Archive Record

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1 of 1977

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Metadata

Title

Father Damien De Veuster, ss.cc., to Father Albert Montiton, ss.cc., Kalawao, May, 1886.

Creator

De Veuster, Damien

Dates of Creation

May 1886

Object ID

2023.1.101

Object Name

Letter

Other number

2162

Scope & Content

V.C.J.S. Kalawao, May, 1886

My Reverend and dear Father,

Your nice letter of March 14 came to heal a little the profound heartbreak which your departure caused. The tears, which I shed then, were well an expression of my regret in losing you and of my presentiment of a situation, painful and exceptional, in which I will have to pass the remainder of my days.

In effect, my dear Father, since I lost in you a good companion in this sad leprosarium I have had only the brief visits of a confrere every two or three months.

What's more, the terrible sickness of which you knew the beginnings makes frightening advances and threatens to make me irregular [1] if not unable to celebrate the Holy Mass.

In not having another priest, I will be deprived even of Holy Communion and of the Blessed Sacrament. It is this privation, which will cost me a lot and make my position unsustainable. Thus it is not the sickness and its attendant sufferings, which discourage me, far from that.

Up to now, I felt happy and content and if the choice had been given to leave here in good health, I would say without hesitation: I remain here for life with my lepers.

The idea of installing myself at Kakaako never crossed my mind. I had asked simply a small room in the hospital to spend two or three nights when I would have need to go confess or handle some other business in Honolulu. I was misunderstood… [2]
__________

[1] Damien feared that if his hands and fingers became debilitated he would be unable to preside at Eucharist and be declared irregular.
[2] The remainder of the letter, which was written on another page, has been lost. Since Father Albert was no longer on the Islands of Hawai`i in 1886, (having left on March 1, 1885, see Letter 217) it is possible that he sent the first part of the letter to the Apostolic Vicar perhaps to make an appeal on behalf of his old companion saying that he (Damien) was abandoned. Otherwise, the presence of this letter in the archives of the Mission in Honolulu is inexplicable.

Admin/Biographical History

Jozef De Veuster was born on January 3, 1840 in the village of Tremelo, Belgium. He was the seventh of eight children born to Frans and Anne-Catherine De Veuster. His father intended for Jozef to take over the family farm someday. However, Jozef felt drawn to the religious life, like two of his sisters and a brother before him. At age 19, he entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary at Leuven. For his religious name, he chose Damien after a third-century physician-saint and early Christian martyr.
In 1863, Damien's older brother, Father Pamphile, was headed for the Sacred Hearts Mission in the Hawaiian Islands. A case of typhus prevented him from going. Brother Damien, with missionary zeal and unbridled enthusiasm, asked and received permission to take his brother's place. After a sea voyage of nearly five months, Brother Damien arrived in Honolulu on the Feast of Saint Joseph, March 19, 1864. For the next two months he studied the Hawaiian language and prepared for ordination to the priesthood at Ahuimanu College.
The ordination of Brother Damien and two others took place at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, on May 21, 1864. His first assignment was to the island of Hawaii, where he labored for nearly nine years - first in the Puna district, and then in an area encompassing the districts of Kohala and Hamakua.
In May of 1873, Bishop Maigret blessed the first stone church of Saint Anthony in Wailuku, Maui. To the assembled priests, he expressed the dire need to provide spiritual help for the people of the Kalaupapa leprosy settlement. Realizing the risks and sacrifice that this would entail, the bishop asked for volunteers on a three-month rotating basis. Father Damien was the first to volunteer and accompanied the bishop to Kalaupapa. After seeing the paltry living conditions and despair of its residents, he decided to remain there. With no house to shelter him, he slept under the canopy of a pandanus tree for several days after his arrival. The tree stood next to the small Catholic chapel of Saint Philomena at Kalawao. This chapel was built a year earlier by Sacred Hearts Brother Victorin Bertrand.
Father Damien cared for the spiritual and physical needs of the residents of Kalaupapa. In addition to celebrating Mass and hearing their confessions, he built houses, an orphanage, and other structures. He constructed churches, both in Kalaupapa and on top-side Molokai. For those who died, he made their coffins and dug their graves.
His acts of compassion and advocacy for the patients of Kalaupapa earned Father Damien the respect and admiration of people around the world. In 1881, the Princess Regent Liliuokalani met Father Damien during her visit to Kalaupapa. She later made him, on behalf of her brother, King Kalakaua, a Knight Commander of the Royal Order of Kalakaua.
A medical examination in 1884 confirmed that Father Damien had contracted leprosy. In the face of this adversity, he stoically stated: "I have accepted this malady as my special cross." Despite his failing health, Father Damien continued to work up until a few days before his death. He died on April 15, 1889. He was buried beneath the pandanus tree that first sheltered him nearly 16 years earlier.
King Leopold III of Belgium later wrote to President Franklin D. Roosevelt requesting the return of Father Damien's remains to his homeland. On January 27, 1936, Father Damien's remains were exhumed from his grave at Kalawao. Much pomp and circumstance heralded the arrival of Father Damien's remains in Belgium on May 3, 1936. His remains now rest in Saint Anthony's Chapel in Leuven where Damien first entered religious life.
Public acclamation of Father Damien's sanctity was heard even during his lifetime. But, it would take 120 years after his death before he was officially recognized as a saint. Official acknowledgment began on July 9, 1977 when Pope Paul VI accorded Father Damien the title of Venerable. Pope John Paul II declared him Blessed on June 4, 1995. Finally, on October 11, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Father Damien a saint of the Church. His feast is celebrated on May 10, the first day of his arrival on the island of Molokai. A relic of Saint Damien is enshrined in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu. His right hand, the hand of blessing, has been reinterred within his original grave site at Kalawao.

Language of Material

French

People

De Veuster, Damien
Montiton, Albert

Subjects

Communion
Confessions
Leprosy
Loneliness

Search Terms

Kakaako Hospital
Sacred Hearts religious

Legal Status

All rights of reproduction and photography reside with Congregation of the Sacred Hearts United States Province.

Notes

Translation #231 found in Father Damien's Letters (Rome: General Postulation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts SS.CC., 2017), pp. 498-499. Reprinted with permission.

Copyrights

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LITERARY RIGHTS NOTICE FOR ORIGINAL LETTERS

All requests for permission to publish, quote, or exhibit from Father Damien's original letters in this collection must be submitted in writing to the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts USA Province. Permission is given on behalf of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts USA Province as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must be obtained by the user.

LITERARY RIGHTS NOTICE FOR TRANSLATIONS

All requests for permission to publish, quote, or exhibit translations of Father Damien's original letters in this online collection must be submitted in writing to the General Postulation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts SS.CC.in Rome. Permission is given on behalf of the General Postulation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts as the copyright holder.