Leper Priest (1840-1889)
Missionary work requires, first and foremost, being prepared for martyrdom…[1]
Say the word “Hawaii,” and what comes to your mind? Lovely beaches, clear blue water, and a vacation dream come true?
Hawaii, created by God as an island paradise became “paradise lost” for its native peoples in the mid 1800s. Waves of foreigners brought a series of new diseases which began to decimate the population and among them the cruelest was leprosy, for which there was no known cure.[2]
The fearful government decided to handle the problem by isolating those afflicted by leprosy to the northern coast of Molokai, choosing a small spit of land hemmed in by sheer cliffs and a pounding, dangerous sea. The infected Hawaiians were sent there as exiles in their own country.
A visiting journalist, Walter Murray Gibson, wrote these prophetic words: “Were a noble Christian priest or pastor to find the inspiration to offer his life to comfort the poor wretches, that noble soul would shine forever on a throne constituted of human love” (Eynikel p. 71).
Whom shall I sent? And who will go for us?
The Catholic Bishop Maigret asked for volunteers from the members of the Sacred Hearts Congregation (a religious order) who would be willing to risk going to Molokai to minister to the destitute lepers, for four months at a time. Four young priests volunteered, and the first to be sent was the Belgian, Father Damien (Joseph de Veuster). He was one of eight children born to religious, lower-middle class tradesmen-farmers. Several of his siblings had responded to God’s call to serve in religious orders. When his brother had been unable to go as a missionary to Hawaii, he had volunteered to go in his place.
Damien had come to Hawaii only four years previously. He took time to become fluent in Hawaiian, gaining access to the hearts of his flock. Now he was volunteering again, little dreaming that his three month stint in Molokai would become his life’s work.
Don’t touch anything!
Before he left for Molokai, Bishop Maigret gave careful instructions to the young missionary to protect him from contracting the dreaded disease.
You must avoid any form of contagion. If they pass around a pipe [a common cultural occurrence] you must refuse it. Above all, you must not join in meals and eat from the communal pot with your fingers, as others do. Even the saddle that a leper has sat upon must be taboo to you, and I forbid you to sleep in the hut of a leper (p. 75).
On the boat to Molokai, Damien could only wonder, as all new missionaries do, “What will await me?” How should I respond? What can I possibly do to help these poor people?”
He was hardly prepared for what he saw. Walking among the living dead, Damien was appalled to see grotesque disfigurement, dire poverty and destitution, and emotional pain. Though considered wards of the State, they were given only one change of clothes. Without health, farm implements, and debilitating physical deformities, they were expected to grow their own food, tilling the rocky, volcanic soil.
There was a hospital, a few medicines, but no resident doctor. (What physician would want to bring his wife and children to such a place!) The male nurse showing Damien the facilities remarked, “We have no enemies here save scabies, vomit, fleas, and lice” (p. 77).
Then he celebrated his first mass in the chapel.
The building was full and it was boiling hot. Damien was confronted with all the physical unpleasantness of leprosy. There were too many people with suppurating sores, so that there was a stench of rotting flesh. Moreover, one of the symptoms of leprosy is that the sufferer salivates excessively. The people were constantly coughing, clearing their throats and spitting on the ground. Damien had to turn away in order not to be sick. He went to the open window, but the building was surrounded by ill people who had not been able to get into the church (p. 75).
But the greatest impact on Damien was his visit to the “dying shed.” It was the custom to place patients in this miserable place when they approached their last moments of life, so as to not demoralize the other sick in the hospital. When he entered, he found a young man who “had been reduced to a quivering bundle beneath a dirty sheet, his pleading eyes staring out from his swollen face” (p. 86). Damien could see the maggots crawling around in the sores in his body.
Although the Bishop had forbidden him to touch the patients, Damien began to stroke the boy’s neck, where the skin was still untainted. Recognizing that he was a believer, the priest spoke to him of Heaven and God’s welcome there, and anointed him. As he prayed for him, a spasm went through the young man’s body and he died in the loving presence of the young priest.
Here am I, send me.
Before his three month assignment was over, Damien came to the conviction that God was calling him to dedicate his life to the people of the leper colony. He wrote to his superiors, “I wish to sacrifice myself for the poor lepers. The harvest here seems ripe” (p. 80). He agreed that this would be his ministry for life.
Damien soon recognized that the exiles were hurt by the fact that he never touched anyone or smoked the communal pipe. He realized that if he really wanted to win their hearts he would have to accept them fully and risk infection. Once contracted, he knew he would die within three or four years. The next time he led the people in worship, therefore, he began his sermon with these words, “We lepers…” Though as yet there was no sign of infection in his body, he considered himself one of them, for Jesus’ sake.
The ministry to which he gave himself had four concerns:
1) The spiritual needs of the lepers. Facing death as they all were, it was easy for them to throw off all moral restraint and squeeze from any source some pleasure before they died, including drunkenness and sexual profligacy. His own vow of celibacy was a constant illustration of his commitment to holiness. Damien founded new congregations where they were needed and built chapels with his own hands. He faced undercover but prevailing witchcraft among the exiles, a legacy of their former religion. He confided to his brother in a letter, “when desperate, the exiles sacrifice to their old gods” (p. 60).
2) The exiles all needed medical care. In addition to leprosy for which there was no known cure,[3] the patients suffered from all kinds of secondary infections: lice and tick infestations, scabies, lung infections, ulcerated sores, diarrhea, coughs, etc. He was instrumental in contributing to help alleviate all these needs, often in the face of indifference, delays, and even open opposition. When he learned of advances in the treatment of leprosy patients, he sent for medicines. He cleaned the ulcers of the lepers, put ointment on them, and bandaged them up. He did his own research, using a control group treated with placebos to document the success or ineffectiveness of the new methods he read about.
Damien realized that the afflicted needed medical doctors and nurses to bathe and treat the incapacitated in the hospital and visit and care for those living in their own homes. He pleaded with the Church to send nuns to help with this task, but had to wait years before any came.
3) There were many orphans, prey to pimps or used as house slaves. In time he was caring for over 100 orphan boys himself. In addition to spiritual teaching, he involved them in his building projects.
4) He labored to raise the living conditions of the exiles, helping them erect their cottages, bringing in an adequate water supply, insisting on better food rations and adequate clothing, and looking out for all their needs in general. He dug their graves and made their coffins. He not only had to work as a priest, but as a doctor, architect, and builder as well (Father Damien).
His Convictions
Damien loved God and his whole life long was true to his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, though all were a struggle to him. We note his sensitive conscience and his honesty in the following private confession written during a personal retreat.
Angry on Sunday three times before mass. Impure thoughts, nakedness, [4] contact, the furies. Listened to tittle-tattle and gossip and did the same myself. Neglect of self-examination and prayer, distraction during prayers (partly intentionally), insults to the Mormons, two or three times allowed someone to die without the sacraments, vanity, hatred, too brief and too little teaching of the catechism, not strict enough with the children, grumbling at others, inflexibility (Eynikel p. 196).
He prayed not only for the exiles and his work, but for all those who wrote him, including Protestants. He mentioned to an Anglican minister in England that he prayed for him and his flock (p. 221). He often preached on heaven to those who knew they would soon be facing death.
Bibliography
Eynikel, Hilde Molokai. The Story of Father Damien. (Trans.) Lesley Gilbert. London: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1999), a PhD Dissertation, the basis of a major movie, Molokai, produced by Era Films, Brussels, directed by Paul Cox, with a screenplay by John Briley, and starring David Wenham (as Damien), Peter O’Toole, Tom Wilkinson, Kris Kristofferson, Sam Neill, and Derek Jacobi.
Father Damien (Joseph de Veuster). New Advent http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/0465a.htm
Hawaii State Government. http://www.state.hi.us/about/damien.htmKalaupapa http://visitmolokai.com/tour4.html
[4] The very relaxed dress customs of the Hawaiians in the heat of the islands, was in marked contrast to his more conservative Belgian culture.
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