By Anthony Selvanathan
Special to the Herald
I was 16 when Father Damien became a saint.
Three years later, at 19, I watched it happen again with Mother Marianne.
Maybe I am unusual, but every October I still remember the dates: Oct. 11 and Oct. 21.
On Oct. 11, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Father Damien de Veuster. On Oct. 21, 2012, he canonized Mother Marianne Cope.
People from our islands traveled thousands of miles to Rome. Here at home, parishes celebrated. Catholics watched with pride as two people whose lives had become inseparable from Hawaii, and especially from Kalaupapa, were proclaimed saints for the universal church.
I was young for both, but I remember.
There are Catholics throughout our diocese who remember those days far better than I do. Some made the pilgrimage to Rome. Others participated in celebrations here at home. Some still have programs, holy cards, photographs or newspaper clippings tucked away somewhere.
For us, the canonizations are not yet simply history. They are part of our lived memory.
But each generation will encounter them differently.
There are young Catholics in our pews today who were not alive when Father Damien was canonized. Others were too young to remember Mother Marianne’s canonization. They have never known a church without St. Damien of Molokai and St. Marianne Cope.
That is a beautiful thing. But it also leaves those of us who remember with a responsibility. What will we pass on?
It is easy to pass on their names. Their images are in our churches. Their stories are taught in our schools. We celebrate their feast days and proudly claim them as Hawaii’s saints.
But a living witness must be more than a memory. The challenge is not simply to remember their canonizations, but to remember what their lives continue to ask of us.
Long before the church formally recognized their holiness, St. Damien and St. Marianne were living it. They drew near to people others kept at a distance. They recognized dignity where society too often saw disease. They remained when remaining was difficult.
And they served without knowing how history would remember them.
We have the privilege of knowing the end of their stories. They did not. Perhaps that is why remembering their canonizations should do more than make us nostalgic. Their lives still ask something of us.
For me, one way of carrying that witness forward has been through my involvement with the Order of Saint Lazarus, whose centuries-old tradition of service is rooted in care for people affected by leprosy, now known as Hansen’s disease.
In Hawaii, that mission has a particular resonance. It continually brings me back to Kalaupapa and to the witness of St. Damien and St. Marianne, reminding me that honoring their legacy means more than remembering what they did. It means continuing to recognize the dignity of those who are isolated, stigmatized or forgotten, and asking how we are called to serve them today.
Who are the people we keep at a distance today? Who feels forgotten? Who needs someone simply to remain beside them?
Most of us will never be asked to do what St. Damien and St. Marianne did at Kalaupapa. Holiness rarely asks two people to walk exactly the same road. But every Christian is called to holiness, and every generation must discover what faithful love requires in its own time and place.
Very few Christians will ever be canonized. But every Christian is called to become a saint.
That call is lived in ways that may never make history: caring for an aging parent, visiting someone who is lonely, listening to a person everyone else ignores, forgiving when it would be easier to remain angry, noticing the person who has become invisible.
As the years pass, the canonizations of St. Damien and St. Marianne will increasingly be encountered by younger Catholics as part of the history they have inherited rather than events they personally remember. That is the natural passing on of faith from one generation to another.
Their witness remains alive whenever someone chooses to draw near rather than turn away, whenever dignity is restored to someone forgotten, and whenever love remains after recognition disappears.
Those of us who remember their canonizations have the privilege of remembering what those moments felt like. We also have the responsibility to make sure the generations after us inherit more than the memory of two extraordinary celebrations.
Perhaps the best way to commemorate the days St. Damien and St. Marianne became saints is not simply to remember what happened in Rome. It is to make sure something of their witness is still happening here.