Damien: the Apostle of the lepers

Blessed Damien of Moloka’i is one of my favourites, along with saints like the Cure d’Ars.

He confounds the worldly just as the blessed St John Vianney did. They cannot fathom what to them looks like foolishness. But it is the foolishness of the Divine and therefore all the more blessed.

What I like about Fr Damien is his humanity as much as anything.

He was cranky, impatient, bad-tempered when crossed and not always easy to deal with. His human failings somehow make his holiness shine all the more brightly. They also somehow make him so much closer to us who share his faults but not his holiness.

Indeed, it was really only Joseph Dutton, the reformed alcoholic and divorcee, who was able to really get close to Damien. Damien called him Brother Joseph and they became as one in their friendship and love of God.

Damien was a great traditionalist. None of your namby-pamby, half-baked liberal Catholicism for him, nor your wishy-washy ecumenical maunderings that try to pretend that all faiths are roughly the same. He was having none of that: he wanted to convert people to the Faith and so save their souls. He wanted his charges to be eternally happy forever with God.

He also did his best to give his poor lepers the best he could, even – nay especially – liturgically. He did his best to make his liturgy as impressive, solemn and ceremonial as possible but this, necessarily, was modest and humble since he had to select his choir from among the lepers and teach them himself.

Given their condition they did remarkably well under his tutelage but it was a truly moving sight to see these maimed and incapable lepers doing their best to play musical instruments and sing the chants and music of the Sacred Liturgy.

Their humble efforts must have been intensely pleasing to a God who loves the strivings of the humble.

Fr Damien considered them his pride and joy and loved to show them off to visitors who must have marvelled at the progress he had been able to make with them.

Damien and his choir of lepers

Leprosy is a particularly horrid disease. Men simply rot away and they smell appalling into the bargain. Extremities fall off and horrible ulcers and sores form on the body. Now there is a cure for the disease but even so there are still many millions of lepers in the world.

Damien was born Jozef ("Jef") de Veuster, the seventh child of the corn merchant Frans de Veuster and his wife Cato Wouters in the village of Tremelo in Flemish Brabant.

He entered the novitiate of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary (the Picpus Fathers) in Leuven, taking the name of Damian.

On 19 March 1864, Damien landed at Honolulu Harbour as a missionary. There, Damien was ordained to the priesthood at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace, a church established by his religious order. He served at several parishes on the island of Oahu just at the start of the spread of leprosy, influenza and syphilis by the influx of foreigners.

Fearful of its spread, King Kamehameha V segregated the lepers of the kingdom and moved them to a settlement colony on the north side of the island of Moloka’i. The Royal Board of Health, run largely by Europeans, provided them with supplies and food but did not yet have the resources to offer proper healthcare.

While Msgr Louis Maigret, vicar apostolic, believed that the lepers at the very least needed a priest to minister to their needs, he realized that this assignment could potentially be a death sentence. He asked for volunteers and 4 priests came forward. Damien was one and he asked for permission to go to Moloka‘i.

On 10 May 1873, Damien arrived at the secluded settlement at Kalaupapa. Bishop Maigret presented Damien to the colonists as "one who will be a father to you, and who loves you so much that he does not hesitate to become one of you; to live and die with you."

The settlement was surrounded by an impregnable mountain ridge and water on all sides.

There were 816 lepers living at Kalaupapa. Damien's first course of action was to build a church and establish the Parish of Saint Philomena (a favourite saint of the Cure d'Ars).

He did not limit himself to a purely spiritual role. He took on the role of doctor, builder, carpenter, farmer, child-carer, nurse and many other roles as well. He dressed ulcers, built homes and beds and even built coffins and dug graves.

When Damien arrived the lepers were in a dreadful state - listless, depressed, neglected, suffering, robbing each other, some living under trees and there was much drunkenness and sexual immorality.

The kingdom didn't plan the settlement to be in such disarray but the government's neglect in providing much needed resources and medical help unfortunately helped to create the chaos. Damien's arrival was a turning point for the community. Under his leadership, basic laws were enforced, shacks became painted houses, working farms were organized and schools were erected.

Damien and the lepers (from the film based on his life)

By December 1884, Damien himself had contracted leprosy. Despite the discovery, residents claim that Damien worked vigorously to build as many homes as he could and planned for the continuation of the programmes he created after he was gone.

His constant prayer was for other priests and especially religious sisters for the children, most of whom were orphaned because of their disease.

Eventually they came. Louis Lambert Conrardy was a Belgian priest. Mother Marianne Cope was Superior of the Franciscan Sisters of Syracuse. Joseph Dutton was an American Civil War soldier who left behind a marriage broken because of alcoholism but became Fr Damien’s most faithful and trusted companion, ever-patient and tireless in work. James Sinnett was a nurse from Chicago.

Fr Conrardy took up pastoral duties, while Mother Marianne organized a working hospital. Brother Joseph attended to the construction and maintenance of the community's buildings. James Sinnett nursed Damien in the last phases of the disease, closing his eyes upon Father Damien's death at the age of 49 from leprosy.

King David Kalakaua bestowed on Damien, during his life, the honour of Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Kalakaua.

When the King was away on a trip abroad, his daughter, Princess Lydia Liliuokalani, a gifted an intelligent woman, went to Moloka’i to see for herself what could be done to help her people. She visited the settlement to present a medal to Damien and was greeted with as much pageantry and ceremony as the poor lepers and their blessed priest could summon up. It was pathetically touching to see such efforts.

Her Royal Highness Princess, later Queen, Liliuokalani of Hawaii

She intended to make a speech to her suffering people but was so deeply touched by the scene that all she could do was weep and weep.

She was so moved, in fact, that she became a determined supporter of Fr Damien and was determined to acclaim publicly Damien's efforts and tell the world. Consequently, Damien's name was spread across the United States and Europe. Even American Protestants raised large sums of money for the missionary and the Church of England sent food, medicine, clothing and supplies.

Eventually, the disease caught up with Damien. He began to preach to his lepers saying “We lepers” and they knew that he had truly become one of them.

Damien the leper

Fr Damien died in the wooden parish house he had made by his own hands, lying in his cassock, surrounded by his new helpers, priests, brothers and sisters and at peace because his flock would not be abandoned at his death. It had been his one fear that once he himself caught leprosy his flock would be abandoned when he died. But now he could die in peace and, as he put it, be with God in heaven for Easter.

On 15 April 1889, he gave up the ghost, quietly, peacefully and calmly departing this life to rest from his most strenuous labours, mourned by his leper flock who wept as, for his Requiem and burial, they carried him to the Church he had re-built with his own hands.

It was Holy Week.


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The Church Triumphant: the Eve of All Saints - the real Hallowe'en

In vigil. fest. omnibus Sanctis

The Eve of All Hallows

(Hallowe'en)

After this I had a vision of a great multitude, which no one could count,
from every nation, race, people, and tongue.
They stood before the throne and before the Lamb,
wearing white robes and holding palm branches in their hands.
They cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation comes from our God, who is seated on the throne, and from the Lamb"

Forget "trick or treat"!

This the real meaning of All Hallow's Eve or Hallowe'en. Hallows is an old English word meaning "saints". Hence we speak of something being "hallowed" i.e. made holy.

This tableau is a powerful representation of the Church militant, here on earth, and the Church triumphant, in heaven.

On earth we see the Pope, clergy and religious on the left and the Emperor, nobility and people on the right.

Above them we see the Holy Trinity, with our Lady and the martyrs on the left and St Joseph and the other saints on the right, above them both are the holy angels, all adoring the Trinity.

It demonstrates, too, the essentially familiar and Trinitarian heart of the Church: the Holy Family is a reflection of the Holy Trinity and the charity that must obtain within a family is a reflection of the charity that obtains within the Holy Family and the Holy Trinity and is the foundation of heaven.

The Church, then, is a society founded upon the family and upon familiar principles which, in turn, are Trinitarian and incarnational principles, incarnating the love of God for men and the filial duty of men, in turn, to love and adore God the Father of all.

This the saints have done and do now to perfection, setting an example for us all to imitate.

All ye holy apostles, saints and martyrs, pray for us!

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13 October: St Edward the Confessor and Blessed Gerard

King St Edward the Confessor was born in 1003 and died 5 January, 1066. He was the son of Ethelred II and Emma, daughter of Duke Richard of Normandy, being thus half-brother to King Edmund Ironside, Ethelred's son by his first wife, and to King Hardicanute, Emma's son by her second marriage with Canute.

He was also nephew to St Edward the Martyr.

When hardly ten years old he was sent with his brother Alfred into Normandy to be brought up at the court of the duke his uncle, the Danes having gained the mastery in England. Thus he spent the best years of his life in exile, the crown having been settled by Canute, with Emma's consent, upon his own offspring by her. Early misfortune thus taught Edward the folly of ambition, and he grew up in innocence, delighting chiefly in assisting at Mass and the church offices, and in association with religious, whilst not disdaining the pleasures of the chase (hunting) or recreations suited to his station.

Upon Canute's death in 1035 his illegitimate son, Harold, seized the throne, Hardicanute being then in Denmark, and Edward and his brother Alfred were persuaded to make an attempt to gain the crown, which resulted in the cruel death of Alfred who had fallen into Harold's hands, whilst Edward was obliged to return to Normandy.

On Hardicanute's sudden death in 1042, Edward was called by acclamation to the throne at the age of about forty, being welcomed even by the Danish settlers owing to his gentle saintly character. His reign was one of almost unbroken peace, the threatened invasion of Canute's son, Sweyn of Norway, being averted by the opportune attack on him by Sweyn of Denmark; and the internal difficulties occasioned by the ambition of Earl Godwin and his sons being settled without bloodshed by Edward's own gentleness and prudence.

He undertook no wars except to repel an inroad of the Welsh, and to assist Malcolm III of Scotland against Macbeth, the usurper of his throne.

Being devoid of personal ambition, Edward's one aim was the welfare of his people. He remitted the odious "Danegelt", which had needlessly continued to be levied; and though profuse in alms to the poor and for religious purposes, he made his own royal patrimony suffice without imposing taxes. Such was the contentment caused by "the good St. Edward's laws", that their enactment was repeatedly demanded by later generations, when they felt themselves oppressed and they formed the basis of the English Constitution.

Yielding to the entreaty of his nobles, he accepted as his consort the virtuous Editha, Earl Godwin's daughter. Having, however, made a vow of chastity, he first required her agreement to live with him only as a sister. As he could not leave his kingdom without injury to his people, the making of a pilgrimage to St. Peter's tomb, to which he had bound himself, was commuted by the pope into the rebuilding at Westminster of St. Peter's abbey, the dedication of which took place but a week before his death, and in which he was buried.

St. Edward was the first King of England to touch for the "king's evil" (scrofula), many sufferers from the disease were cured by him. He was canonized by Pope Alexander III in 1161. His feast is kept on the 13th of October, his incorrupt and sweet-smelling body having been solemnly translated on that day in 1163 by St. Thomas of Canterbury in the presence of King Henry II.

St Edward's Crown is one of the British Crown Jewels. It is the official coronation crown used exclusively in the coronation of a new monarch. It was made in 1661 for the coronation of the restored King Charles II, as the original crown was destroyed by order of the viciously anti-Catholic extreme Portestant republican, Oliver Cromwell, during the English Civil War.

The crown made for King Charles II is reputed to contain gold from the Crown of St Edward the Confessor.

St. Edward's Crown has been used as a symbol of royal authority since 1953 in the Commonwealth Realms, and can be seen on coats-of-arms.

St Edward's Crown, used at all English coronations

St Edward the Confessor, pray for us!

This day is also the Feast day of Blessed Gerard the founder of the world's oldest order of chivalry, the Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem, of Rhodes, and of Malta, more commonly known as the Order of Malta, originally the Knights Hospitaller of St John of Jerusalem.

The Order has its origins in a hospice and confraternity in Jerusalem founded some time before the First Crusade (1099).

According to most accounts, this was undertaken with the financial assistance of some wealthy merchants of the Italian port city of Amalfi to aid European pilgrims to the Holy Land. (The Amalfitans still commemorate their support of the Order in an annual observance.) The original Christian hospice may have been founded as early as circa 1020.

The first rector of what was to become known as the "Order of the Hospital" was the Blessed Gerard. With his Bull of 15 February 1113, Pope Paschal II sanctioned the establishment of the Hospitallers' order, dedicated to its patron, Saint John the Baptist. The Pontiff placed the Order under the direct protection and ecclesiastical authority of the Holy See. Pope Callixtus and subsequent Pontiffs granted the Order additional privileges over the next century. Gerard himself died in 1120 but the work of the hospice, which at one point was said to house two thousand patients, continued and continues even today world-wide.

Blessed Gerard, pray for us!

The Feast of St Eustace, patron of hunters

Today, 20 September, is the Feast day of St Eustace the patron saint of hunters.

Scroll down to earlier post to see more detail about him and the other hunting saint, St Hubert.

St Eustace, pray for us!

Saint Maurice: martyr, black saint and Knight Commander of the martyred Theban Legion...

Saint Maurice (Moritz or Mauritius), pictured here with St Elmo, was the Knight Commander of the famous Roman Theban Legion in the 3rd century.

The legion, entirely composed of Christians, was ordered from Thebes in Egypt to Gaul to assist Maximian. However, when Maximian ordered them to attack local Christians, they refused and Maximian ordered them punished with savage executions.

More such orders followed but they still refused, encouraged by Maurice, and were further punished. In response to their refusal to use violence against fellow Christians, Maximian ordered all the remaining members of the 6,600 strong legion to be executed. This took place in Agaunum, which is now Saint Maurice-en-Valais, site of the Abbey of Saint Maurice-en-Valais, in Switzerland.

This account was given publicly by Eucherius, bishop of Lyon (c. 434 – 450), addressed to his fellow bishop Salvius.

The abbey was begun in 515 ordered by Sigismund, the first Catholic king of the Burgundians.

St Maurice became a patron saint of the Holy Roman Emperors. In 926, Henry I (919–936), ceded the present Swiss canton of Aargau to the abbey, in return for Maurice's lance, sword and spurs. Aargau is the region in which is found the original seat of the Habsburgs, later the most famous of the emperors.

St Maurice as a mounted Knight

The sword and spurs of Saint Maurice was part of the regalia used at coronations of the Holy Roman Emperors (and later Austro-Hungarian Emperors), and were among the most important insignia of the imperial throne. Moreover, many emperors were anointed before the altar of Saint Maurice in St. Peter's Basilica.

The Martyrdom of St Maurice and the Theban Legion

In 929 Emperor Henry I the Fowler held a royal court gathering (Reichsversammlung) at Magdeburg. At the same time the Mauritius Kloster in honour of St Maurice was founded. In 961, Emperor Otto the Great built and enriched the cathedral at Magdeburg in preparation for his own tomb. In that year, in the presence of all of the nobility, on the vigil of Christmas, the body of St. Maurice was conveyed to Emperor Otto at Regensburg along with the bodies of some of the saint's companion legionaries. They were then conveyed to Magdeburg, received with great honour and are still venerated there.

Maurice is traditionally depicted in full armour, in Italy emblazoned with a red cross. In folk culture he has become connected with the legend of the "Spear of Destiny", which he is supposed to have carried into battle; his name is engraved on the Holy Lance of Vienna, one of several relics claimed as the spear that pierced the side of our Lord upon the Cross.

Hundreds of religious houses are dedicated to him as well as chivalric orders, including the famous Burgundian Order of the Golden Fleece which later became the heirloom of the Holy Roman Emperors, and the Order of Saint Maurice. Many towns have been named after him, also.

The images of Saint Maurice in the Cathedral of Magdeburg show him as a black man and there is evidence to indicate that Maurice was Egyptian. Thus it is that one of the greatest patron saints of the Holy Roman Empire is, in fact, a black man, indeed a black Roman Knight Commander (or Legatus) of the great Roman Legion called “The Theban Legion” celebrated in the Roman Martyrology as the martyrs of the Theban Legion.

Medieval statue of St Maurice in Magdeburg Cathedral

All Catholics, and especially Black African Catholics, may be justly be proud of this great soldier-saint and martyr of the Church.

St Maurice, Knight Commander of the Theban Legion, pray for us!

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Blessed Pierre Toussaint, the voluntary slave who confounded the worldly...

Venerable Pierre Toussaint was a Catholic black slave born in Haiti in 1766. His parents raised him as a Catholic and his master, Jean Berard, taught him to read and write. In 1787 his master moved to New York City to escape the social unrest among the Haitian slaves after the French Revolution. He thought that Pierre should have a profession in New York so he apprenticed him to a hairdresser. Pierre became a very successful hairdresser for the beau monde of New York and made a good living from it, although he remained a slave.

Toussaint was also appreciated for his quiet wit and discretion. These qualities led his clients to confide in him and seek his advice. Pierre heard all of these women’s problems of errant husbands and children, sickness and financial problems. When people tried to pry some gossip from him, he said, “Toussaint dresses hair; he is no news journal”. He frequently quoted the Beatitudes and The Imitation of Christ in the spiritual guidance that he gave to his clients and he encouraged them to pray and patiently trust in God. In turn, they also supported Pierre in his charitable works. For 60 years, he attended daily Mass at six in the morning at the same church where Mother Elizabeth Seton later worshipped. Later he co-operated with her new order and established one of the first orphanages in New York.

Pierre’s master died and a slave rebellion on Haiti destroyed his widow’s support and left her in a deep depression. Pierre then supported the Berard household while still their slave. He refused to let the widow Berard lose her dignity or be burdened with the concerns of running a household so he took over all the household expenses. He bought his sister's freedom but - with heroic virtue - decided to remain a slave himself so that he could care for Madame Berard. Often he put on great parties for Madame, paid for everything yet dressed as a butler and served the guests. He even postponed his own wedding to care for Madame. When his sister criticized him for supporting Madame while still her slave, Pierre answered, "He never felt enslaved but felt compassion for a lonely woman who was considered his owner".

Madame Berard finally gave Pierre his freedom on her deathbed. Pierre “thanked God he was able to keep this woman from knowing want and thanked God for giving her the courage to set him free".

At last, at the age of 41, Pierre was legally free. He bought the freedom of his sister, Rosalie, and her best friend Juliette whom he married. Together, they continued the charitable works that Pierre had begun. They helped refugees find jobs, cared for orphans and opened a school to teach black children a trade. They also provided financial help to the Oblate Sisters of Providence. When a plague struck the city, Pierre personally cared for the victims. When Pierre's sister Rosalie died leaving a young daughter, Pierre and Juliette welcomed her into their home. They had no children of their own but took abandoned boys into their home, educated them and found them employment.

When New York was hit with the plague, Pierre risked his life and nursed the sick and dying without regard to his own safety. His sister Rosalie said, "You think of everyone but yourself. Now that you are free, you are still acting like a white man's slave".

Pierre answered, "I have never felt I am a slave to any man or woman but I am a servant of the Almighty God who made us all. When one of His children is in need, I am glad to be His slave".

O great Toussaint! How you so exactly captured the essence of our God - the God who humbled Himself to become a slave for our sake.

Pierre walked to his hair appointments with his rheumatic knee rather than invite any trouble through the discrimination that was practised on public transport. He kept on working and gave a substantial part of his considerable income to the poor, telling a friend who urged him to retire, "I have enough for myself, but if I stop working I have not enough for others".

Pierre’s wife died in 1851 and two years later he died on June 30, 1853 at age 87. His last words were “God is with me” and then, when asked if he wanted anything, “Nothing on earth". General Schuyler said of him, "I have known Christians who were not gentlemen or gentlemen who were not Christians, but one man I know who is both, and that man is black ”.

At Pierre’s funeral Mass, attended by an overflowing crowd, he was eulogized from the pulpit by the pastor, Father William Quinn, saying "A stranger would not have suspected that a black man of his humble calling lay in the midst of us. Though no relative was left to mourn him, yet many present would feel they had lost one who always had wise counsel for the rich, words of encouragement for the poor, and all would be grateful for having known him. There are few left among the clergy superior in devotion and zeal for the Church and the glory of God, among laymen, none".

Pope John Paul II visited St Patrick’s Cathedral where Pierre is buried in October 1995, and said, "Beneath the high altar of this Cathedral, together with the former Cardinals and archbishops of New York there is buried the Servant of God, Pierre Toussaint, a married man, a one-time slave from Haiti. What is so extraordinary about this man? He radiated a most serene and joyful faith, nourished daily by the Eucharist and visits to the Blessed Sacrament. In the face of constant, painful discrimination he understood, as few have understood, the meaning of the words, 'Father, forgive them; they do not know what they are doing' ”. Pope John Paul II made Pierre "venerable" on March 22, 1998.

The story of Toussaint confounds the worldly who, seeing that he could have gained his freedom, cannot understand why he would want to serve as a slave to the widow of his master whilst at the same time maintaining her out of his own pocket. To the worldly this is foolishness.

But to God, Himself a servant king, it is holy. Indeed, those who do not understand Toussaint cannot understand God.

Venerable Pierre Toussaint, pray for us!
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