SAINTS OF THE DAY
SATURDAY, 10 MAY, 2025
1) SAINT DAMIEN OF MOLOKAI*
2) SAINT JOHN OF AVILA**
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1) SAINT DAMIEN OF MOLOKAI*
PRIEST
(3 January 1840 - 15 April 1889)
Joseph De Veuster, the future Father Damien, was born at Tremelo in Belgium. His was a large family and his father was a farmer-merchant. When his oldest brother entered the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts (called 'Picpus' after the street in Paris where its Generalate was located), his father planned that Joseph should take charge of the family business. Joseph, however, decided to become a religious. At the beginning of 1859 he entered the novitiate at Louvain, in the same house as his brother. There he took the name of Damien.
In 1863, his brother who was to leave for the mission in the Hawaiian Islands, became ill. Since preparations for the voyage had already been made, Damien obtained permission from the Superior General to take his brother's place. He arrived in Honolulu on March 19th, 1864, where he was ordained to the priesthood the following May 21st. He immediately devoted himself, body and soul, to the difficult service of a "country missionary" on the island of Hawaii, the largest in the Hawaiian group.
At that time, the Hawaiian Government decided on a very harsh measure aimed at stopping the spread of "leprosy," the deportation to the neighboring island of Molokai, of all those infected by what was thought to be an incurable disease. The entire mission was concerned about the abandoned "lepers" and the Bishop, Louis Maigret ss.cc., spoke to the priests about the problem. He did not want to send anyone "in the name of obedience," because he knew that such an order meant certain death. Four Brothers volunteered, they would take turns visiting and assisting the "lepers" in their distress. Damien was the first to leave on May 10th, 1873. At his own request and that of the lepers, he remained definitively on Molokai.
He brought hope to this hell of despair. He became a source of consolation and encouragement for the lepers, their pastor, the doctor of their souls and of their bodies, without any distinction of race or religion. He gave a voice to the voiceless, he built a community where the joy of being together and openness to the love of God gave people new reasons for living.
After Father Damien contracted the disease in 1885, he was able to identify completely with them: "We lepers." Father Damien was, above all, a witness of the love of God for His people. He got his strength from the Eucharist: "lt is at the foot of the altar that we find the strength we need in our isolation..." It is there that he found for himself and for others the support and the encouragement, the consolation and the hope, he could, with a deep faith, communicate to the lepers. All that made him "the happiest missionary in the world," a servant of God, and a servant of humanity.
Having contracted "leprosy" himself, Fr. Damien died on April 15th, 1889, having served sixteen years among the lepers. His mortal remains were transferred in 1936 to Belgium where he was interred in the crypt of the church of the Congregation of Sacred Hearts at Louvain. His fame spread to the entire world. In 1938 the process for his beatification was introduced at Malines (Belgium): Pope Paul VI signed the Decree on the "heroicity of his virtues" on July 7th 1977. He was canonized on October 11th, 2009.
In Father Damien, the Church proposes an example to all those who find sense for their life in the Gospel and who wish to bring the Good News to the poor of our time.
- Excerpted from SSCC Website
PATRON: Lepers.
PRAYER: Father of mercy, who gave us in Saint Damien a shining witness of love for the poorest and most abandoned, grant that, by his intercession, as faithful witnesses of the heart of your Son Jesus, we too may be servants of the most needy and rejected. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
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2) SAINT JOHN OF AVILA**
PRIEST AND DOCTOR
(c. 1499 – May 10, 1569)
John of Avila was born on the feast of the Epiphany in 1499 in Extremadura in the ecclesiastical province of Toledo, the only child of his parents. He spent four years at the University of Salamanca studying law (1513-1517), and then returned to his parents' home where he lived in seclusion for several years. On the advice of a Franciscan priest, the young man left his solitude and matriculated at the University of Alcala, an important center for humanistic studies in Spain, where he studied from 1520-1526.
After ordination to the priesthood in 1526, Fr. John went to Seville to prepare for departure as a missionary to the new world. While waiting to set sail, the newly ordained priest engaged in catechesis and preaching, so impressing the priest with whom he lived and worked, Fr. Fernando Contreras, that he urged the Archbishop of Seville to keep Fr. John in Spain, where an enormous mission field had opened up with the end of Muslim domination. Thus, Fr. John Avila began the missionary work in Southern Spain that would earn him the title, "Apostle of Andalusia."
During this early period of his priestly ministry, Fr. John lived in a loosely structured fraternity with Fr. Contreras and some other priests engaged in preaching, evangelizing, and catechizing. As Fr. John continued to work in Seville and its surrounding areas, other priests, desiring a similar mode of ministry, became his disciples and lived a simple fraternal life under his direction. By the time sickness forced his retirement, there were about one hundred priests who regarded Master Fr. John as their director, many of who helped in founding and staffing the schools that Fr. John established.
In 1531, Fr. John was denounced to the Inquisition and spent a year in prison (1532-33), a time during which he claimed to have learned more than in all his other studies. In prison, he began his major work, Audi, filia, a guide to the spiritual life, written for a young woman who was living a consecrated life under his direction. He also continued his study of the letters of St. Paul, becoming so immersed in them that later, a religious priest who heard him preaching said: "I have heard St. Paul interpreting St. Paul." In July of 1533, the Inquisition absolved Fr. John of all charges against his orthodoxy and he resumed his priestly ministry. He was incardinated in the diocese of Cordoba in 1535 and preached there and in Granada during the next several years, making many converts, including St. John of God and St. Francis Borgia. It is thought that in Granada, around 1538, Fr. John received the title of "Master in Sacred Theology." It became the custom to call him "the Master," a title with an academic connotation, but used in a more general sense for Fr. John, to capture the central aspect of his priestly vocation as a preacher, teacher, and director of souls.
Fr. John's outstanding work during the middle years of his ministry was the establishment of schools at every level: schools of doctrine for children and adults; colleges-the equivalent of our high schools-and universities, the most notable of which was that of Baeza. His disciples played an important part in this enterprise since they taught in these schools. When the time came for Fr. John to give up this phase of his life's work, he desired that the Jesuits would take it over, especially the University of Baeza. His desire did not come to fruition as he wished, but about thirty of Fr. John's disciples did go, with the Master's encouragement, to the Society of Jesus.
Beginning in 1551, Fr. John was increasingly burdened by ill health, and, within a few years, was forced to give up his missionary endeavors. For a brief period, there was discussion with the Jesuits, including St. Ignatius of Loyola, of his possible entry into the Society. However, Fr. John's failing health prevented this move, and he spent the last years of his life in semi-retirement in Montilla in the diocese of Cordoba. He continued to engage in ministry as his health permitted and wrote a vast number of letters to people in various states of life.
He converted, or led to deeper conversion, St. John of God, founder of the Hospitaller Order, and St. Francis Borgia, a future Master General of the Jesuits. He was a friend of St. Ignatius of Loyola, founder of the Jesuits, and advised Saint Teresa of Ávila, foundress of the Discalced Carmelites. He was called a “Master,” and was a spiritual guide for such saints as Peter of Alcantara and John of Ribera. The saints John of God and Francis Borgia owed their conversion to him and turned to him constantly for spiritual direction. St. Francis de Sales and the Curé of Ars, St. John Vianney, said they benefited from his writings. It is likely also that the 20th-century Spaniard, St. Josemaria Escrivá, drank from his spiritual fountain.
Despite these, and many other, personal connections to famous religious orders and their founders, St. John always remained a diocesan priest, not a religious order priest, something unusual for a priest of his era with such wide influence.
John of Avila died on May 10, 1569, and, in accord with his wishes, was buried in the Jesuit Church in Montilla. Beatified on September 15, 1894, he was declared patron of diocesan priests in Spain on July 2, 1946, and was canonized on May 31, 1970 by Pope Paul VI.
PATRON: Diocesan priests, Andalusia Spain and Spanish clergy.
PRAYER: Saint John of Ávila, your refined education, broad mind, and ardent love of God and Mary showed itself in all you did and said. May our lives likewise reflect our deepest Christian beliefs, inspiring our friends and families to live saintly perfection. Amen.