I heard this crazy story the other night of a Dutch Catholic Priest named Father Damien. He travelled to Honolulu, Hawaii in the year 1864 and began work at a leper colony on the island. When he got there, they told him that he could do anything he desired to help the people afflicted with the disease, but like all people if he were to come in physical contact with them he would contract the disease and eventually die. He worked for years to help raise money for the colony, build quality health facilities, repair the existing homes and buildings in the community, and teach them all about God. After more than a decade of hard work in service of the people, there was still one thing that he hadn't done to reach them...he had never touched one of them. He finally made the hard and eventually fatal decision to really become one of them, to not treat them any differently by refusing to come into physical contact with them. Soon after he made this life changing decision he contracted Leprosy. Within no time, his body became disfigured beyond recognition and in 1889 he died. It is said that the most important thing he ever did was not his building projects, not his fight for sanitary health facilities, and not his constant service of the hundreds of forsaken people in the colony, but it was the fact that when talking about the people in his community he would always use the phrase "WE lepers." He has since been designated a Saint by the Catholic church.
What a story about truly caring for someone and giving up your life for them in order to reach them...I wonder if I could ever do something like that.
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Someone once said to Mother Teresa, patting her on the back, "I wouldn't do what you do for a million dollars." She replied with a grin, "Me neither." I love that story... I think that it is almost as if when we finally give in and let the Lord in, it's like we are infected with this contageous form of love. It starts to break us down and change us. When that kind of love takes over our body and our life, it's like a terminal illness... this life, this body just doesn't quite hold up... we have no more control over our bodies, our minds or our hearts, love will have it's way with us and all we can do is sit back and watch. I don't think anyone ever says to themself.... "Now I think I can give up my life, my body, myself for someone else." I think it just happens and then you realize that there is nothing anyone could offer you to not. Just being able to feel that kind of love for another person and give that much of yourself is reason in and of itself... i think you might even start to feel lucky that you are blessed enough to experience it... i think... :)
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