KAHULUI, Maui — The koa reliquary carrying a foot bone from newly canonized St. Damien de Veuster today visited the Maui church where the Belgian priest was called to serve the Hansen’s disease settlement at Kalawao on the isolated peninsula of Kalaupapa.

Damien was on Maui for the 1873 dedication of a new sanctuary for St. Anthony Church in Wailuku when he and three other priests volunteered to accept a rotating assignment to Kalawao. Damien was the first to go, and within days of his arrival at the forlorn settlement on May 10, 1873, he told his superiors that he wanted to stay.
During the next 16 years, Damien ministered to the physical and spiritual needs of the Kalawao residents. He contracted Hansen’s disease and died April 15, 1889, at the age of 49.
A small chapel attached to the modern-day St. Anthony Church is named for Damien and houses two “second-class” relics, a cloth and splinter from his coffin. First-class relics, such as the bone from his right heel, are the actual physical remains of a saint.
“For so many of us, we weren’t able to go to Rome (for the Oct. 11 canonization), so this our chance to be reunited and to get in touch with a saint who’s been here and has been a model for us for service and compassion,” said the Rev. Roland Bunda.
The reliquary was scheduled to be taken tonight to East Maui, with a stop at tiny St. Gabriel Church in Keçanae before being honored at a midnight Mass at St. Mary in Häna. Several thousand people are expected to attend a Mass and other Damien festivities from 5 to 9 p.m. tomorrow at War Memorial Gym in Wailuku.
The statewide tour culminates Nov. 1 with a celebration at Cathedral of Our Lady of Peace in Honolulu, where Damien was ordained in 1864. An interfaith ceremony at çIolani Palace is planned for the same day.