Remembering St Alphonsa - India's First Woman Saint

Today the Church of India celebrates her first woman saint, St Alphonsa of Immaculate Conception who was born in Kudamalur, Diocese of Changanacherry, Kerala on 19 August, 1910.

She was known as Annakutty, a diminutive of Anne. Her mother passed away when she was 3 months old and she was adopted by her aunt. She joined the Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists on 2nd August, 1928, taking the name of Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception in honour of St Alphonsus Liguori, whose feast was celebrated on that day. She professed her vows on 12 August, 1936 on the feast of St Clare.

From 1930 to 1935 she suffered from poor health due to typhoid, pneumonia, nervous shock, tumour, gastroenteritis and liver problems. She brought her earthly life to a close on 28 July 1946. She is also known as a child Jesus of India. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and canonised on 12th October 2008 in Rome by Pope Benedict XVI.

Fr Jimmy Joseph, the celebrant of the day today, preached about her life and 3 aspects of her life for our reflection during the Mass:
i) Love Towards Christ as her Master and Lord.
Since young, she devoted her life for the sake of her Divine Spouse, Jesus Christ. In all her sufferings and pain she experienced them not apart from Christ but in Christ and with Christ. Even in the midst of the sense of loss, helpless, illness she appeared to be a person who filled with Christ. According to Archbishop Thomas Pothacamury of Bangalore said, “Her life was death to self and life to Christ and in Christ. Christ was centre of her life and she was dethroned herself to enthroned Christ, and made Him with unerring vision, the focus of her life.”

ii) Her Life was Her Attitude Towards Suffering.
The love for her Divine Spouse helped her to embrace and accept the sufferings. She had overcome her suffering to the transcendental level of meaning to her suffering and endured it joyously. She wrote in her letter: “Since only grief and suffering have fallen to my Divine Spouse, I too lovingly embrace them and my soul is at peace even my body continues to be tormented.”

During her beatification at Kottayam, India, Blessed Pope John Paul II said, “From early in her life, Sr 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, Jesus Christ. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity but also to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ and to love the cross through her love of the crucified Christ.”

iii) Her Perseverance in the Vocation of the Sisterhood.
When she was called to be committed into marriage life, she reached a stage where she voluntarily causing herself a grave burn by putting her foot into a heap of burning embers. In her letter she wrote: “O, the vocation which I have received, a gift of my good God! He distanced my difficulties and established me in this religious state.” When many illnesses tortured she remained faithful to her Master.

Fr Jimmy also stressed that even though there are a lot of crisis in our vocation, we need to be faithful and take the example of St Alphonsa in order to find meaning in all our crisis, challenges and sufferings in life.

As I reflect on the life of the first saint of India during the Mass, I asked myself when we will have our own Saint in Malaysia. What came to mind was our late Archbishop Tan Sri Dominic Vendargon who passed away in the year 2005 and who tirelessly worked hard and established the Archdiocese of Kuala Lumpur.