Joseph De Veuster was born on January 3, 1840 in the village of Tremeloo, Belgium. 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 martyr.
Damien arrived in Honolulu on March 19, the Feast of St. Joseph, in 1864. For the next two months, he studied the Hawaiian language and prepared for ordination to the priesthood. The ordination of 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. He labored there for nearly nine years – first in the Puna district, and then in an area encompassing the districts of Kohala and Hamakua. This was where he first witnessed the devastation and impact of leprosy on the families separated resulting from government-imposed exile to Kalaupapa, measures implemented to stop the spread of the disease.
He was the first to respond to his Bishop’s call for volunteers to serve as spiritual advisors to the exiled. In addition to celebrating mass and hearing their confessions, he built houses, an orphanage, and a hospital. He constructed churches, both in Kalaupapa and on top-side Molokai. For those who died, he made their coffins and dug their graves. Father Damien’s acts of compassion and advocacy for the patients at Kalaupapa earned him the respect and admiration of people around the world.
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 on April 15, 1889.
On October 11, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI proclaimed Father Damien a saint of the Church. His feast day is celebrated on May 10, the first day of his arrival on the island of Molokaí. A relic of Saint Damien is enshrined in the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace; and another relic has been reinterred within his original grave site at Kalawao for veneration by the faithful.
