Wikipedia is such a great resource. I’m consistently impressed with how well the open-source encyclopedia is written and how accurate its content is. It’s not perfect, but it’s still truly impressive.
Each day they have a featured article. I’m not quite sure how they pick ’em, but if you want an interesting education, check out the featured article. (Maybe they can get an RSS feed for those. I’ll see about suggesting that to them.)
Yesterday’s featured article was on Fr. Damien.
For those who may not know, he went to Hawaii as a missionary. This was when Hawaii was an independent kingdom, before it was conquered and annexed as a U.S. territory. Upon arriving in the kingdom, Fr. Damian became concerned about the leper colony on the island of Molokai. He sought and obtained permission to go to Molokai and serve as priest for the lepers. He did menial work–caring for the living, caring for the dying, building homes, building coffins, digging graves–and his presence revolutionized the community. In the end, he contracted leprosy and died among the lepers he served.
Though the man is yet only a beatus, in truth he was a saint. (Also a pipe smoker, though the article doesn’t mention that.)
I hope his canonization will be soon.
I’ve read a couple of biographies of Fr. Damien, one by a non-Christian, and been impressed and inspired. In addition a quite decent biopic has been made, starring David Wenham (Faramir in “Lord of the Rings”). Review here:
http://decentfilms.com/reviews/molokai1999.html
P.S. I like and regularly use Wikipedia, and just this week I learned that they linked to one of my Decent Films articles — their article on the Irish Magdalen laundries links to my article on the “Magdalene Sisters” movie controversy. 🙂
Some of the Wikipedia articles about Canadian politics are quite biased. I don’t think anyone has noticed yet.
Bl. Father Damien made quite an impression on Robert Louis Stevenson as well. See:
http://robert-louis-stevenson.classic-literature.co.uk/father-damien/
an achievement all the more notable since Stevenson did not consider himself a religious man at the time.
My eldest son is named after Fr. Damien
I found a lot useful info. Thanks.
There are 2 St. Damiens.
Sts. Cosmo and Damien
and Fr. Damien of Molokai
all good
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