July 1
Damian de Veuster (1840–1889)
missionary priest
They call him “the voluntary leper” because in order to care for lepers who were completely abandoned, he accepted the possibility of contracting the disease, from which, in fact, he died.
Biography
He was born in Belgium to peasant parents and was sent to Brussels to study. At the age of twenty he asked his parents for permission to enter the missionary community of the Sacred Hearts as a religious. In 1863 he sailed to Hawaii where he was ordained a priest. There he realized that the lepers of the islands were sent to the Island of Molokai where they lived in inhumane conditions, forgotten by everyone. He asked his superiors to send him there, and he began his mission that would last his entire life until he fell victim to the feared disease, since he did not disdain smoking the same pipe as the lepers. He managed to form a clinic where numerous patients were cured, he helped the inhabitants build their houses, create small sources of work and organized healthy entertainment for them, such as a music band. When he fell ill, he commented to his beloved faithful: “It does not matter that the body becomes deformed and ugly, if the soul becomes pleasing to God.” He died on April 15, 1889 and was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1994.
Practical advice
Without seeking recognition, attend first to those who need your time most with external order and internal meditation.