Archive Record

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1 of 1977

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Metadata

Title

Father Damien De Veuster, ss.cc., to Bishop Hermann Kockemann, ss.cc., Kalawao, September 15, 1886.

Creator

De Veuster, Damien

Dates of Creation

September 15, 1886

Object ID

2023.1.106

Object Name

Letter

Other number

2172

Scope & Content

V.C.J.S. Kalawao, September 15, 1886

Bishop,

As I suppose Father Léonor is away travelling, excuse me if I address to your Excellency the request for a number of things of which I am in need.

1.A half dozen sides of bacon.

2.A half dozen tins of California butter, the trade mark is on it. It's good butter and it doesn't cost more than 35 cents a pound and it preserves well.

3.Two dozen collars for the stole and chasuble; perhaps they are in the sacristy.

4.A new black belt to go around my soutane.

5.A statue of the Blessed Virgin representing the Immaculate Heart which corresponds to the Sacred Heart which I have here; it would have to be 3½ feet tall.

Joseph Dutton is my capable sacristan and uses his spare time to keep everything clean having to do with the altar etc. He is also my manager for the Japanese treatment. He is an edifying and genuinely pious man. He built a hermitage close to the Puu hala tree [1] and the sacristy. An adjoining room will be for my confessor when he comes (I have not confessed since my visit to Honolulu).

My right hand appears today to be out of danger of being crippled as I was writing to you six months ago (I can even work with a saw etc. as before). My system is generally better and with the help of the Good God and the treatment I follow, I can still manage my affairs.

Pray for us, poor lepers.

Your humble child in the Sacred Hearts,

J. Damien ss.cc. [2]

Bishop, I am including here a bank note for 10 Dutch gulden, which one unknown to me from Holland sent me for the lepers. Please try with our bankers or with the Dutch consul to get its value in our currency.

Father Léonor promised to send me chicken feed but he always forgets. Please send this order through Hoppers [3].

J.D.

Brother Joseph sends regards, and says that he is happy with his duties, the place and feels at home.

J. Dutton
for J. Damien
__________

[1] The Puu hala is the pandanus tree under which Damien spent his first nights on Moloka?i.
[2] The manuscript available to us ends with Damien's signature. However, there were sentences added that are found in the transcription of Damien's letters by Odilo Van Gestel, ss.cc., and they have been included in this collection.
[3] Hoppers refers to a grain feed merchant in Honolulu.

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 / Hawaiian

People

De Veuster, Damiien
Dutton, Joseph
Fouesnel, Leonor
Kockemann, Hermann

Subjects

Charity
Clothing & dress
Confessions
Food
Healing
Leprosy
Medicine
Religious articles
Vestments

Search Terms

Sacred Hearts religious

Legal Status

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

Notes

Translation #249 found in Father Damien's Letters (Rome: General Postulation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts SS.CC., 2017), pp. 539-540. Reprinted with permission.

Copyrights

COPYRIGHT NOTICE

The copyright law of the United States (Title 17, United States Code) governs the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material. Under certain conditions specified in the law, libraries and archives are authorized to furnish a photocopy or other reproduction. One of these specified conditions is that the photocopy or reproduction is not to be "used for any purposes other than private study, scholarship or research." If a user makes a request for, or later uses, a photocopy or reproduction for purposes in excess of "fair use", that user may be liable for copyright infringement. The Congregation of the Sacred Hearts United States of America Province reserves the right to refuse to duplicate any material if, in its judgment, duplication would involve violation of copyright law. Users of duplicated materials are legally responsible for observing copyright laws as well as the laws of libel, privacy and property rights.

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.