Saint Damian of Molokai

ora pro nobis. Cool stuff abounding!

It starts with a troupe of trees, seven or eight monkeypods that Father Damien planted to provide shade near the church he built in the late 1800s in Kaluaaha, Molokai.

That’s how Ferreira pictured it. “Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Church is in a hot and dry area,” he said.

A hundred years later, sometime in the 1980s, lightning struck one of the trees, killing it. It had to be cut down so it would not fall and damage the church.

Ferreira, whose job as construction supervisor for the phone company sent him to Molokai from time to time, knew the man who cut down the tree. He asked him if he could have some of the wood...

...Ferreira said that he feels compelled to tell the stories of St. Damien’s wood because of all the good things he has seen.

“If it sounds like I’m bragging, I am bragging in Jesus’ name,” he said.