Diocese of Virac Stewardship and Philanthrophic Development Office

29/04/2026

Hold on. Pray even when it’s hard. God has not left you.

29/04/2026

30/03/2026

He went where no one else would go.
He touched what others feared.
He knew it would cost him everything.

And the Church now calls him Saint Damien of Molokai.

He was born in Belgium in 1840.

A simple man.
A religious brother.

Not famous. Not extraordinary in the world’s eyes.

But he said yes.

When a call came for missionaries to the Hawaiian Islands, Damien volunteered. He traveled across the ocean to serve people he had never met.

And then came the place everyone avoided.
Molokai.

A remote island where those suffering from Leprosy were exiled.

It was not just illness.
It was abandonment.

Families were torn apart. The sick were sent away, cut off from society, left to survive in chaos and despair.

No structure.
No care.
No dignity.

Priests would visit briefly — but no one stayed.

Until Damien.

He volunteered to go.

Not for a visit.
To live there.
Among them.

He built homes.
He dressed wounds.
He buried the dead.
He celebrated Mass.

He did not stand at a distance.
He touched them.

A radical act — in a place where even proximity meant danger.

At first, he said, “my people.”

But one day, after years of living among them, he stood before the community and began his homily with different words:

“We lepers…”

He had become one of them.

The disease he had embraced in others had taken hold of his own body.

He knew what it meant.
He stayed anyway.

Even as his health declined…
Even as his body weakened…
Even as death drew closer…

He continued to serve.

The missionary who crossed the ocean.
The priest who chose the abandoned.
The man who became what he served.

He did not leave.

He continued to serve.
To love.
To give.

Until his death in 1889.

Saint Damien of Molokai teaches us:

Love does not keep its distance.

When others turn away…
when suffering feels too uncomfortable…
when service becomes costly…

Remember the priest who walked into exile —
and made it a place of dignity.

He did not just serve the sick.

He became one of them.

And in doing so…

he revealed the face of Christ.

Saint Damien of Molokai, pray for us.

30/03/2026

JUST IN...

26/03/2026

26/03/2026

She lived a life many would hesitate to defend, yet few would dare to leave. Margaret of Cortona chased affection wherever she could find it, shaped by a childhood marked by loss and rejection. When a wealthy man offered her comfort, attention, and stability, she accepted—and stayed. For nearly a decade, she lived as his mistress, surrounded by luxury and raising a child outside of marriage. To her, it didn’t feel like sin. It felt like survival.

Everything changed the day she found him dead, abandoned in the woods. In that moment, illusion shattered. Faced with death, Margaret saw the truth about her life and where it was leading her soul. She didn’t justify or delay—she ran back to Cortona, humbled and repentant, begging God for mercy.

Her conversion was not soft or symbolic. It was radical. Embracing a life of penance, prayer, and service, she became a woman transformed by grace. The same people who once judged her would later honor her holiness. Her story reminds us that no past is too broken for God to redeem—and no sinner is beyond His mercy.