Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Rome (Agenzia Fides) – Joseph (later Fr. Damien) de Veuster was born January 3, 1840 in Tremelo, Diocese of Malines (Belgium). Brought up in the Christian faith by his parents, he went to elementary school in Wechter and after four years of working on the family farm, in January 1859, he followed his brother Auguste (later Fr. Pamphile), entering the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, in Louvain. Although he had not followed the normal course of priestly formation, his Superiors allowed him to take on superior studies, seeing his intellectual gifts.
He completed his Novitiate in Louvain and Paris, but after two years he suddenly felt drawn towards the mission in Oceania. On October 7, 1860, he made his perpetual vows in the Congregation and after a year of studying philosophy in Paris, returned to the Louvain to study theology. His brother, sent to be a missionary on the Hawaiian Islands, became sick and Fr. Damien offered to take his place on the expedition. Setting off November 9, 1963, he arrived in Honolulu on March 19, 1864, where he was ordained a sub-deacon, deacon, and priest on May 21, 1864. For nine years he ministered on the larger island of Hawaii.
In response to an appeal from the Bishop, who requested priests to take turns ministering to the lepers of Molokai, Fr. Damien volunteered to consecrate his entire life to lepers marginalized from society and living in a situation of extreme suffering, both spiritually and materially speaking. Fr. Damien set off for the island of Molokai on May 10, 1873. “I want to sacrifice myself for the poor lepers,” he wrote to his Provincial Superior, and chose to remain, all alone, among the lepers, sharing in their miseries and sufferings, to the point of becoming infected with the disease himself. At the end of his missionary life at the service of the lepers, he wrote in a letter to his brother Pamphile: “I am the happiest missionary in the world...” After having transformed that island of suffering into a community of brothers, he died on Molokai, a victim of leprosy, on April 15, 1889. In 1936, Fr. Damien's remains were taken to Belgium, where solemn funeral service were held and where it was placed in the church of the Sacred Hearts Fathers in Louvain. (SL) (Agenzia Fides 7/10/2009)
