Stained glass window depicting St. Damien in St. Anthony Church, Louvain, Belgium.
It was a heart-wrenching moment for Damien de Veuster as he said farewell to his family and passed for the last time through the familiar walls surrounding his home village of Tremelo, Belgium. Crossing the fields where cattle grazed and grain grew, the muscles in his arm must have twitched knowing he was leaving behind the farmer’s life for the unknowns of a sacred call beyond.
The missionary stretch took him 7,355 miles away to the islands of Hawaii. His first task was to learn the Hawaiian language. Several months later, after his ordination to the priesthood in Honolulu’s cathedral, he was assigned to Puna, Hawaii. There words became flesh, as he learned the difference between pahoehoe lava that looks like fudge, and the a‘a with its jagged foot-imperiling edges. Later, he said, “I have a great affection for our poor islanders. For this reason, I do not hesitate when it means visiting the sick at a distance of seven or eight leagues from here.”
Father Yohanes (Yanto) Budiyanto with parishioners.
And endlessly travel he did — by horse and mule, schooner and canoe, and by foot, crossing ravines and climbing two-thousand foot heights to reach the faithful.
In 2006, Father Benny Kosasih crossed the 6,120 miles from Indonesia to become the first of five missionaries sent by the Indonesian province of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts to Hawaii. The Indonesian priests helped relieve a priest shortage the U.S. province faced in some of its Hawaii parishes.
For Father Yohanes (Yanto) Budiyanto, who arrived in 2013, nothing was too difficult for him, including his four-and-a-half-hour, 33-mile bus trips from Wahiawa to Kaneohe to study English before he learned how to drive. He found missionary happiness doing simple things with great love.
As St. Damien said, “Truly, it is the Divine Heart that gives strength to the missionary.”
“For me,” Father Yanto explained, “there is no difficulty to love people of other cultures. St. Damien is my model. As he embraced and served the marginalized, he let no distance come between him and his care of them. In his love for them, they felt the dignity of their humanity, and he felt their acceptance as family.”
*Dutch for “inspires,” a slogan used in Belgium for the canonization of Father Damien.
Next issue: Tonga — a new mission