Honoring St. Damien’s Legacy

Photo courtesy of Molokai History Project

By Jack Kiyonaga, Editor

On May 10, 1873, Damien De Veuster, better known as St. Damien, arrived at Kalawao to minister to those suffering from Hansen’s disease. He would serve in the exiled settlement until he succumbed to Hansen’s disease himself in 1889. To honor his arrival on Molokai, May 10 is the feast day of St. Damien in the Catholic Church, and a day on which his legacy of charity is remembered. Last week on Molokai, one man continued this celebration of St. Damien with a unique project.

The plan, explained Mark Jechura who is organizing the Tree of Hope Tour project, was to begin a pilgrimage of relics of St. Damien and St. Marianne from Molokai to the continental U.S. this summer. Jechura was given permission by the Catholic Diocese of Honolulu to move the bone fragments relics, which are usually held by the diocese.

Jechura and a priest friend, both from Arkansas, arrived on Molokai in the days preceding the May 10 feast of St. Damien to prepare for the pilgrimage. They journeyed down to Kalaupapa to see the original settlement at Kalawao and celebrated Mass at Our Lady of Seven Sorrows, which St. Damien built.

The relics are “held as a very sacred object,” explained Jechura. He hopes that the pilgrimage will help “bring a message of hope to the world…particularly to those who are suffering.”

For Jechura, the project has personal significance – he credits the intercession of St. Damien with healing him from a mystery illness in 2017. He was given an authenticated piece of the tree which St. Damien had planted at Our Lady of Seven Sorrows – which Jechura credits with his unexpected recovery – by a couple from Molokai.

As part of the pilgrimage, Jechura had hoped to kick off the first leg of the tour with a moonlit swim across the Ka’iwi Channel to Oahu as an “act of faith.” The swim was cancelled due to rough weather conditions. Undeterred, Jechura will continue the journey by conventional travel means, visiting churches throughout the continental U.S. before returning to Hawaii with the relics in July.
“The tour will focus on serving the marginalized, the isolated, those struggling with faith, and those who have lost hope,” explained Jechura in a statement to the Dispatch, “offering opportunities for prayer, veneration and renewal.”