RSA student to perform true story of leper priest

By Laureen F. Guenther Times Contributor

Joel Braun, a graduating student at Rosebud School of the Arts, will perform Damien, a one-man play by Aldyth Morris and directed by David Snider, from Jan. 24 to 26 in Rosebud’s Akokiniskway Gallery.
Damien is the true story of Father Damien De Veuster of Belgium, a missionary who went to the Hawaiian Islands in 1864, just as leprosy (now called Hansen’s disease) was spreading throughout the islands.
The Hawaiian government responded to the outbreak by sending people who contracted the disease to a remote island, quarantining them with minimal help and resources.
In 1873, Father Damien offered to live among them and be their priest.
“He soon realized they needed much more than a priest and he ended up leading the community in many ways,” Braun said. Father Damien built shelters and infrastructure. He acted as a doctor and instituted civic order. He advocated with government authorities on behalf of the residents.
Eleven years after he began serving his people, Father Damien contracted leprosy. He died among them in 1899. In 2009, the Catholic Church declared Father Damien a saint.
“This story spoke to me very powerfully and moved me deeply from the first time I read it,” Braun said. “I felt so many personal connections with the character of Father Damien and I also felt deeply inspired by his love, sacrifice and service.”
Like Father Damien, Braun is a carpenter and an avid outdoorsman. And like Father Damien, who gave his people medical care because doctors were afraid to go near them, Braun has worked as a paramedic.
“He willingly gave up just about everything … to be confined to an isolated pit of misery and despair.” And, as he wrote, “…to do whatever I can to prove to them that God has not forgotten them.”
Today, people in developing countries can still contract Hansen’s disease but the disease is curable.
“We can learn from Damien … how he not only served the lepers as a doctor but fought to demolish the stigma or being ‘unclean,’ of being outcasts of society,” Braun said. “Our modern world still has many similar outcasts of society that may be considered unclean. Damien reached out and fearlessly touched these people, treated them as (people of equal worth) and loved them.
“I earnestly hope Damien’s story can inspire the audience to think about what people or groups they may consider to be somehow unclean, inferior or outcast,” Braun added, “and perhaps be challenged to take one small action to reach out and touch that person with love.”
Braun will perform two matinee and two evening performances of Damien, Jan. 24 to 26, in Rosebud’s Akokiniskway Gallery. Purchase your tickets at the door or at creatinggenesis.ca/projects.