We honor today a saint who suffered much for his people, dying for them, with them, and like them. He was born in Tremelo, Belgium on January 3, 1840, and joined the friars of the Sacred Heart in 1860. His birth name was Joseph but changed it to Damien when he entered the monastery. In 1864 he was sent to Honolulu, in Hawaii where he became a priest and spent 9 years serving in the big island of Hawaii. People there got sick very often, through diseases brought in from Japan and China. Thousands died of syphilis, influenza and other illnesses. In 1873, Damien decided to go to the island of Molokai where a colony of lepers lived in isolation. Still he loved the people, especially the children with leprosy. By 1885 he contracted leprosy himself, but continued with the work of building schools, clinics, churches and over 600 coffins. Towards the end of his life an American sister came to help him, St Marianne Cope, who never got the disease but she was also canonized recently. St Damien died on April 1, 1889 at the age of 49. He was beatified in 1995 by Pope John Paul II, and canonized by Pope Benedict XVI on October 11, 2009, in the presence of the King and Queen of Belgium as well as the Prime Minister. St Damien was originally buried in Molokai, but in 1936, half of his remains were transported to Belgium.
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