Today we honor a saint who was only canonized less than two years ago on October 11, 2009. Saint Damien was born as Joseph de Veuster on January 3, 1840 in Tremeloo, Belgium on the family farm. He studied at the College of Braine-le-Comte. He joined the Picpus Father on October 7, 1860 and took the name Damien. He was a seminarian in Paris. When his brother got sick and could not go on a mission to Hawaii he volunteered to go while still in the seminary. He was ordained in Honolulu on May 24, 1864. He became the resident priest in the leper colony on Molokai where he worked for years to care for the spiritual and medical needs of those afflicted with leprosy. He turned Molokai into a place of dignity and into a community. He contracted leprosy in 1885 and lived with the disease and worked with the patients until he died on April 15, 1889. He was buried next to Saint Philomena Church in Molokai. His body was moved to Belgium in 1936. His arm, however, is now in Molokai.
He is the patron of leprosy and leper patients.
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