James H. Kroeger, M.M. (“Damien of Molokai and Missionary Compassion”) presents the missionary witness of Damien de Veuster. A Flemish priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary, Damien volunteered at age 23 to spend the rest of his life with the lepers of Molokai, Hawaii. He ministered not only to their spiritual but also to their temporal needs—he dressed their sores and provided them with emotional support, made coffins and dug graves for the dead, worked tirelessly with the local Board of Health to improve the social welfare and services of the leper colony, and organized the construction of hospitals, orphanages, houses, reservoirs, roads, and chapels. He already identified himself with them even before contracting the disease himself after 11 years of caring for the sick and the dying, addressing them as “we, the lepers.…” He epitomized the ideal priest who, in the words of Pope Francis, is a “shepherd living with the smell of the sheep.” – from the Editor’s Preface