The Priest Who Descended to Molokai

In 1873, a thirty-three-year-old Belgian priest named Damien De Veuster boarded a cargo ship bound for the Hawaiian island of Molokai. His destination was Kalaupapa — a remote peninsula walled in by ocean cliffs, where the Kingdom of Hawaii had exiled hundreds of men, women, and children suffering from leprosy. No one who entered was expected to leave.

Father Damien chose to go anyway. He built shelters, bandaged open wounds, dug graves with his own hands, and shared meals with people the rest of the world had abandoned. He knew the cost. Eleven years later, he began his Sunday homily not with "my fellow believers" but with two quiet words: "We lepers."

He had contracted the disease himself. He stayed until his death in 1889, never once seeking escape.

John 3:13 tells us that no one has ascended into heaven except the One who descended from heaven — the Son of Man. Jesus did not observe our condition from a safe distance. He descended into it. He entered our exile. And when He was lifted up on the cross, it was not as a judge issuing condemnation but as a Savior absorbing it.