My family’s shore house in Ocean City is within walking distance of one of the churches in the new consolidated parish on the island named for St. Damien. Since the decision to place the parish under his patronage, I’ve read quite a bit about his amazing life story.
Damien, along with soon-to-be canonized Marianne Cope (hers is set to take place in Rome on Oct. 21 along with Kateri Tekakwitha), are heroes for their selfless work with the quarantined lepers on the Hawaiian island of Molokai.
Born Josef de Veuster in Belgium, Damien left Europe to live amongst the outcast who had become infected with the misunderstood disease. He eventually contracted it himself from close contact through washing, dressing sores, and ministering to the victims, a rather unlucky occurrence — speaking from a physical and not spiritual perspective.
Today epidemiologists and medical researchers have discovered that over 95 percent of human beings are in fact immune to leprosy, which is now more frequently known under the less-stigmatized title Hansen’s disease. The affliction has, however, since biblical times been the source of not only physical suffering, but perhaps even more damaging psychological trauma and social ostracization. Who can forget movies where the “polluted” are required to carry a bell and shout “unclean, unclean” to warn people to stay as far away from them as possible? Or the revulsion one almost instinctively feels when hearing of St. Francis of Assisi dismounting his horse to kiss a leper he encounters while out riding?
Figures such as Damien and Mother Teresa force us to expand our notions of self-emptying, kenotic love in emulation of their divine Teacher and Healer. How often do we say to ourselves, “I’m a good person in general; I don’t hurt anyone; I make a conscious effort to stay out of trouble’s way and avoid potentially bad situations. But surely I can’t be expected by God or the church to do that? Leave that to the people with haloes in stained glass windows.”
As we see when we encounter the stunning charity that took place in the forsaken villages of Molokai, there’s more to a life of discipleship than deciding not to plunder and pillage. Goodness in the Christian tradition is an active, and not passive, characteristic.
In the opening chapter of the earliest Gospel, one of the first acts described is Jesus’ healing of a leper (Mark 1:40-45). There are parallel scenes in Matthew and Luke, as well as a separate Lukan account of Jesus healing ten people afflicted with the disease at one time. There are also countless descriptions of Jesus “reaching out his hand” to make direct, tangible contact with those deemed impure, whether physically, spiritually, psychologically or socially.
Who are the marginalized deemed untouchable for us today? HIV/AIDS victims? The imprisoned? “Illegal” immigrants? The homeless? The mentally disabled? The unpopular at school or in the dorms? Those in the shackles of addiction to drugs, sex, alcohol, or other empty promises of fulfillment? How often do we, like Jesus and Damien and Marianne Cope, reach out to them in their (perhaps silent) entreaty to us: “If you are willing, you can make us clean.”
Michael M. Canaris of Collingswood is an administrator at Fairfield University’s Center for Faith and Public Life and is on the faculty for the Department of Philosophy, Theology, and Religious Studies at Sacred Heart University.
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