Francis and the Leper
After accepting his call to live the Gospel, during the years of 1207-1209 Francis dedicated himself to a life of prayer and solitude. One day, in a singular moment of personal conversion, Francis encountered a leper. In his age, lepers were forced to ring a bell wherever they went and to cry out the warning: “Unclean!” Society had embedded in Francis an incomparable loathing for persons afflicted with this class of illness. He had always feared both the disease itself and the horrible disfigurement it wrought. Customarily he reacted to lepers with repugnance and anxiety. Like so many of his contemporaries, his personal revulsion affected the further humiliation of these afflicted persons and added to their suffering.
Nonetheless, in a decisive moment of illumination, Francis suddenly perceived in this leper the embodiment of God’s beauty, a human being to be loved and cared for tenderly. By embracing the leper, the Saint learned to embrace all people just as Jesus did. As a community, the friars nursed and bathed the lepers, beginning the Franciscan tradition of special attention to the poor and outcast.
When Francis learned to understand and cherish each individual person as a unique reflection of God’s creative genius, a true attitude of human concern and compassion began to form within him. Through grace, Francis turned his initial revulsion at the sight of a leper into a personal triumph over judgment, bigotry, and false assumptions. This impulse led, in turn, to a movement of peace that would affect legions of people for centuries.
Nonetheless, in a decisive moment of illumination, Francis suddenly perceived in this leper the embodiment of God’s beauty, a human being to be loved and cared for tenderly. By embracing the leper, the Saint learned to embrace all people just as Jesus did. As a community, the friars nursed and bathed the lepers, beginning the Franciscan tradition of special attention to the poor and outcast.
When Francis learned to understand and cherish each individual person as a unique reflection of God’s creative genius, a true attitude of human concern and compassion began to form within him. Through grace, Francis turned his initial revulsion at the sight of a leper into a personal triumph over judgment, bigotry, and false assumptions. This impulse led, in turn, to a movement of peace that would affect legions of people for centuries.
St. Damien Molokai
The Leper Priest, the Hero of Molokai. Born in Tremelo, Belgium, on January 3, 1840, he joined the Sacred Hearts Fathers in 1860. He was bom Joseph and received the name Damien in religious life. In 1864, he was sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was ordained. For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaii. In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokai, after volunteering for the assignment. Damien cared for lepers of all ages, but was particularly concerned about the children segregated in the colony. He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics, and churches, and some six hundred coffins. He died on April 15 , on Molokai.
On February 21, 2009, the Vatican announced that Father Damien would be canonized. The ceremony took place in Rome on October 11, 2009.
"Not without fear and loathing," Pope Benedict underlined, "Father Damian made the choice to go on the island of Molokai in the service of lepers who were there, abandoned by all. So he exposed himself to the disease of which they suffered. With them he felt at home. The servant of the Word became a suffering servant, leper with the lepers, during the last four years of his life. To follow Christ, Father Damian not only left his homeland, but has also staked his health so he, as the word of Jesus announced in today's Gospel tells us, received eternal life."
Damien's symbols are a tree and a dove. In Saint Damien's role as the unofficial patron of those with HIV and AIDS, the world's only Roman Catholic memorial chapel to those who have died of this disease, at the Église Saint-Pierre-Apôtre in Montreal, Quebec, is consecrated to him.
On February 21, 2009, the Vatican announced that Father Damien would be canonized. The ceremony took place in Rome on October 11, 2009.
"Not without fear and loathing," Pope Benedict underlined, "Father Damian made the choice to go on the island of Molokai in the service of lepers who were there, abandoned by all. So he exposed himself to the disease of which they suffered. With them he felt at home. The servant of the Word became a suffering servant, leper with the lepers, during the last four years of his life. To follow Christ, Father Damian not only left his homeland, but has also staked his health so he, as the word of Jesus announced in today's Gospel tells us, received eternal life."
Damien's symbols are a tree and a dove. In Saint Damien's role as the unofficial patron of those with HIV and AIDS, the world's only Roman Catholic memorial chapel to those who have died of this disease, at the Église Saint-Pierre-Apôtre in Montreal, Quebec, is consecrated to him.