Sister Julie Louise Thevenin was a senior at Sacred Hearts Academy in 1936 when Father Damien's remains were moved from Moloka'i to his homeland of Belgium.

Thevenin, 91, was one of about 30 girls at the academy who walked in a procession with his remains from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace to Honolulu Harbor.

Hundreds came out for the procession that January day, Thevenin recalled recently. Today, a quickly shrinking number of people are still around to remember it.

"We all went down to the cathedral," Thevenin said, speaking from the Sacred Hearts convent in Kaimuki, where she lives. "We all had to march behind the casket."

Thevenin said she remembers touching the casket. And she remembers knowing it was only a matter of time before Damien was elevated to sainthood.

"I was pretty sure," she said, adding that she also knew it would take time. "You always have to think about Rome being the eternal city."

Damien will be canonized Oct. 11 in Rome. Thevenin plans to be there for the canonization, along with about 11 other Sacred Hearts sisters from the Islands and seven Sacred Hearts priests. She will be the oldest Sacred Hearts sister from the Islands making the trip, officials say.

Damien, who will be Hawai'i's first saint, will also be the first member of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts to receive the high honor. Only eight others from what is now American soil have been elevated to sainthood by the Catholic Church.

Sacred Hearts Sister Herman Julia Aki, of Moloka'i, will also attend the canonization. She, too, remembers Damien's remains being moved to Belgium. She was 9 years old and was on Moloka'i when he was moved from the island.

She said the procession on Moloka'i was somber, with residents mourning the departure of someone so revered. The streets, she said, "were flooded with people" who came out to say goodbye to Damien. Even back then, she said, Moloka'i residents were confident that Damien would be elevated to sainthood.

"We always knew he was a saint," she said.

The Rev. Damien de Veuster, who ministered to Hansen's disease patients of Kalaupapa until his death from the disease in 1889, was moved from Moloka'i in 1936 at the request of the Belgian government. He was reburied in Louvain, Belgium.

In 1995, when he was beatified, or declared blessed, a relic — his right hand — was re-interred in his original grave on Moloka'i. Following the canonization, another relic will be sent back to the Islands to be housed at the Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu.