Two more Indian saints for the Catholic Church

Pope Francis elevates Blessed Chavara Kuriakose Elias (Chavara Achan) and Blessed Euphrasia (Evuprasiamma) from India to becoming Saints of the Catholic Church on Sunday, 23^rd November 2014, in Rome.

The people of India, especially the church in India, and in particular the southern state of Kerala, are in jubilation on the occasion of two of its prestigious children being elevated to sainthood. Saint Sister Alphonsa is the first Indian woman declared a saint (2008) and the second person to become a saint from India after the Mumbai-based St Gonsalo Garcia, who was born in 1556, engaged in missionary work in Japan before being martyred in 1597 and was declared a saint by the Catholic Church in 1862.

The elevation of Blessed Father Chavara Kuriakose Elias popularly called ‘Chavara  Achan’, and his disciple, a nun, Blessed Sister Euphrasia called  'Evuprasamma', is a moment of delight and pride for the Christian minority in India which traces its origin back to  the Apostle St. Thomas. Although Christianity in India is almost as old as Christianity itself, only 2.1% of India’s population are followers of Christianity.                                                                                                    

Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara was born on 10th February 1805 of pious and devout Catholic parents, Iko (Kuriakose) Chavara and Mariam Thoppil of the Syro-Malabar Church, at Kainakary, near Allappuzha, in the Southern Indian State of Kerala. According to the local custom the infant was baptized on the 8th day, in Chennankari Parish Church, Alappuzha.

From the age 5 to 10, he attended the village school (Kalari) to study languages, different dialects, and elementary sciences under the guidance of a Hindu teacher (Asan). Inspired by the desire to become a priest, he began the necessary studies under the parish priest of the church of St. Joseph. At the age of 13 in 1818 he entered the seminary and was ordained priest on 29th November, 1829.

Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara,  along with other two zealous priests, Fr. Thomas Palackal and Fr. Thomas Porukara, founded the first indigenous Congregation for men, known as Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) in 1831. Today there are more than 3000 members of this Congregation engaged in various ministries in nearly 20 countries around the world. Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara died of a painful illness in 1871, and was beatified on February 8, 1986 by Pope John Paul II and is canonized on 23^rd November 2014. 

The second saint, Blessed Euphrasia Eluvathingal or Sister Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (C.M.C.), also known as Evuprasiamma, was born in 1877, also in the South Indian state of Kerala. Baptized as Rose, she was the eldest child of wealthy landowners. At the age of nine, Rose is said to have experienced an apparition of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which led her to make a commitment never to marry, and to commit her entire life to God.

When she was 10, she entered the boarding school attached to the first indigenous Carmelite community for women in the Syro-Malabar Church, founded by Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara and Rev. Leopold Beccaro in 1866. As she grew older, Rose desired to enter the Sisters of the Mother of Carmel, who follow the Rule of the Third Order of the Discalced Carmelites. Her father opposed this decision as he wanted to arrange a marriage for her with the son of another prosperous family in the region. Seeing her resolve, her father finally relented, and he himself accompanied her to the convent, but her constant ill health, however, threatened her stay in the convent, and the superiors considered dismissing her. At that juncture, Euphrasia is said to have had a vision of the Holy Family, at which point the illness seems to have ceased. After her final profession she served the congregation as Assistant to the Novice Mistress, then as Novice Mistress and later as the Mother Superior of St. Mary’s Convent, where she died in 1952. Despite her duties, she endeavored to lead a life of constant prayer with a special devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Blessed Sacrament and Blessed Virgin Mary, and thus came to be known by many people as the “Praying Mother”. She was beatified in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI, and she is to be canonized on Sunday, 23^rd November 2014 by Pope Francis in Rome. Their feast days are to be celebrated respectively on January 3 and on August 29. Blessed Saints pray for us!