Dear friends of the Congregation,
I wish to share with you the joy of celebrating the feast of our brother Damien on the 10th of May. His life and his surrender to the service of the most poor and forgotten of his time even today speaks of the fond Love that the Lord has for us.
This year there is another reason that fills us with grateful happiness: in the afternoon of 29th April of this year the Theological Advisors’ Commission of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints has recognised as a true miracle of God, through the intercession of Blessed Damien the healing of a Mrs. Audrey Toguchi of Honolulu (Hawaii). This woman was ill with cancer: Liposarcoma pleomorphic metastasis – an incurable illness. During her sickness Mrs Toguchi was visited by the brothers and sisters of the Sacred Hearts who invited her to personally direct herself to the intercession of Blessed Damien: she prayed with faith and got her family and friends to pray for her She recalled: “I prayed to Blessed Damien. He was central to my prayers: from 1st May 1997 until 19th January 2004 my prayers were directed to God exclusively through Blessed Damien. I am convinced that the miraculous disappearance of cancer is due to the intercession of Blessed Damien”.
The medics who have examined this healing are all in agreement that it was ‘extranatural and not exceptional’. Mrs Toguchi today enjoys perfect and full health.
With this ‘miracle’ the doors have been opened for Blessed Damien to be canonised. With canonisation Blessed Damien will be approved in the Church as one to be imitated, venerated and invoked by Christians and not (only) as someone who has outshone in virtues.
We are all grateful for this gift that the Lord is working in us.
That which God is doing in Damien is what he wants for every person: open hearts are required – hearts open to God and hearts and hands open to service of our brothers and sisters.
Happy Feast day!
Fr. Bruno Benati ss.cc.
General Postulator
05/10/2008