Hello and welcome to INSPIRING LIVES, a series on the lives of Saints in the
catholic church from around the world. Saints are holy people who lived ordinary lives
in extraordinary ways. Each saint the Church honors responded to God's invitation
to use his or her unique gifts. These saints are examples of great holiness and virtue,
and they invite us to follow their paths to holiness. Their unique stories inspire
us to be rooted in our faith. God calls each one of us to be a saint. In this month
of July especially from 19 to 28, hundreds of thousands of people converge on the
small town of Bharananganam in the Southern Indian state of Kerala, to celebrate the
feast of St. Alphonsa. She was a Franciscan Religious nun, and is the first person
of Indian origin to be canonized as a saint by the Catholic Church. St. Alphonsa is
also the first canonized saint of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic
Church of the St. Thomas Christian community in India. Pope Benedict XVI canonized
her on 12th October 2008. During the last two weeks we listened to St.
Alphonsa’s early life and her last days and the veneration that followed soon after.
During the Apostolic Pilgrimage to India, Pope John Paul II beatified Sister Alphonsa
along with Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara on 8th February 1986 at Nehru
Stadium at Kottayam in Kerala. xxx The full text of Pope’s homily is
given below:
"I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth". Dear
Brothers and Sisters, 1. These are the words of Jesus of Nazareth, and he rejoiced
in the Holy Spirit when he uttered them. How full of meaning they are for us today!
"I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things
from the wise and understanding and revealed them to the little ones" . What things
has the Lord hidden? What mysteries has he revealed? Truly the deepest ones, the mysteries
of his own divine life, those known here on earth only by him, only by Christ himself.
For he says: "All things have been delivered to me by my Father; and no one knows
the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and any one
to whom the Son chooses to reveal him" . And behold, the Son does reveal these
things. At the same time he reveals the Father. The Father is revealed through the
Son. And to whom does the Son reveal these things? He reveals them to those whom he
chooses: "for such was your gracious will", Jesus tells the Father. He reveals these
things to the little ones. Today, in this Sacred Liturgy, we wish to unite ourselves
in a special way with Christ the Lord. Together with him we wish to bless the Father,
for the particular love which he has shown to a son and daughter of the Church in
India. We praise the Father for his countless blessings during the two thousand years
that the Church has existed on Indian soil. With Christ we glorify the Father for
the love that he has shown to the little ones of Kerala and all India. The Church
throughout the world rejoices with the Church in India as Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara
and Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception are raised to the ranks of the Blessed
in the great Communion of Saints. This man and this woman, both members of the Syro-Malabar
Church here in Kerala, advanced to great heights of holiness through their wholehearted
co-operation with the grace of God. Each possessed an ardent love of God, yet each
followed a distinct spiritual path. 3. Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara was born
here in Kerala, and for nearly all of his sixty-five years of earthly life he laboured
generously for the renewal and enrichment of the Christian life. His deep love for
Christ filled him with apostolic zeal and made him especially careful to promote the
unity of the Church. With great generosity he collaborated with others, especially
brother priests and religious, in the work of salvation. In co-operation with
Fathers Thomas Palackal and Thomas Porukara, Father Kuriakose founded an Indian religious
congregation for men, now known as the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. Later, with
the help of an Italian missionary, Father Leopold Beccaro, he started an Indian religious
congregation for women, the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel. These congregations
grew and flourished, and religious vocations became better understood and appreciated.
Through the common efforts of the members of new religious families, his hopes and
works were multiplied many times over. Father Kuriakose’s life, and the lives
of these new religious, were dedicated to the service of the Syro-Malabar Church.
Under his leadership or inspiration, a good number of apostolic initiatives were undertaken:
the establishment of seminaries for the education and formation of the clergy, the
introduction of annual retreats, a publishing house for Catholic works, a house to
care for the destitute and dying, schools for general education and programmes for
the training of catechumens. He contributed to the Syro-Malabar liturgy and spread
devotion to the Holy Eucharist and the Holy Family. In particular, he dedicated himself
to encouraging and counselling Christian families, convinced as he was of the fundamental
role of the family in the life of society and the Church. But no apostolic cause
was dearer to the heart of this great man of faith than that of the unity and harmony
within the Church. It was as if he had always before his mind the prayer of Jesus,
on the night before his Sacrifice on the Cross: "That they may all be one; even as
you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us" . Today the Church
solemnly recalls with love and gratitude all his efforts to resist threats of disunity
and to encourage the clergy and faithful to maintain unity with the See of Peter and
the universal Church. His success in this, as in all his many undertakings, was undoubtedly
due to the intense charity and prayer which characterised his daily life, his close
communion with Christ and his love for the Church as the visible Body of Christ on
earth. 4. Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, born a century after
Father Kuriakose Elias, would gladly have served the Lord with similar apostolic projects.
And indeed, she possessed a personal devotion to Father Kuriakose from early in her
religious life. But the path to holiness for Sister Alphonsa was clearly a different
one. It was the way of the Cross, the way of sickness and suffering. Already
at a very young age, Sister Alphonsa desired to serve the Lord as a religious, but
it was not without enduring trials that she was finally able to pursue this goal.
When it became possible, she joined the Franciscan Clarist Congregation. Throughout
her life, which was a brief thirty-six years, she continually gave thanks to God for
the joy and privilege of her religious vocation, for the grace of her vows of chastity,
poverty and obedience. From early in her life, Sister Alphonsa experienced
great suffering. With the passing of the years, the heavenly Father gave her an ever
fuller share in the Passion of his beloved Son. We recall how she experienced not
only physical pain of great intensity, but also the spiritual suffering of being misunderstood
and misjudged by others. But she constantly accepted all her sufferings with serenity
and trust in God, being firmly convinced that they would purify her motives, help
her to overcome all selfishness, and unite her more closely with her beloved divine
Spouse. She wrote to her spiritual director: "Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves
me so very much, I sincerely desire to remain on this sick bed and suffer not only
this, but anything else besides, even to the end of the world. I feel now that God
has intended my life to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering" (20 November 1944).
She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to
love the Cross through her love of the crucified Lord. Sister Alphonsa
knew that by her sufferings she shared in the Church’s apostolate; she found joy in
them by offering them all to Christ. In this way, she seemed to have made her own
the words of Saint Paul: "I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh
I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that
is, the Church" . She was endowed by God with an affectionate and happy disposition,
with the ability to take delight in ordinary and simple things. The weight of human
suffering, even the misunderstanding or jealousy of others, could not extinguish the
joy of the Lord which filled her heart. In a letter written shortly before she died,
at time of intense physical and mental suffering, she said: "I have given myself up
completely to Jesus. Let him please himself in his dealings with me. My only desire
in this world is to suffer for love of God and to rejoice in doing it" (February 1946).
5. Both Father Kuriakose and Sister Alphonsa bear witness to the beauty and
greatness of the religious vocation. And I would like to take this occasion to direct
my thoughts particularly to the men and women religious who are present here and to
all the religious in India. Everyone who has been baptized into Christ has discovered
a pearl of "great value" and a "treasure" worth all that one has in life . For all
the baptized share in the very life of the Blessed Trinity and are called to be "light"
and "salt" for the world . But within the great family of the Church, God our Father
calls some of you to follow Christ still more closely and to dedicate your lives with
a special consecration through the profession of chastity, poverty and obedience.
You, the religious of the Church, bear public witness to the Gospel and to the primacy
of the love of God. By a permanent commitment and lifelong fidelity to your vows,
you seek to grow in union with Christ and to contribute in a unique way to the life
and mission of the Church. And what a vital contribution is yours! In a rich variety
of forms, you live to the full your evangelical consecration. Some of you have heard
the Lord’s personal call to the contemplative life where, though hidden from the world,
you offer your lives and prayers for the sake of all humanity. Others have been called
to an active apostolic life, where you serve in teaching, health care, parochial work,
retreats, works of charity and many forms of pastoral activity. No matter how
you serve, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, never doubt the value of your consecrated
life. Whether your service resembles the great apostolic endeavours of Father Kuriakose,
or takes the form of hidden suffering like Sister Alphonsa, whatever it may be, it
is important in the life of the Church. Remember the words of Saint Paul, in today’s
second reading, "we know that in everything God works for good" . Even when you feel
discouraged or weighed down by personal failures or sin, trust even more in the love
of God for you. Turn to him for mercy, forgiveness and love. For as Saint Paul says
in the same reading: "the Lord helps us in our weakness" . It is in him that we End
our strength, our courage and our joy. Without the vital contribution of men and
women religious, the charity of the Church would be lessened, her fruitfulness would
be diminished. Thus, I pray that the beatification of these two exemplary religious
of India will give you renewed zeal for your precious vocation. In your own love for
Christ may you be inspired by their fervour. And like them, may you keep the simplicity
of the "little ones" of the Gospel. Be pure of heart and filled with compassion. Be
always eager to please the Lord. For it is to the little ones that the mysteries of
God are revealed . 6. And now, I wish to greet all who have come to Kottayam for
this celebration. I greet my brother bishops and all the clergy and faithful who have
come from the other dioceses of Kerala. With respect and esteem I thank all the other
fellow Christians as well as our Hindu and Muslim brethren and the followers of other
religions who honour me today by being here. I am grateful for the presence of the
civil authorities and I invoke upon all the people the blessings of joy and peace.
Truly extraordinary is this day in the history of the Church and Christianity
on Indian soil. It is important, too, in the history of the pastoral ministry of the
Bishop of Rome, the Successor of Saint Peter. It is the first time that he has had
the joy or raising to the glory of the altars a son and a daughter of the Church in
India, in their native land. Therefore we sing together with the Psalmist in today’s
Liturgy. Together we give thanks: "It is good to give thanks to the Lord to make
music to your name, O Most High; Your deeds, O Lord, have made me glad; for
the work of your hands I shout with joy. O Lord, how great are your works!" .
Truly great are the works of God! And the greatest work of God on earth is man. The
glory of God is man fully alive with the life of God. The glory of God is the holiness
of each person and of the whole Church. Holiness is the work of divine grace.
When we proclaim it solemnly in the midst of the People of God in this land, we give
glory to the Most High. In the words of Saint Augustine we praise God, saying: "In
crowning merits, you are crowning your own gifts". 7. Truly extraordinary is this
day! The Prophet Isaiah says: "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my
ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" . Today it is given
to us to penetrate more deeply into these divine thoughts. It is given to us to know
better the divine ways. And behold, what ways! What ways! The Apostle writes:
"For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his
Son, in order that he might be the first-born among many brethren. And those whom
he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those
whom he justified he also glorified" These are the divine ways. Today it is
given to us to see how these thoughts are accomplished in Blessed Kuriakose Elias
and Blessed Sister Alphonsa. Today we see how these ways of God lead through their
hearts, through their earthly pilgrimages, to the glory of the altars.
8.
"Father, it is true", Jesus says, "you have graciously willed it so" . And he
continues: "Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.
Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and
you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light" .
Jesus speaks in this way. And he speaks to everyone. We are called to holiness.
We are all called to communion with him: with his Heart, with his Cross, with his
glory.
Jesus speaks in this way. And together with Jesus so do Blessed Kuriakose
and Blessed Alphonsa. Their hearts are united with the Heart of the Divine Redeemer
and are filled with love for all the sons and daughters of your blessed land. Amen.P.J.
Joseph SJ