2008-10-11 16:48:57

Sr Alphonsa from India to be Canonised


(October 11, 2008) A Roman Catholic nun, Sister Alphonsa, to-be St. Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception, will become India's first woman saint today on Sunday when she is canonised by Pope Benedict at the Vatican. Coming amid some of the worst anti-Christian riots in India in decades, the ceremony at the Vatican is expected to be watched on television by millions in India, with tens of thousands also expected at the church near Kottayam in Sister Alphonsa's native Kerala state. Blessed Alfonsa (born Anna Muttathupadathu) is one of four people to be canonized by Benedict XVI this Sunday. The other three are Maria Bernarda Butler, from Switzerland; Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán from Ecuador; and Father Gaetano Errico from Italy. As a priest Fr Errico visited terminally ill patients in Neapolitan hospitals for the incurable, as well as prisoners. He heard confessions at all hours of the day and night until his death. In India Special masses are being held in all Catholic churches in the state, where Saint Thomas, one of the 12 apostles, is believed to have arrived in 52 AD, bringing Christianity to India. Christians make up 2.3 percent of India's billion-plus population, with Roman Catholics accounting for 70 percent of the minority that is largely concentrated in the country's south and northeast. Alphonsa will be India's second saint after Gonsalo Garcia, of Portuguese parentage, who was canonised in 1862. Albanian-born Mother Teresa, who served the poor and destitute in Kolkata, was beatified in 2003, a first step to canonisation. Anna Muttathupadathu was born in the Indian state of Kerala in 1910. Her mother died when she was a baby and she was brought up by an aunt who wanted her to marry. However, Muttathupadathu was determined to dedicate her whole life to Jesus Christ, following the example of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. She entered the convent in 1928, and received the name of Alfonsa, as a religious of the Poor Clares. Her delicate health was held to be an obstacle in religious life; but Sister Alfonsa persevered in her vocation and made her perpetual vows in 1936. She died 10 years later at age 35. This canonisation process has brought much publicity to Christianity in India and is favourably responded from all Christian and other groups.







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