Luke 11, 37-41

Today we celebrate the memorial of Blessed John Beyzym of the Society of Jesus. He was born on May 15, 1850[1] at Bayzymy, Region of Volinia, then a part of Russian-ruled Poland, but is now a portion of Ukraine. John belonged to a wealthy family, with financial resources so bountiful that until he was about 13 years old, he was being educated within his family's estate. All that ended when the Polish Insurrection of 1863-4, which enjoyed support in his native region, failed. His family lost their estates. Worse, his parents separated.

After finishing his secondary studies at Kyiv, he joined the Jesuits at the Stara Wies Novitiate in Poland on December 10, 1872. While doing his novitiate, a cholera epidemic gave him the opportunity to accompany the priests, brothers, and his fellow novices to attend to the disease's victims in villages near the novitiate. He completed his philosophy and theology studies at Krakow and was ordained priest in 1881. For 17 years, he taught at Jesuit schools at Tarnopol, Ukraine and Chyrow, Poland. Aside from teaching French and Russian, he was also put in charge of the school infirmary.[2]

As early as 1879, he had asked to work among lepers, a desire which became stronger during his years of teaching. It was only in 1898 that he finally received his dream assignment from the Jesuit Superior General, then, Father Luis Martin; Jan Beyzym had written to the latter several times; in one such message, he wrote:

I know very well what leprosy is and what I must expect, but all this does not frighten me, on the contrary, it attracts me.[3]

He was sent to Madagascar instead of India because he could speak French and assist the French Jesuits working there since the early seventeenth century. He started working at the Ambahivoraka Leprosarium near Tananarive (Antananarivo).

The leprosarium was in an abandoned desert area. Its one hundred and fifty patients lacked the most elementary medical care. They were extremely materially poor, so much so that many of them died of hunger rather than disease.[4] They were also spiritually poor; the inadequate facilities offered by the government were also places where vices abounded.

John Benzym decided to live with the lepers and care for their sores. He lived among them to bear witness to the humanity of the lepers and that they too needed to be saved.[5] He was the first in that mission to do so.

It is hardly surprising that nobody dared to do it earlier. Leprosy when the disease had been studied and its infective agent identified twenty-five years earlier by a team of Norwegian scientists,[6] but an effective cure was still eighteen years in the future.[7]

John Beyzym sought to improve the lepers' shacks, prepare their food, and supply them with sufficient water. As the government-supplied rice was lacking, he would go to Tananarive to beg food for the lepers. He had learned that though there was no cure for the disease, the combination of healthy food and adequate hygiene limited its spread and kept it from worsening. An obvious sign of this was that an increase in the children's ration of rice reduced the number of deaths among them from 5-7 a week to five a year.[8]

He realized that the lepers needed a real hospital with a complement of doctors and nurses but also knew that the mission with its meager resources could not afford it. He decided to put the project under the protection of Our Lady of Czestochowa and began begging for funds from Catholic missionary organizations in Poland. He also wrote to Catholic magazines in Poland and eloquently described the situation in the leprosarium.

He started building the hospital in 1903, but it was only inaugurated on August 16, 1911. A Fr. J. Lielet SJ, who was also a medical doctor and assigned in Madagascar reported:

Fr. Beyzym's leprosarium had finally been opened. . . . The construction and equipping of this vast hospital in a country where everything is lacking was a colossal undertaking, but he completed the task. Arriving there penniless, he found ways of collecting thousands of francs in Europe (principally in Poland, Austria and Germany) for such a distant project, his trust in God's help was unshakeable. Providence has almost performed miracles for him."[9]

Fr. J. Lielet SJ

The hospital still exists today as a beacon of hope, justice, and love.

He was very grateful for the donations he received for the construction of the hospital. He wrote to a fellow Jesuit in September 1911, eleven months before he died of exhaustion at Marana, Madagascar.

We have given thanks to Our Lady and have been thanking her ever since for the grace she granted us by giving such a good shelter. Now, on behalf of all the lepers who have already stayed at the hospital, as well as those who will in the future, may God bless you a hundredfold, dear Father, for taking care of the lot of the miserable lepers so ardently and all our gracious benefactors for their charity and generous alms. May Our Lady reward in her own manner each and every one of you for all you have done for us.[10]

Letter to Fr Martin Czermiński SJ, Fianarantsoa, 17 September 1911

He helped change attitudes toward lepers; he encouraged the poor to be generous with those poorer than themselves. He built more hospitals to take care of the poor and enable them to regain their sense of dignity and enkindle their hope.

He died on October 2, 1912 as he lived. He had written:

One's country is where the greater service of God and help of the souls is found. It does not matter where you live: at the equator or at the North Pole. What really matters is to die in the service of the Lord Jesus as a member of our holy Society. I beg this grace as much as for our dear Province as for myself.[11]

Blessed John Beyzym

Blessed Jan Beyzym was a man of action, an untiring worker, a man of prayer. He himself admitted that he was an impatient man. He struggled with it. While waiting for letters which had gotten delayed because of strikes in the ports of France, he wrote, "I am going through a good school of patience, but do not lose the hope"; in another place he wrote, "I do not complain, do not feel sorry for myself for my troubles and difficulties. Fiat voluntas Dei. God's will be done."[12]  Since he did not have much time for quiet prayer, he prayed everywhere all the time. He had trouble praying, and often underestimated his own fervor in it. That was why he asked the Carmelite nuns to pray for him.  

Let me end by quoting the first and final verses and the refrain of a song written in honor of Blessed Jan Beyzym[13]:

Why do you hurry Father Beyzym
To the hostile and far away land
Why do you guide your steps of a pilgrim,
Where need and leprosy are hand in hand?

Refrain:
I hurry to save my brothers in Christ,
Unblessed and miserable outcasts.
I go to save my brothers in Christ,
Lepers, desolate hearts!

*  *  *

Aren't you afraid you contract the illness,

And you would suffer your chicklings fate?

Deny yourself for the lepers what made you,

Whose voice you heard outcrying for help?

Refrain:
I hurry to save my brothers in Christ,
Unblessed and miserable outcasts.
I go to save my brothers in Christ,
Lepers, desolate hearts!

Fr. Stanislaw Ziemanski SJ

In today's Gospel reading, our Lord said to the Pharisee:

But as to what is within, give alms, and behold, everything will be clean for you.

Luke 11, 41

To give alms is to give to someone what can never hope to be repaid. Blessed Jan Beyzym gave his life as alms for the lepers.

This world is still full of lepers.

Not all of them are medically sick.

We are called to minister to them. And that is how we will become clean.

Blessed Jan Beyzym, pray for us.

[1] Jan Beyzym (1850-1912) https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20020818_beyzym_en.html

[2] https://www.jesuits.global/saint-blessed/blessed-john-beyzym/

[3] Letter to Fr. General Louis Martin SJ as cited in https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20020818_beyzym_en.html

[4] Jan Beyzym (1850-1912) https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20020818_beyzym_en.html

[5] Jan Beyzym (1850-1912) https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20020818_beyzym_en.html

[6] World Leprosy Day: Bust the Myths, Learn the Facts https://www.cdc.gov/leprosy/world-leprosy-day/index.html

[7] Carisa D. Brewster. How the Woman Who Found a Leprosy Treatment Was Almost Lost to History https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/alice-ball-leprosy-hansens-disease-hawaii-womens-history-science

[8] Eyewitness report of Fr. P. Sau, SJ. La Mission de Madagascar a vol d'oiseau, pp. 62-63 cited in Jan Beyzym (1850-1912) https://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_20020818_beyzym_en.html  

[9] Chine, Ceylan, Madagascar, 1912, p. 94. Chine, Ceylan, Madagascar: Lettres des Missionnaires Francais de la Compagnie de Jesus (Province de Champagne) was a serial featuring letters from French Jesuit missionaries in China, Sri Lanka, and Madagascar. https://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/serial?id=chinceylmad

[10] Letter to Fr Martin Czermiński SJ, Fianarantsoa, 17 September 1911, in: C. Drążek SJ, Posługacz

trędowatych, Kraków 1995, pp. 190-197) https://polishbreviary.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/october-12-bl-john-jan-beyzym/

[11] Blessed John Beyzym https://www.jesuits.global/saint-blessed/blessed-john-beyzym/

[12] The Patience of Father Jan Beyzym SJ https://beyzym.pl/the-patience-of-father-jan-beyzym-sj/

[13] Fr. StanislawZiemanski SJ. "Why Do You Hurry?" in Blessed Father John Beyzym SJ. https://beyzym.pl/why-do-you-hurry/ https://beyzym.pl/person-and-work/kult/prayers/

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