ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS May 10 St. William of Pontoise, St. Comgall, Bl. Damien de Veuster,

ENGLISH SPEAKING SAINTS May 10 St. William of Pontoise, 1192 A.D. English hermit. He resided at Pontoise, in France, having gone there to take up the eremetical life. His hermitage became popular in the region. He may have been Benedictine at St. Martin's Abbey. St. Comgall, b.516 A.D., d.601 A.D. Abbot and teacher of St. Columbanus and the monks who evangelized France and central Europe. He was born about 516 in Yester, Ireland, and studied under St. Fintan at Cluain Eidnech Monastery. After living under a harsh rule as a hermit, Comgall founded a monastery in Bangor. He was abbot for eight thousand monks. Comgall also accompanied St. Columba on a mission to Inverness, Scotland, and founded a monastery at Heth. He died at Bangor. Bl. Damien de Veuster, 1889 A.D. The Leper Priest, the Hero of Molokai. Born in Tremelo, Belgium, on January 3, 1840, he joined the Sacred Hearts Fathers in 1860. He was born Joseph and received the name Damien in religious life. In 1864, he was sent to Honolulu, Hawaii, where he was ordained. For the next nine years he worked in missions on the big island, Hawaii. In 1873, he went to the leper colony on Molokai, after volunteering for the assignment. Damien cared for lepers of all ages, but was particularly concerned about the children segregated in the colony. He announced he was a leper in 1885 and continued to build hospitals, clinics, and churches, and some six hundred coffins. He died on April 15, on Molokai. Slandered by a Protestant minister, Mr. Hyde, Damien was defended by Robert Louis Stevenson, who wrote an impassioned defense of Damien in 1905. He was declared venerable in 1977. Pope John Paul II declared him beatified on June 4, 1995.