Saint Alphonsa:

Feast day : 28 July

Today the Church celebrates the feast of Saint Alphonsa, the first Catholic Saint from India. She lived during the period 1910-1946 and was a nun belonging to the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists of the Syro Malabar Church in Kerala. Her short life was marked with great sufferings which she happily endured as a gift from her Heavenly Spouse. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and later canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008. She is the patron saint of illnesses especially of the feet.

Early life:

Saint Alphonsa was born in Kudamalur, Kerala, India on 19 August 1910 to Cherian Ouseph and Maria of the Muttathupadathu family. She lost her mother three months later and spent her early childhood in her grandparents home where she received the foundation of faith from her grandmother who was a very devout and pious woman. By the age of five she knew all her prayers and received her First Holy Communion on 11 of November 1917 at the age of seven. It was the most joyous day of her life as she received Jesus into her heart and several years later in a letter to her spiritual father dated 30 November 1943 she wrote “Already from the age of seven I was no longer mine. I was totally dedicated to my Divine Spouse. Your Reverence knows it well".

Later on she went to live with her maternal aunt who was known to be a strict and demanding woman. Alphonsa was devoted to Jesus and often showed her inclination to a religious vocation which was strongly resisted by her aunt who wanted to have her married into a wealthy family. Alphonsa resisted all the attempts of her aunt to have her married and in one of her such attempts to refuse committing to a proposal, she put her feet into a heap of burning embers in the hope of disfiguring herself so that she would be disliked by her suitors. She later on wrote about the incident as "My marriage was arranged when I was thirteen years old. What had I to do to avoid it? I prayed all that night... then an idea came to me. If my body were a little disfigured no one would want me! ... O, how I suffered! I offered all for my great intention".

Vocational life:

Her confessor, Fr. James Muricken directed her towards Franciscan spirituality and on the 2nd of August 1928, she began her postulancy, taking the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St. Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast it was on that day. Two years later she received her religious habit on the 19th of May 1930 from Bishop, Msgr. James Kalacherry. She took up the role of teaching children in the school at Vakakkad but the years between 1930-1935 were characterised by grave illness and moral sufferings for her. In 1934 she was introduced as a novitiate into the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists. A week later she suffered from a haemorrhage and her health deteriorated to a dangerous level. The nuns of the Congregation prayed to Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara for her health and she was miraculously cured on the ninth day of the Novena. Later she wrote about her trials in her spiritual diary as "I do not wish to act or speak according to my inclinations. Every time I fail, I will do penance... I want to be careful never to reject anyone. I will only speak sweet words to others. I want to control my eyes with rigour. I will ask pardon of the Lord for every little failure and I will atone for it through penance. No matter what my sufferings may be, I will never complain and if I have to undergo any humiliation, I will seek refuge in the Sacred Heart of Jesus".

She took her final vows on 12th of August 1936, on the feast of St. Clare. It was a day of great joy for her as it was the fulfilment of her greatest desire to become the Spouse of Jesus. From that day on, Jesus Himself wished to lead her to perfection through a life of suffering and she experienced great joy in fulfilling His wish as written in her spiritual diary "I made my perpetual profession on the 12th of August 1936 and came here 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".

Illness and death:

From thereon, painful illnesses followed beginning with typhoid fever, double pneumonia, and, the most serious of all, a dramatic nervous shock, the result of a fright on seeing a thief during the night of the 18th of October 1940. Her state of psychic incapacity lasted for about a year, during which she was unable to read or write. In every situation, Sister Alphonsa always 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 about which she wrote "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". Her attitude of joyfully suffering for the Lord continued till her death on 28th July 1946 at the age of 36. She was buried in St. Marys Catholic Church at Bharananganam, Kottayam Kerala in a quiet ceremony attended by a few family members and the nuns of her Order. At the funeral service, Rev. Fr. Romulus CMI, her spiritual director gave a prophetic sermon ”With the most profound conviction in my heart I affirm that we are attending the last rites of a saintly person. If the world had realized her intrinsic worth, unprecedented crowds from all over India would have assembled here. I assure you that as far as human judgment can be relied upon, this young nun was not much less saintly than the Little Flower of Lisieux. Human languages are inadequate to explain divine and supernatural realities. Hence her greatness, spiritual charism and grace filled life needed a heavenly tongue and a heavenly messenger….The convent where she lived is blessed. Blessed are you sisters to have lived with her and to have served her. Bharananganam where her mortal remains will be interred is hallowed. If it is God’s Holy Will, this place will become the Lisieux of India.

Canonization:

This prophecy was realised soon. After her death, school children who visited her tomb or prayed to her began receiving favours. Based on the reports of miracles, on 2nd December 1953, Cardinal Eugène Tisserant inaugurated the diocesan process for her beatification and Alphonsa was declared a Servant of God. In 1985, Pope John Paul II formally approved a miracle attributed to her intercession and on 9th July she became "Venerable Sister Alphonsa" and was beatified along with Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara, T.O.C.D., at Kottayam, on 8 February 1986 by Pope John Paul II during his Apostolic Pilgrimage to India. Hundreds of miraculous cures are claimed from her intervention, many of them involving straightening of clubbed feet, possibly because of her 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. On Sunday, 12 October 2008, Pope Benedict XVI announced her canonization at a ceremony at Saint Peter's Square saying "(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,".

Today her tomb at St. Mary's Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, Bharananganam, has become a pilgrimage site for faithful who come from all over the world to seek her intercession in their needs. Every year from July 19th to 28th her feast is celebrated with great reverence. Her Feast day is celebrated on 28th of July.