Flora Cantábrica

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Padre Damian

 

 

Missionary starts..

 

 

  When he speaks of «touring the volcanoes night and day», Damien exaggerates, surely, but not so much. The first entrusted “parish”, the Puna district in the eastern part of the island of Hawaii, is made up of dormant or extinct volcanic ridges and craters, but one of them is in full activity. The indigenous people are terribly afraid of them and offer sacrifices to appease them.

 

Damien owned a horse and a mule. He needed six weeks to go around the parish. When asked where his house was, he pointed to his saddle: «This is my house.» In addition, the bishop, Bishop Maigret, when he accompanied him to leave his first mission for him, warned him: “Do not forget that they have not seen a priest for eight years.

 

Certain regions are only accessible on foot. A small village was protected behind a dozen ravines, which had to be lowered and raised, and hung from the height of a six-hundred-meter rock face. Another position could not be reached except by sea and one of the times he did it with two natives in a Hawaiian boat, they capsized on the waves, having to swim back to shore.

 

Everywhere, Hawaiians generously welcomed the priest. No matter how poor they were, they shared with him the “poi”, a kind of pasta made from taro, a plant from which they used its tubers as flour, also offering him the mat from their hut to sleep on. At night he preferred to walk a few kilometers on the horse and sleep in any hole next to a tree. Damien carried with him a small suitcase with which to prepare everything necessary to celebrate Mass. In the villages there was always a seashell with which to call people to the catechism and to the celebration of the Eucharist.

 

 

He only stayed in this district for a year. Father Clemente, a «companion» on the journey when they arrived on the ship, as well as priestly ordination in Honolulu and from the first destination on the island of Hawaii, was assigned the Northwest District, Kohala Hamakua. One day he commented to Damien that his extension exceeded his weaker forces, and they asked the bishop to change. Thus began Damien’s endless adventures in that territory, in which he remained for eight years, until from there he left for Molokai. In Kohala he needed fifteen days to go back and forth through the coastal villages, in the four little churches that he built for them. In his place of residence, a small house next to the small church, both made of wood. His life was very simple, as he told his brother Pánfilo

 

Molokai

 

We have accompanied Damien during the first nine years of missionary on the island of Hawaii. It must not be forgotten that it is with that abundant and varied experience that he comes to Molokai. Damien is no longer a novice missionary. He has evangelized a lot and hard, he has enjoyed great joys mixed with sadness and he already knows the natives’ temperament very well.

 

 

Spring 1873. Damien’s missionary life is about to take a decisive turn. The bishop, Bishop Maigret, has invited all the priests of the islands to attend the consecration of a new church, on the island of Maui.

 

Take this opportunity to raise the problem of their responsibility towards the Catholics of Molokai and especially towards the lepers locked up in the Kalawao leper reserve.

 

On the Kalawao side, the State had bought a large piece of land, to segregate in it the leprosy patients that they would collect on the islands. The first arrived at this kind of natural prison on January 6, 1866

 

In 1873, the town had 600 lepers, but the number will not stop increasing, despite the death that reigns sovereign over the peninsula. The police, in all the islands, caught the contagious patients and deported them as criminals.

 

At dawn on May 10, 1873, in the company of his bishop, some fifty lepers and some head of cattle, Damien landed on the cliffs of Kalaupapa, the only place with a small and dangerous “port”. The bishop introduced him to the crowd gathered on the cliffs: «Now you have your priest!» They all went to the Kalawao Chapel to thank God.

Descent into hell

 

 

«The Son of man does not have a stone on which to lay his head.» Upon his arrival in Kalawao, it seems that Damien was happy to be able to imitate his Lord in this extreme destitution. He has nothing but his breviary and his toolbox. No roof under which to shelter and lay your head on it. He takes his food on a flat stone and sleeps under the stars, sheltered under a pandanus whose roots, according to a naturalist, “offer a privileged nest to centipedes, scorpions, ants, mosquitoes, cockroaches and also to cat fleas. dogs and mangy sheep, sheltering under its branches

 

 

With increasing clarity, Damián becomes aware of what his irreversible situation is going to be: the only healthy among the sick, he knows well that one day or another he will not escape contagion. He shelters himself under Providence that, like the pandanus, will not scare away the bugs. Because he does not want to resemble that white doctor they have been told about, who refuses to touch the sick and «auscultates» them with the end of his cane with which he lifts dresses and bandages. Like Saint Vincent de Paul, he wants to love his poor with the sweat of his forehead and his arms. And with his expression: «The poor man, my lord

 

At first it was awful. From the body of the lepers emanated a stink as if to vomit. By comparison, Tremelo’s pigsty was a flower garden. Giving communion, Damien felt such nausea that he resisted the urge to leave everything and run away. One Sunday, the stench of people in such a small chapel suffocated him to the point of being tempted to stand at the window to breathe. What to say about the moment of confession, especially of the dying, with barely a thread of hoarse voice, who to understand them had to approach their faces, where he saw the worms in the flesh and a smell that atrociously evoked putrefaction in his conscience of sin? To somehow neutralize this aggression, Damián resorted to tobacco: “The smell of my pipe prevents my clothes from being soaked by the disgusting smell of our lepers.

 

To the newcomers who disembarked every month, and more often every week, the ancients first instilled in them the law of the jungle: «There is no law here.» For them, who know they are convicted, neither the sanctions nor the threats matter: policemen, handcuffs, irons on their feet, nothing scares anyone who has nothing to lose. The kingdom government even dreams of declaring them legally dead. They are in the leper colony to die there. The true governor of the island is death. Dante had seen written on Hell’s gate: «There is no hope here.»

 

All these wretched swept away from society lived together without distinction of age or sex. They spent their time playing cards, drinking a kind of beer made from fermented rice and the excesses that necessarily come from it all. All his things could not be clean due to the lack of water, which had to be transported from afar. The smell of their garbage and sweat was simply unbearable for a newcomer

 

A nameless depravity was their law, according to the public message that they proclaimed «in this place there is no law.» Women were forced into prostitution to have friends to help them in their illness. The children, as soon as they had any strength, were employed as servants of the house. When the leprosy was too advanced, these women and children were thrown out of the house and had to find shelter. It was not uncommon to find them behind a wall, waiting for death to come to end their suffering or for a charitable or hired hand to transport them to the hospital.

 

Let me speak of another source of immorality: I am referring to drunkenness. The intoxicating drink was obtained by the large-scale distillation of the root of a plant that grows abundantly in the mountains … The process, very primitive and imperfect, made the liquor unsuitable for consumption. The natives who fell under its influence, forgot the most elementary principles of decency. Running around naked, they behaved like crazy people. It is much easier to imagine the consequences than to describe them

 

 

 I mean drunkenness. First I want to explain how the intoxicating drink is procured. Along the mountain grows in abundance a plant that the natives call «ki» (Dracoena terminalis). The root of this vegetable, when it has been cooked and fermented and its product is distilled, provides a highly intoxicating liquid. The process is very primitive and imperfect and naturally the liquor is not at all suitable for consumption. Upon my arrival here, the distillation of this horrible liquor was done on a large scale. The natives who fell under its influence, forgot the most elementary principles of decency.

 

 

On the slopes of Molokai there is an abundance of a plant that the natives call “ki” (Draconea terminalis); When Father Damien arrived on Molokai he found this horrible drink in vogue. The Indians forgot, under his influence, all feelings of modesty and indulged in such excesses that they would have been believed deprived of reason. The practice of this distillation was illegal. The good man had discovered that certain police officers were in cahoots with the criminals. He set about the task and by dint of threats and persuasion, he managed to convince them to hand over the utensils used for their distillation to the authorities.

 

Help the sick to no longer behave like government assistants, to protest against the arrival of food in poor condition, to cultivate a plot themselves, to take care of chickens, pigs … Ask the government to buy the fruits they produce, so that the money runs in the colony as it happens in any other place. Little by little, the cursed peninsula takes on the appearance of a beautiful countryside, clusters of white houses lined with flowery gardens. An almost normal social life begins to breathe, in a cursed sense, waste of society. A dynamic priest has set them on their feet. At his contact, they become men.

……….

 

Above all, although condemned to death, they become aware that they are no longer cursed, waste of society. A dynamic priest has set them on their feet. At his contact, they become men. It costs Damien a price. Attentive to everything he can relieve others, he hardly takes precautions with himself. He each time he becomes one more Hawaiian, but surrounded by leper Hawaiians. He eats the poi in the common gourd with his hand, shares the pipe with smokers who pass it around, bandages the sores, works with his tools, plays carefree with sick children, during work they expiate the moment when he leaves the pipe on the wood to give him a few puffs

 

At first it was scary

 

From the body of the lepers emanated a stink as if to vomit. By comparison, Tremelo’s pigsty was a flower garden. Giving communion, Damien felt such nausea that he resisted the urge to leave everything and run away. One Sunday, the stench of the people in such a small chapel suffocated him to the point of being tempted to stand at the window to breathe. What to say about the moment of confession, especially of the dying, with barely a thread of hoarse voice, who to understand them had to approach their faces, where he saw the worms in the flesh and a smell that atrociously evoked putrefaction in his conscience of sin? To somehow neutralize this aggression, Damien resorted to tobacco: «The smell of my pipe somewhat prevents my clothes from being soaked by the disgusting smell of our lepers.» At night he begins to experience a strange itch on his legs that he attributes to an underhanded attack of leprosy. Through a friend, he got a pair of tall boots to protect himself. Another night he left the hut stumbling through the mud, which made him think and say, «I think my brain has attacked»

 

Water

 

Providing water to Molokai was a favorite topic of conversation for Father Damien. When he arrived at the leper colony, there was no other way to provide himself with water than to fetch it from a pond, and the lepers had to carry it on her poor back. Likewise, they had to wash their clothes in a very distant place: there is nothing strange that they were not clean. He was sorry for it. One day they told him that at the extreme limit of a valley, called Waihanau, there was a natural deposit

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In the company of two white men and his leper boys, he set out towards the place and, with great satisfaction, discovered the great reservoir of water, almost circular, all filled with very cold and very clean water. The diameter of the pond was seventy-two feet by fifty-five. They did a sounding near the edge and found it to be eighteen feet deep. It was located at the foot of a steep slope and the natives told him that in times of the greatest droughts it was never dry.

 

He no longer had rest until the tubes were sent to him. He placed them himself with his lepers who were able to help him. Since then there has been an abundance of water for drinking, washing and bathing. Later the water pipes were improved by the government, under the direction of M. Alexandre Sproull, who was still in his charity work when I was in Molokai and was staying with me in the house reserved for visitors.

 

HIS BROTHER DUTTON: AT DAMIÁN’S SCHOOL “

 

. She had alcohol problems that she was later able to overcome. He was considered a handsome guy and a courageous person. There seems to be no specific reason or reasons that made you decide to give up alcohol. There is also no known reason why he decided to convert to Catholicism while in Memphis.

 

. After nearly two years of austere life, Joseph Dutton decided that the contemplative life was for others, not for himself. By his nature he longed for a life of action and service. He left the monastery having the abbot’s blessing. Soon after, he heard of a man on an island in Hawaii who was caring for hundreds of leprosy victims. He traveled to the University of Notre Dame and discussed joining Father Damien with a professor named Charles Warren Stoddard. Stoddard, a renowned writer, had previously visited the leper colony, met Damien, and written a book about the person who had caught Dutton’s attention. Stoddard seems to have encouraged Duton

 

Shortly thereafter, he set out on his journey to Honolulu, where he disembarked dressed in the way he would wear for the rest of his life: a simple denim suit. He stayed in town for only a few days, long enough to get credentials from the bishop and the Sanitation Committee. The day after his arrival in Kalawao, Dutton got up at 4:30 a.m., which would be his custom for the rest of his life, a habit he probably acquired from the Trappist experience of he.

 

Damien and Dutton hit it off and a form of friendship that would never tarnish. They liked each other’s conversation and shared the same ideals about improving the life and well-being of the 700 or 800 patients at the institution. Dutton proved to be an important tonic for Damien, who had suffered loneliness and now leprosy; they both knew that Damien’s days were numbered. The man who would soon continue Damian’s work helped him as a nurse, administrator, builder, sacristan, counselor, and caretaker

Damien now had on his right a man ready to take on the mission, and to do it willingly and with enthusiasm. At the same time, Damien’s impatience was balanced by Dutton’s mild and tolerant temperament. Far from being a sad man, which anyone would expect of a penitent person, Dutton was always jovial.

 

«I am a leper»

 

. Many previous signs already alerted him: brownish spots on his skin, pains in his left leg, numbness in part of the foot …

….

One day he burns his feet in very hot water, destroying his skin but feeling no pain. He knows what that means. The first communication was addressed to his brother Pánfilo (01.31.1885) At the end of 1885 he wrote to his Provincial: «At this moment I no longer have any doubts: I am a leper.» But he immediately adds: “I am still standing and with a little care I will continue my active life as before.

……

In November 1887 he wrote to his brother Pánfilo: «Leprosy has caused some damage to my body and has left me somewhat disfigured, but I continue to be robust and strong.»

 

He wrote to his brother Pánfilo on November 25, 1873: One day during solemn mass I was about to leave the altar to go out to breathe fresh air, but the memory of the Lord, when Lazaro’s tomb was opened, held me back. By now I have gotten used to it. I enter the houses of the lepers without problem. Sometimes when I confess to sick people whose sores are covered in worms, it does me good to cover my nose. Sometimes I do not know where to give the anointing to the sick, because the foot and the hand is a complete wound, which indicates to me that their death is near. There are no doctors here.

 

He took great care of the children. Many of them were orphans and lepers. Some were healthy, but care was taken that the vicious, who were not lacking, used them for their vices or led them to drugs or child prostitution. For these children she built two asylums, one for boys and one for girls. In 1883 he was 44. He encouraged the boys to work in the garden and on the farm; and the girls were taught sewing, cooking, and other housework by good Catholic kokuas (healthy) women so that they could marry when they were of age. The orphanage was opened in 1878 and at the death of Father Damien there were a hundred orphans

 

Regarding music, Father Alberto Bouillon writes: I should, perhaps, mention a serenade that we attended last Thursday in the light of the moon … After dinner we went out to take some fresh air. A hundred lepers were waiting for us with flags, four drums and a dozen musical instruments. Musicians, whose hands have no more than two or three fingers, and whose lips are swollen with disease, masterfully perform the most varied pieces of music, delighting and distracting us for two whole hours.

……………

The same night, after the third burial, Damien broke the long silence that had been imposed. He wrote a propaganda letter to his brother Panfilo: «Soon I have been living in the midst of lepers for seven years. During that long period of time, I have had the opportunity to see closely and touch with my finger, so to speak, human misery in all that is most horrifying

 

Half of our patients are like walking corpses that the guanos have already begun to devour […] As the cemetery, the church and the house do not form more than a single plot, I am the only guardian during the night of this beautiful garden of the dead where all my spiritual children rest, I find my delight in going there to pray my rosary and meditate on the eternal happiness that a great number of them already enjoy, on the misfortune of some who have not wanted to obey me and suffer in purgatory. I assure you, my dear brother, that the cemetery and the hut of my dying are my most beautiful meditation books, both to feed my own heart and to prepare my instructions.