Breathtakingly Beautiful

Today is breathtakingly beautiful - sunny, warm - and it's only March 13! It brought to mind an article I wrote several years ago about the Hawaiian island of Moloka'i and the Kalaupapa Peninsula.


Kalaupapa is breathtaking. What is officially called Makanalua Peninsula on the Hawaiian island of Moloka’i (between Maui and Oahu), Kalaupapa juts out into the churning Pacific Ocean; it is cut off from the rest of the island by 3,000 foot majestic sea cliffs, the tallest in the world. Standing on the shore, watching waves crash relentlessly against the craggy lava rocks, one feels a sense of truly being in a place the world has left behind. Which is precisely why, in 1866 King Kamehameha V chose this spot to leave some of his subjects behind - permanently.

Hansen’s Disease, or “leprosy” as it was commonly known, had come to the islands in the 1830’s. Much feared, the dreaded malady attacked the skin, flesh and nerves. Nodules, ulcers, scaly scabs and deformities resulted. Death was not uncommon. With no cure in sight, Kamehameha signed the “Act to Prevent the Spread of Leprosy”, setting aside land to isolate people who might spread the communicable scourge if “left at large.”

People with advanced cases of leprosy (and later even those merely suspected of having it or those related to a sufferer) were exiled to Kalaupapa. It was a place devoid of amenities - no buildings or shelters, no drinking water and certainly no medical treatment of any kind. Plucked from their families and abandoned to the land, these unfortunates were forced to fend for themselves as best they could, or as was the case for many, as they could not.

Stories tell of some victims arriving by ship, being forced to jump overboard to swim for their lives or dangle from ropes stretched from anchored ship to the shore, painfully inching their way to land and comparative safety.

No amount of reward or payment could induce healthy people to stay and keep order in the settlement. Everyone was afraid - deathly afraid - until one man, Joseph DeVeuster, set aside his fear and gave his heart to the people.

Born in Belgium, this Catholic priest known as “Father Damien” arrived at Kalaupapa in 1873 and remained there until his death. Appalled at deplorable conditions in which the people were forced to live, disregarding his own health and safety, Damien built proper homes and churches and worked tirelessly to extract government funding for medical services. He was a doctor, a pastor, a confidante, a comforter, and advocate. He became one of the people - in every sense of the word - as he himself contracted the disease and died after 16 years of service, in 1889.

Jesus came, too, in a sense, to a group of “lepers.” Knowing humankind was lost, abandoned to perdition because of the fatal scourge of sin, He became one of them, one of us. Fully man, He walked, talked, ate, felt pain, cried and slept. Fully God, he became the perfect sacrifice, sent to save forever his beloved, wayward creation. “For the Son of Man,” says Jesus in Luke 19:10, “came to seek and to save what was lost.”

Damien came to Kalaupapa to bring the outcasts a better life, to make the best of what they had left on earth. But when he died, their help was gone. Others had to come after him, to carry on. When Jesus came and died, he rose again and no more help was needed. He is our living Advocate, our help, our hope. Where we were once cut off and left behind, because of Jesus we are free and have no need to fear ever being left again. Jesus doesn’t make better of what we have left - He guarantees us His best, breathtakingly beautiful yet to come!