St. Alphonsa – 2 : Last days & veneration
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. In his homily, the Pontiff recalled St. Alphonsa's life as one of "extreme physical and spiritual suffering." The Pontiff then added that her heroic virtues of patience, fortitude and perseverance in the midst of deep suffering remind us that God always provides the strength we need to overcome every trial.
Last week we listened to the early years of St. Alphonsa. Today we shall focus on the last days of her life and the veneration that followed soon after.xxxAnna Muttathupadathu, known today as St. Alphonsa, was born on 19 August 1910 in the Southern Indian state of Kerala. Alphonsamma, as she was locally known, entered the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarist and received the postulant's veil on 2nd August 1928. It is then she took the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast it was that day. She was clothed in the religious habit on 19th May 1930.
The canonical novitiate was introduced into the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists in 1934. But Sr. Alphonsa was admitted only on 12th August 1935 because of her ill health. About one week after the beginning of her novitiate, she had a hemorrhage from the nose and eyes and purulent wounds on her legs. However, she was miraculously cured during a novena to the Servant of God Fr. Kuriakose Elia Chavara. Upon her recovery Alphonsa restarted her novitiate.
She took her perpetual profession on 12th August 1936, the feast day of St. Clare. It was a day of inexpressible spiritual joy for Sr. Alphonsa. She had realised her desire, guarded for a long time in her heart. Alphonsama had told her sister Elizabeth when she was only 12 years old: "Jesus is my only Spouse, and none other".
Jesus, however, wished to lead her to perfection through a life of suffering. Sr. Alphonsa wrote "I made my perpetual profession on 12th August 1936 and came to Bharanganam on the following 14th. From that time, it seems, I was entrusted with a part of the cross of Christ. There are abundant occasions of suffering... I have a great desire to suffer with joy. It seems that my Spouse wishes to fulfill this desire".Painful illnesses followed her: typhoid fever, double pneumonia, and a dramatic nervous shock resulting from a fright on seeing a thief during the night of 18th October 1940. Her state of psychic incapacity lasted for about a year, during which she was unable to read or write.
Sr. Alphonsa’s health continued to deteriorate over a period of months. She received extreme unction on 29th September 1941. The next day she regained her memory, though not complete health. Her health improved over the next few years, until in July 1945 when she developed a stomach problem that caused her vomiting.
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In every situation, Sister Alphonsa maintained a great reservation and charitable attitude towards the Sisters, silently undergoing her sufferings. In 1945 she had a violent outbreak of illness. A tumour, which had spread throughout her organs, transformed her final year of life into a continuous agony. Gastroenteritis and liver problems caused violent convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day: "I feel that the Lord has destined me to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering... I consider a day in which I have not suffered as a day lost to me".
With this attitude of a victim for the love of the Lord, happy until the final moment and with a smile of innocence always on her lips, Sister Alphonsa quietly and joyfully brought her earthly journey to a close in the convent of the Franciscan Clarists at Bharananganam at 12.30 on 28th July 1946. She was just 35. She left for her heavenly abode, leaving behind the memory of a Sister full of love and a saint.
During the last year of her life she came to know the later-Bishop of Kerala, Sebastian Valopilly, a priest at that time, who frequently brought her communion. This bishop became famous in Kerala for championing the cause of the poor from all religious backgrounds who had come to live in Thalassery, in the Northern fringe of Kerala. He was also the person who reported the miracle attributed to St. Alphonsa's intercession.
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Claims of her miraculous intervention began almost immediately upon her death, and often involved the children of the convent school where she used to teach. The cause for the canonization of Sister Alphonsa began on 2nd December 1953 in the Syro-Malabar Catholic Diocese of Palai and she was declared a Servant of God. She was declared Venerable on 9th July 1985 by Pope John Paul II. Her beatification was declared on 8th February 1986 by Pope John Paul II at Kottayam, in the Southern Indian state of Kerala.
Hundreds of miraculous cures are claimed for her intervention, many of them involving straightening of clubbed feet, possibly because of Sr. Alphonsa having lived with deformed feet herself. Two of these cases were submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints as proof of her miraculous intervention. The continuing cures are chronicled in the magazine Passion Flower.
The miracle attributed to her intercession and approved by the Vatican for proceeding with her canonization was the healing of the club foot of an infant in 1985.
Bishop Sebastian Valopilly of Tellicherry diocese reported:
About ten years ago, when I was in a small village in Wayanad outside Manatavady, I saw a boy walking with some difficulty, using a stick. As he approached me I noticed that both of his feet were turned upside down. I had a stack of holy cards in my pocket with Alphonsa's picture on them, so I pulled out one of them and gave it to the boy. When I told the boy that he should pray to this woman for the cure of his feet, the boy -he was quite smart for a ten-year-old - replied, "But I'm a Muslim, and, besides, I was born this way." I replied that God is very powerful, so let's pray.
A few months later, a boy and a gentleman appeared at the house here. I didn't recognize them at first but soon learned that it was the Muslim boy with his father, who had come to tell me that his feet had been cured through their prayers to Sister Alphonsa. They showed me the calluses on the tops of his feet, and you could see the marks which had been made from the years of his walking with his feet turned under. Before they left, the three of us had our pictures taken.
The boy had reportedly taken Alphonsa's picture card and asked Alphonsa to help fix his feet. Several days afterwards one of his feet turned around. He and the other members of his family then prayed for the cure of the second foot, which also turned around later. Though the boy did not convert to Christianity, he became an inspiration for many people to seek Sr. Alphonsa’s help.P.J. Joseph SJ
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