Jozef De Veuster was a strapping young lad who was stocky and muscle-bound, Dr. Kalani Brady says, and his parents hoped he would take over the family corn business. But that was not his calling.
KHON viewers know Dr. Brady as the co-host of "Ask the Doctor," a weekly morning news segment. Brady is also part of the team that provides health care to the last surviving Hansen’s disease patients at Kalaupapa.
"Jozef’s older brother, Auguste, was called to the seminary with the order of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary," Brady continues. "The seminary was in Paris. Auguste went and became a priest, taking the name Father Pamphile."
"Jozef said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’ And he followed his brother, to the chagrin of his parents."
Many times in his career, when a volunteer was needed, the future St. Damien would say, "Here I am. Send me."
"He got there, and because he was a very concrete thinker, a bulldog, the seminary leaders thought he would be better as a choir brother than a priest. They didn’t think he had the smarts that would be necessary for the priesthood."
When it was time for Pamphile’s mission to leave for the far-off shore of Hawaii, he was struck with typhus. "And again Jozef said, ‘Here I am. Send me.’"
In October 1863, he boarded a ship in Bremerhaven, and in March 1864, he arrived in Hawaii. He went to seminary at Ahuimanu College, now known as Saint Louis School. After that, he spent four years working on the Big Island.
Bishop Maigret of Honolulu told all the priests that there was a place forsaken by humans. A place where people are sentenced to go to die. It was the place that King Kalakaua founded in 1865 as a colony for the untouchables, those with Hansen’s disease. It had no minister.
The married kahu, or priests, were worried that if they contracted the disease they might bring it back to their families, and that they might be sentenced to death in Kalaupapa.
"The bishop asked for volunteers among the priests who weren’t married. And Jozef, now Damien, said, ‘Here I am, send me.’ He went in 1873. He was there for 16 years. He transformed that place from hopelessness, depravity and despair, to a place of humility and peace," Brady says. "By Father Damien’s example of humility and love, the people of Kalaupapa regained a sense of dignity, forbearance, and acceptance of their condition. They rediscovered the faith that had withered with their banishment."
The Vatican recognized the great work that Damien had done at Kalaupapa on Oct. 11, 2009. Eleven of the patients at Kalaupapa traveled to Rome with Kalani Brady, Honolulu Diocese Bishop Larry Silva and more than 300 Hawaii residents for the canonization of St. Damien.
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Bob Sigall writes the weekly Rearview Mirror column in Friday’s paper. His fourth book of stories from this column has just come out. Contact him at Sigall@Yahoo.com.
