MOLINE, ILLINOIS (September 14, 2023) — Chicago actor Wayne Messmer assumes his critically acclaimed role of Father (Saint) Damien, “the Leper Priest of Molokai,” in the award-winning one-man play, Damien by Aldyth Morris at Sacred Heart of Jesus Parish Church.
Pope Benedict XVI canonized Saint Damien in a ceremony held at the Vatican on October 11, 2009. The remarkable story of this courageous man of conviction will be told as Messmer once again brings the powerful message to life on stage.
Messmer, an accomplished actor has been seen as Damien many times since 2002, all to unanimous rave reviews. In addition, he has donned Father Damien's cassock and collar to share his talents with the Archdiocese Festival of Faith at Navy Pier, throughout the Chicagoland community and he has brought the play to historic performances on two trips to Hawaii.
Long a devotee of Damien, Messmer has actively studied Damien’s fascinating and inspiring life. Wayne and his wife Kathleen visited the former “leper community” in Kalaupapa, the remote Island of Molokai Hawaii as a way of honing in on this remarkable hero's spirit and persona. Messmer has a deep and abiding interest in sharing the passion of Damien, a Christian martyr, and hero of the world. Father Damien struggled in the late 1800's to find a way to attend to the needs of thousands of tragically abandoned men, women and children with incurable and thought-to-be highly contagious leprosy (Hansen’s Disease) who had been banished and left to die in exile through no fault of their own. Damien was a source of infinite strength and divine hope for the thousands of individuals who were sent away to Molokai. News of his reputation for offering his humble and selfless caring and acts of love spread across the world like wild fire, and the admiration for this holy man continues today, more than a century after his death.
"Good Father Damien overcame the odds," says Messmer. “He was very counter cultural for his time period, but it was his faith that carried him through to fight and serve others even to the point of being struck down with leprosy himself."
Damien must have been forever exhausted but still found the strength to build homes, provide water and food and bury the dead so that wild animals would not carry about their corpses. Damien was a dearly beloved priest by the people for whom he cared, right until the very end. Damien quietly died of leprosy after 16 years at the Kalaupapa settlement where he relentlessly cared for the bodies and souls of his flock. Most of the time he was there, he was forced to fight the tough battles and, in most cases, ministered all alone. His life’s drama has been the subject of countless articles and books. Mother Teresa and Gandhi each proclaim the greatness of Father Damien as a selfless servant. Both of these revered figures have shown devotion for this humble, yet powerful man.
Messmer fought his own life’s battle back from despair when he was shot in the neck in a senseless and random act of violence in 1994, a tragedy that has had a profound affect on the deepening of his faith. "The Spirit of this man (Damien) inspires me to the core", says Messmer. "I treasure every time I am given the privilege to share the heart and soul of this incredible and unique human being with the audience,” said Messmer.
You Tube-Wayne Messmer Story: youtube.com/watch?v=dATFUbrZw7Q
The Play:
Damien, by Aldyth Morris, (University of Hawaii Press, 1977)
The play tells the remarkable true story of the Belgium-born priest (Father Damien) who ministered to the lepers of the Hawaiian island of Molokai, before dying of leprosy himself in 1889 at the age of 49. It is the powerful story of a man who went where no one else would go — to a nearly deserted island surrounded by forbidding cliffs and pounding surf, “a place without a sunset,” the natives called it. They were the lepers who were shipped by the Board of Health to die in irrevocable exile. The setting of the play begins in 1936 when Father Damien’s body is exhumed from its grave on Molokai to be sent back to his native Belgium for burial in a place of honor. Father Damien addresses the theatre audience, voicing his protest that he is being taken away from the lepers of Molokai whom he had loved and cared for, and among which he died. The story then follows his life in retrospect.
What makes Damien such a powerful drama is that it portrays a man worthy of sainthood without shrouding himself in shallow piety. Damien is a stubborn, angry and impatient man. His very human traits are overshadowed by his passion to serve each of the men women and children banished and left to die without the barest of human dignity. Messmer adopts the persona of Damien who calls out for a confessor acknowledging his sinful anger and righteous indignation to be left alone with an almost unconquerable situation where he is abandoned as a priest left to die in his own personal horror. The inspirational story begins with Father Damien’s first impressions of the pain and suffering. “Dear God, how could such things be?” he asks when he sees the lepers and their living conditions. He soon decides to stay. “This is my niche. This is what I was meant to do.” Crying out, “This is why I was born.”
Wanting the lepers to live out their lives in peace, Father Damien builds houses, gardens, roads and docks with them, ministering and singing to them, as well as enforcing discipline. He fights local authorities and at times his own church to improve their lives. He makes the world aware of their agony. We understand some of Father Damien’s struggle as we hear his side of an argument with one of the many bishops who constantly challenged him. As the bishop chides him about the procedures he followed before giving last rites to two lepers, Damien responds, “When a leper is dying, you don’t ask him if he’s a Catholic, your Excellency,” Father Damien snaps, giving his opinion that God won’t ask them either. “When a leper on his deathbed cries out for absolution, you go to him. . . and in the name of Christ, you forgive him, regardless.”
Audiences have been deeply moved by this unforgettable story and by the undeniable emotion of the performance by Wayne Messmer as he brings Damien to life on stage right before them.
