Joseph de Veuster, was meant to take charge of the family business. But instead followed his older brother into the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary. In 1859 he entered the novitiate in Louvain and took the name of Damien.

In 1863, his brother, was supposed to leave for a mission in the Hawaiian Islands, but became ill. Damien took his place, arriving in Honolulu on March 19, 1864. He was ordained to the priesthood on May 21, 1864 and assigned to the island of Hawaii to begin his pastoral ministry.

Ten years later in a letter to his parents he wrote:-

"I am not ashamed to act as mason or carpenter, when it is for the glory of God. These ten years I have been on the mission I have built a church or chapel every year. The habit I had at home of practising different kinds of work, is of immense use to me here." - Father Damien

Then, the Hawaii Government began to quarantine lepers at Kalaupapa, an isolated peninsula, on the island of Molokai with mountain cliffs making it accessible only by boat.

Abandoned there to die, they made a plea, for a priest or minister. Bishop Louis Maigret, SS.CC., called for volunteers. Damien answered the call, He arrived by boat on 10 May 1873. He found no doctor, no nurses, no hospital, no law and order, many had no shelter, they had been dumped there with only a few supplies and left to die. Faced with such great need, he found he could not follow the instructions to touch no one. Instead choosing to remain permanently, with the full knowledge that he would probably, catch the disease.

Famous author, Robert Louis Stevenson, visited the leper colony of Molokai:-

".abominable deformations of our common manhood ... a population as only now and then surrounds us in the horror of a nightmare ... the butt-ends of human beings lying there almost unrecognisable but still breathing, still thinking, still remembering..an ordeal from which the nerves of a man's spirit shrink, even as his eye quails under the light of the sun...A pitiful place to visit and a hell to dwell in... I am not a man more than usually timid but I never recall the days and nights I spent upon that island promontory (eight days and seven nights) without heartfelt thankfulness that I am somewhere else..." - Robert Louis Stevenson

Stevenson probably would have given in to depression, even despair, if not for Fr Damien. Doubt sometimes tempts us, but there is one thing we cannot doubt: Jesus' compassion – Jesus reached across the divide to touch and heal lepers – Fr. Damien followed the example of his Saviour. despite the risk.

Father Damien has been described as a "martyr of charity", he worked for 11 years in the leper colony before contracting the disease himself. He continued working in spite of it for another 6 years. He gave the people not only faith, but also built them homes He did what he could medically and spiritually. He prayed at the cemetery of the deceased and comforted the dying at their bedsides.

BORN:3 January 1840, Tremelo, Belgium

DIED: 15 April 1889, Kalaupapa, Hawaii, U.S.A.