Tonight is our last class and I am so sad to see it end. I have really enjoyed the students and blogging about my class. We only have class for about 20 minutes then we gather for May Crowning. I am serving pizza and wings while we play hangman, choosing who our favorite person was that we talked about. I am choosing Hannah because of her deep desire to have a child and how she gave him back to God at such an early age.
Yesterday, May 10 was the feast of St. Damian, so I am also serving pineapple macadamia cookies to honor him. Last year when I was in Hawaii I saw his monument on the same square as King Kamehameha at the Judicial Office and I was pretty excited that a religious person was honored.
Father Damian came to Hawaii in 1864 as an ordained priest. In 1873 he moved to the leper colony in Molokai. It was hard for him to see the suffering of the lepers and how they were ostracized from the rest of the world. He knew he could not heal them and realised why they needed to be quarantined, so he spent his time making there life more meaningful. There were times when he celebrated the Mass that he had to hold out from vomiting because the stench of the leprosy was so strong. He eventually contracted the disease himself and died. There is finally a cure for Leprosy or Hanson's disease as it is now called, so the Island of Molokai is no longer a leper Island. As Father Damian was caring for the lepers he was really caring for Jesus, he is truly a great saint and someone we can model our life after.
