The death of Father Damien

Pat McNamara passes on a welcome reminder that today in 1889 Blessed Father Damien of Molokai passed from this world to eternal life. He was forty-nine years old on that Monday of Holy Week and died around 8:00 a.m. "with a smile, like a child going to sleep."

He said of his beloved lepers, "I would gladly give my life for them," and this he did. He spent his life in their service, giving all he had to give.

Father Damien received the Sacrament of the Annointing of the Sick (then called the Extreme Unction (Annointing) and made his last Confession on April 2nd, 1889.

He said to Father Conrardy, who heard his confession, "How good God is, to have made me live long enough to see at this moment two priests at my side and the Franciscan Sisters at the settlement! ... I am no longer necessary; I am going to Heaven."

Near the end of his life, after two weeks of suffering, Father Damien said, "How sweet it is to die a child of the Sacred Hearts."

As we consider the blessed death of the Leper Priest, it is only right that we consider also our own death, whenever it might come. Father Damien taught us that if we want to obtain the happiness of heaven, we should

...begin from this very day to prepare for a happy death. Let us not lose a moment of the little time we have still to live; let us walk on in the way of holiness and justice, persuaded that at that moment we too shall have the happiness of hearing those consoling words: "Come, ye good and faithful servants, who have been faithful in small things, to take possession of the kingdom I have prepared for you."