The Spirit of Father Damien

The Spirit of Father Damien PDF

Author: Jan De Volder

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2010-09-13

Total Pages: 235

ISBN-13: 1681495570

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Foreword by John Allen Father Damien, famous for his missionary work with exiled lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai, is finally Saint Damien. His sanctity took 120 years to become officially recognized, but between his death in 1889 and his canonization in 2009 amid creeping secularization and suspicion of the missionary spirit he so much embodied Fr. Damien De Veuster never faded from the world's memory. What kept him there? What keeps him there now? To find an answer, Belgian historian and journalist Jan De Volder sifted through Father Damien's personal correspondence as well as the Vatican archives. With careful and even-handed expertise, De Volder follows Father Damien's transformation from the stout, somewhat haughty missionary of his youth, bounding from Europe to Hawaii and straight into seemingly tireless priestly work, to the humble and loving shepherd of souls who eventually succumbed to the same disease that ravaged his flock. De Volder finds that-as spiritual father, caretaker, teacher, and advocate-Father Damien accomplished many heroic feats for these poor outcasts. Yet the greatest gift he gave them was their transformation from a disordered, lawless throng exiled in desperate anarchy into a living community built on Jesus Christ, a community in which they learned to care for one another. Every generation seems to have its own image of this world-famous priest. Already during his life on Molokai and at his death in 1889, many considered him a holy man. Even today, in the highly secularized Western world, he is widely admired. In 2005 his native Belgium honored him with the title "the greatest Belgian" in polling conducted by their public broadcasting service. Statues honor his memory in the National Statuary Hall of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., and at the entrance to the Hawaiian State Capitol in Honolulu. In 1995, in the presence of Mother Teresa of Calcutta, Pope John Paul II beatified him in Brussels, Belgium; and in 2009 Pope Benedict XVI canonized him in St. Peter's Basilica in Rome. Today Father Damien is the unofficial patron of outcasts and those afflicted with HIV/AIDS. De Volder contends that the common thread running through the saint's life, the spirit of Father Damien that so speaks to the world, is at once uniquely Christian, fully human, and as important today as ever before.

St. Damien of Molokai

St. Damien of Molokai PDF

Author: Margaret Bunson

Publisher: Our Sunday Visitor

Published: 2009-08-31

Total Pages: 288

ISBN-13: 1612781713

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Saint Damien of Molokai is the riveting account of how a humble Congregation of the Sacred Hearts priest found a vocation in caring for lepers that led him to his canonization in October 2009. Hawaii normally brings idyllic scenes of blue skies and white beaches to mind. But Hell invaded Paradise when the incurable disease leprosy was discovered there. An 1865 law segregated lepers by forcibly exiling individuals--even children--to the island of Molokai. It was onto these forlorn shores that Father Damien de Veuster stepped in the spring of 1873. In an age in which an increasing number of people suffer their own personal exile on account of illness, handicap, or emotional distress, the shining example of Father Damien shows the true power of one person and how, when anchored in God's love, one person can impact the world--even among the horrors of decay and slow death. In so doing, he brought hope to the hopeless, ironically losing his own life for serving theirs.

Blessed Among Us

Blessed Among Us PDF

Author: Robert Ellsberg

Publisher: Liturgical Press

Published: 2016-07-07

Total Pages: 792

ISBN-13: 0814647456

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Since the early centuries, Christians have held up the saints as models of living the Gospel of Jesus Christ. While the church officially recognizes a relatively small number of saints, the actual roster is infinitely wider. Blessed Among Us explores this eclectic “cloud of witnesses”—lay and religious, single and married, canonized and not, and even non-Christians whose faith and wisdom may illuminate our path. Brought to life in the evocative storytelling of Robert Ellsberg, they inspire the moral imagination and give witness to the myriad ways of holiness. In two stories per day for a full calendar year, Ellsberg sketches figures from biblical times to the present age and from all corners of this world—ordinary figures whose extraordinary lives point to the new age in the world to come. Blessed Among Us is drawn from Ellsberg’s acclaimed column of the same name in Give Us This Day, a monthly resource for daily prayer published by Liturgical Press.

The Lepers of Molokai

The Lepers of Molokai PDF

Author: Charles Warren Stoddard

Publisher:

Published: 1885

Total Pages: 96

ISBN-13:

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Discusses the leper colony on Molokai and the work of Father Damien.

Father Damien and the Bells

Father Damien and the Bells PDF

Author: Arthur Shehan

Publisher: Ignatius Press

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 180

ISBN-13: 9781586170332

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Presents the story of the saintly Father Damien, who journeyed to the island of Molokai in 1872 to care for the exiled lepers.

Damien

Damien PDF

Author: Aldyth Morris

Publisher: University of Hawaii Press

Published: 1990-04-01

Total Pages: 42

ISBN-13: 9780824813239

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Monoloog over de Belgische pater (1840-1889) die melaatsen verzorgde op het Hawaiiaanse eiland Molokai.

Molokai

Molokai PDF

Author: Hilde Eynikel

Publisher: Saint Pauls/Alba House

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 356

ISBN-13:

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" ... Story of a Belgian priest ... who single-handedly changed the lives and fates of the lepers of a Hawaiian leper colony in the nineteenth century."--Cover.