At Batavia in Suriname, Blessed Peter Donders, priest of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, who with tireless charity cared for lepers in both body and soul.
Lifespan: 1809–1887
Beatified: 23 May 1982 by Pope John Paul II
Memoria liturgica: 14 January
He cared for the bodies and souls of the lepers
Peter Donders, born Petrus Norbertus Donders, came into the world on 27 October 1809 in Tilburg in the north of Holland, the son of a wool weaver.
Ordained a priest at the age of thirty-two, he was deeply moved by the words of Saint Paul on the priestly ministry, and in 1842 he left Holland for Dutch Guiana — Suriname — where he would spend his entire life in apostolic work on behalf of the poorest and most marginalized, including the lepers.
In 1865 the Apostolic Vicariate of Dutch Guiana (South America) was entrusted to the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer, the Redemptorists, founded by Saint Alphonsus Maria de Liguori. Father Peter Donders asked to be admitted to it, and on 27 June 1867 he pronounced his perpetual vows, returning then to his beloved lepers, among whom he had already been working tirelessly since 1856. He also devoted himself to the indigenous peoples and to the Black population; his first biographer gave him the title “New Apostle of the Blacks, the Indians, and the Lepers.”
Among the indigenous peoples his greatest success was with the Arawak tribe. In 1873 he himself wrote to his superiors of the consolations he had received in giving First Communion to many of them, and of how, during a six-day visit made in September, all the Arawaks had left their occupations so as not to miss any part of his teaching and instruction. He labored greatly also for the Black population, who were still held in slavery — abolished in Guiana only in 1863 — giving them particular pastoral care.
From 1842 to 1856 he also worked in the capital, Paramaribo, and from 1883 to 1885 at Coronie on the coast; but Father Peter Donders devoted himself above all to the lepers of the colony of Batavia, isolated and marginalized, faithful to the spirit of his Congregation, whose charism it is to attend preferentially to the most abandoned souls.
His interior life was woven of prayer and penance. He frequently interrupted his sleep to spend an hour in prayer kneeling before the tabernacle; he slept on a wooden plank and used the discipline at least once each day. His extraordinary charity toward his neighbors brought him a reputation for holiness even during his lifetime.
After nearly forty-five years spent beneath the tropical sun of Dutch Guiana, he died at Batavia in the leper colony on 14 January 1887; his tomb is now in the cathedral of Paramaribo.
The cause for his beatification was opened in 1900 and concluded with the solemn ceremony of beatification by Pope John Paul II on 23 May 1982.