Archive Record
Images
Metadata
Title |
Father Damien De Veuster, ss.cc., to Father Modeste Favens, ss.cc., Kohala, March 25, 1867. |
Creator |
De Veuster, Damien |
Dates of Creation |
March 25, 1867 |
Object ID |
2023.1.9 |
Object Name |
Letter |
Other number |
1976 |
Scope & Content |
V.C.J.S. Kohala, March 25, 1867 Dear Reverend Father, First, I have to tell you that I have not received one letter from you since the month of January, perhaps because the mail has been irregular. In case you have written in response to my last letter about kuleana of Kawaihae, be good enough to write again so that I will know what to do. However, you must not imagine that, at the moment, there is any problem in that regard. It would only be for the purpose of making it more secure for later on. Neither have I received a small package, which Mother Superior sent me a month ago, as she says in a letter. I received the 12 new textbooks, which you had the extreme goodness to send me together with the letter of the Rev. Father Aubert. I would love to have received many copies more to be able to give them to the Kanakas who are so often reading the Calvinists' lies in their Kuokoa [1]. Don't you think it would be good to forbid them from taking this newspaper? Concerning what His Excellency told us last year, that after Easter he will come to bless the new chapels on our island, would you please inform us, very Rev. Father, when he will be coming and where he will commence, so that I can inform my Christians to be ready for the blessing of the chapel of Kawaihae? Soon, dear Reverend Father, I will be without wine to say the Holy Mass, and without bread to eat. Would you thus have the goodness to send me a case of wine and a case of bread at the same time so that my Kanakas will not have any trouble tying those two cases on an animal? If there is only one case, pilikia aole kau like [2]. If you have received some cassocks and hats larger than the usual ones, I could use some badly. Please send me some rice, if you can, because here I have to pay 10 cents a pound. My countryman, whom I mentioned to you in a preceding letter, is at the moment living with me. He is very quiet and active mahiai [3]; he is my cook and makes my stay in Waiapuka more bearable than when I was here all alone. In the evening, we pray together and in the morning he always comes to Mass. He asks me to inquire if you would have any use in Honolulu for beans, the white beans from Europe, which he grows here successfully. Please have someone inquire if Mother Superior would take two or three pounds, and for the money this will bring you, you could send us biscuits or flour or rice. In that way we could live here from the fruit of our labor, without being a heavy charge on the Mission. We are also planting a lot of tobacco. Two weeks ago, when I was in Hamakua, we had torrential rains and also big earthquakes. "The good" progresses very slowly here very few baptisms at the moment. Pray please for hoahanau [4] and particularly for me, so that at least it is not through my fault that good is growing so slowly; palaka paha Kamiano [5]. Faithfully yours always, my Rev. Father, your very humble servant in SS.CC., Brother Damien De Veuster Missionary Priest PS Let us decide once and for all, that when you send me something on one or other ship, you will write to me through the mail. Thus, I know where and when I have to go and get what you send me. Since I do not have a reliable man here in port, things could get lost or stolen, without my knowing anything. It seems to me it would be safer to send the Annales [6] through Kohala and the other small packages by mail as you send the newspapers. __________ [1] Ka Nupepa Kuokoa (The Independent Newspaper), a four page paper edited by missionary son Henry Whitney beginning in 1861, and dedicated expressly to the improvement of the Hawaiian people. Helen Geracimos Chapin. Shaping History: The Role of Newspapers in Hawaii (Honolulu: University of Hawai`i Press, 1996), pp. 53-57. [2] Literally: the problem is not the same. To carry one case rather than two, will be a nuisance because the weight will be lopsided. [3] In farming. See Letter 42 for a further description of this companion who remains unnamed. [4] My congregation. [5] We are sinking into indifference. [6] Annales de la Propagation de la Foi; see Letter 25.2. |
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 |
Bernat, Arsene Bris, Almaque De Veuster, Damien Favens, Modeste Kamehameha V Maigret, Louis-Desire Pouzot, Charles Ruault, Nicaise |
Subjects |
Books Building construction Church dedications Churches Cllothing and dress Food Religious articles Religious education Tobacco Wine |
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 #37 found in Father Damien's Letters (Rome: General Postulation of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts SS.CC., 2017), pp. 118-120. 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. |