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SPONTANEOUS OVERFLOW OF DEVOTION By Joe Palathunkal On 12th October 2008, when Pope Benedict XVI elevates a simple Franciscan nun from Kerala, India, to the rank of saints, it will be a historic event for the 2000 years old church in India. With this she would be making history as the first person to reach the altars from the centuries old Syro-Malabar Rite which considers Saint Thomas the Apostle who reached the shores of Kerala in AD 52 as its Father and Patron. She would be the first full-fledged Indian Catholic saint because though years ago the church had canonized Gonsalo Garcia from Bomaby, India, he was in fact a Euro-Indian (only his mother was Indian but the father was from Portugal). Apart from all these, it is historic as she is the first Indian and first Indian woman to get halo through the official recognition of the Catholic Church. Like the Spanish mystic John of the Cross (1542-1591) she never wrote a “Spiritual Canticle” nor like the French Carmelite nun Little Flower (1873 – 1897) “The Story of a Soul”, yet the Indian Clarist nun Alphonsa Muttathupadathu (1910 – 1946) had experiences and characteristics of the former duo in several respects. So much so that India’s most famous social activist Catholic priest late Father Joseph Vadakkan speaks of her as “though a little smaller than Little Flower, in spiritual beauty and heavenly fragrance Annakkutty (Alphonsa) is indeed outstanding.” That outstanding spiritual beauty of Annakkutty (her name before she became a nun and on becoming nun she adopted the name Alphonsa in honour of Saint Alphonsus Liguori of Italy) got universal recognition on February 8, 1986, when Pope John Paul II beatified her at Kottayam town, just five kilometers away from her place of birth Kudamaloor in Kerala, the south Indian state where Catholics constitute nearly 20 per cent of the total 30 million people. But what makes Bharananganam where Alphonsa lived and died as a Franciscan Clarist nun, a unique pilgrimage centre is the spontaneous attraction it holds for the ordinary people who flock to her tomb seeking favors for their various needs. This is not because of an orchestrated, advertised or publicized method of crowd pulling but people come there on their own as if drawn by some spontaneous inner force. ”Whenever I visit Kerala,” says a Keralite who lives outside the state, “I feel my visit is incomplete if I don’t go to Bharananganam to pay my respects at the tomb of Blessed Alphonsa!” This is the case of many others too, and it is not a wonder that now Bharanaganam has become the most famous Christian pilgrimage centre in Kerala, the only Indian state which has attained 100 per cent literacy and has the highest number of Catholic nuns and priests more than any other state in India. If Alphonsa holds a spontaneous attraction towards her tomb now, there was something spontaneous about her whole life itself including the initial urge in her to become a saint. Urge to be a saint It is said a poet is born, not made. Then what about a saint – a saint is born or made? As far as Alphonsa is concerned it appears that she was born to become a saint. This is well depicted in the serial on Alphonsa telecast on every Sunday at 7: 30 PM by Kerala’s most widely watched TV channel Asianet through various instances and interactions. Perhaps it started from her very birth itself or to be precise, from an unpleasant incident that preceded her birth and its ensuing consequences. Three days before her birth a tragic incident took place and that can be construed as the beginning of the situation that eventually led her towards sainthood. When her mother Mariam was eight month pregnant accidentally one day a rat-snake slithered over her body and though the frightened Mariam with some unusual courage caught the snake and threw it off, she fainted on the spot. After three days on August 19, 1910, before completing her period of pregnancy Mariam gave birth to her fourth and last child Alphonsa. The psychological effect of the snake-fright was so much that she died after three months of giving birth entrusting the newborn to the care of her eldest sister Annamma, married into an ancient Catholic family called Murikkal at Muttuchira, 20 kilometers away from Kudamaloor. If sadness overshadowed Alphonsa’s birth, that shadow continued throughout her 36 years of life. Though Annamma brought up Alphonsa as her own child showering a lot of affection and though Alphonsa was the cynosure at her foster home being the only daughter since Annamma had only sons, yet like any other foster home Alphonsa too had certain shadows of unpleasantness during her life with her aunty Annamma. Says Alphonsa about her aunty whom she called mother: “Mother always scolded me. It was a cause of great sadness for me. I lived in fear and trembling. Perhaps I was so much frightened because I did not have my own mother.” These words speak volumes about the sadness of a motherless child. Every child feels an unusual freedom with her mother but Alphonsa did not have the chance to experience, enjoy and express that freedom. So there was a gnawing sadness within her right from childhood. Instead of surrendering totally to that sadness Alphonsa sublimated it by turning herself to the greatest of all mothers Our Lady, mother of Jesus whom Wordsworth called “Our tainted nature’s solitary boast”. She could develop this type of a spiritual attitude because there was a spiritual atmosphere at her home. Her own father Joseph Muttathupadathu was a devout and pious Catholic whose austere and prayerful attitudes Alphonsa herself imbibed a lot. His own father’s brother Father Joseph Muttathupadathu was a Catholic priest known for his holiness. Besides, Alphonsa’s grandmother (father’s mother) filled her mind and heart with the sayings and stories of the saints of the church. All these helped Alphonsa to develop a spiritual weltanschauung from her early days which became her armour against pains and sorrows. Her special devotion to Our Lady was also the result of this spiritual outlook. In honour of Our Lady she received Holy Communion every Saturday right from her First Communion on November 27, 1917, at the age of seven. After completing the third standard in a school near her own home at Kudamaloor being with her father and paternal grandmother, she left for Muttuchira to complete the rest of her studies. Here she lived most of her life until she joined the Clarist convent at Bharananganam. Though her foster family was a rather rich Catholic household according to the local Kerala standard of the time, the wealth and comforts of the home did not weaken Alphonsa’s spiritual attitude rather it got further strengthened here. During her life here she played a leading role in conducting the daily family prayers and decorating the prayer-room at home. This was an outward sign of the seed of sainthood sprouting within her. But the real desire to become a saint dawned on her only after reading a book on Little Flower, and she reminisces about it this way: “I wanted to become a saint. I started thinking this way only after reading a book on Saint Theresa of Lisieux. In the Carmelite convent near my home I had a relative who was a nun. Whenever I visited her she used to tell me, ‘Child, you must become a saint’. When I hear that my desire to become a saint used to become double fold.” As the desire to become saint intensified, she decided to become a nun in a congregation that gave particular stress on poverty and this prompted her to choose the Franciscan Clarist Congregation (FCC) founded by Jesuit Bishop Charles Levinge on December 14, 1888, in Changanacherry, Kerala. Though Bishop Levinge, S. J. returned to Europe in 1895, he took a special paternal interest from beyond the seas in nurturing and nourishing this budding congregation which is the largest women’s congregation in India today with a whopping more than 6000 members. But Alphonsa had to face a lot of opposition from her foster mother to become a nun. Annamma’s intense desire was to get beautiful Annakkutty married into a rich Catholic family which was diametrically opposite to Alphonsa’s desire of joining a congregation that professed poverty. Her espousal to poverty is reminiscent of the Italian nun Saint Clare’s intense desire to embrace poverty like Saint Francis of Assisi for whom “Lady Poverty” was his constant companion. One of the most towering inspired writers of 20th century Greek author Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 – 1957) in his novel on “the second Christ” vividly describes the scene of Clare (Clara) the rich woman meeting the God’s Pauper and insistently seeks his permission and blessing to embrace the Lady Poverty and how Francis relents at the end to a Clare falling at his feet. The girl from Kudamaloor too went through something of a similar process because she too had to face a lot of opposition to embrace the Lady Poverty and become a nun like Clara (1193 – 1253) coincidentally in a Congregation named after both Francis and Clara. Faced with this unrelenting opposition Alphonsa turned to Our Lady in ardent supplication: “Dear Mother,” prayed Alphonsa, “give these people the good sense to allow me to join a congregation. I prefer to die rather than getting married.” Finally her prayer was heard and her aunty relented. One day entrusting Alphonsa to the Clarist nun Ursula her aunty Annamma said: “Mother, you be always a mother to her.” With this Alphonsa’s inner urge to become a saint got its much desired impetus and she was on her way to the achievement of her goal but it was a way that constantly reminded her the significance of the way to Calvary. On the way of the cross “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding,” wrote the great poet Kahlil Gibran, and for Alphonsa it was true in more than one way. It was the pain of motherlessness that dawned on her the understanding about the immense love of Our Lady and she turned to her in supplication in times of pain and affliction. And it was pain that dawned on her the understanding about the graciousness of the cross carried by a wounded Jesus and she found an unusual power flowing from the cross to sustain her own way of the cross which came in the form of various physical infirmities and mental agonies. “For me everything is God’s Providence. Because of that I need to be happy in my sufferings. Jesus of indescribable sweetness, turn for me all the worldly joys into bitterness, this is my constant prayer,” wrote Alphonsa to her spiritual guide Father Louis Perumalil, CMI. This shows that Alphonsa’s approach to suffering was not part of a Quietism doctrine which holds that we must never do anything for ourselves but simply remain passive and endure all that happens to us. Instead, Alphonsa actively embraced the cross because it was the dynamic means through which she got a deeper understanding of God. During her beatification at Kottayam’s Nehru Stadium on Saturday 8th February 1986 Pope John Paul II reminded everyone about it in these words: “The path to holiness for Sister Alphonsa was clearly a different one. It was the way of the Cross, the way of sickness and suffering.” Since meditation on Christ on the Cross is so significant for knowing God deeply Saint Ignatius of Loyola made the whole Passion of Christ the exclusive subject of the Third Week in “Spiritual Exercises” and asks the retreatant to pray for “sorrow with Christ in sorrow; a broken spirit with Christ so broken; tears; and interior suffering because of the great suffering which Christ endured for me” (No. 203, George E. Ganss, S. J., “The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius” 1992). For Alphonsa too “sorrow with Christ in sorrow” gave a deeper understanding of God and that in turn gave her tremendous strength to bear excruciating pains with a smile. Says Father Joseph Malipparampil who had been assistant parish priest at Bharananganam during Alphonsa’s time: “In spite of having excruciating pains I have seen Alphonsa only with a cheerful face.” And concurs Clarist nun Sister Marurus, the curator of Alphonsa Museum at Bharananganam: “Several elderly people who have been contemporaries of Alphonsa and who have seen her, tell me that none of her portraits or statues reflects the joy that radiated her face. They say it was a countenance with a divine cheerfulness.” This reminds us of what Saint Francis of Assisi (1181 – 1226) said: “Those who love God are happy and blessed.” The secret of this cheerfulness must have been the inner strength and courage she had built up right from childhood because of the various trying circumstances in which she grew up. Her courage is quite evident in her jumping into a pit with burning paddy husk to disfigure her leg for dissuading her foster mother from getting her married. It took 90 days of treatment to recover from the burn injuries. This courage was quite evident throughout her 16 years of suffering as a Clarist nun at Bharananganam. As a nun her first physical ailment was a serious case of hemorrhage, immediately after her vestition on 19 May 1930. Blood began to flow through her mouth and nose with much frequency and it lasted for almost five years giving her several sleepless nights. After this she began to get constant bouts of nausea and vomiting coupled with intense intermittent fever. Once a fever lasted for 50 days and she started vomiting blood also which gave rise to the speculation that it might be TB but later medical tests proved that it was not the dreaded disease. This suffering she went through with Christ crucified “who was born for our sake, should offer himself by his own blood as a sacrifice and victim on the altar of the cross…for our sins leaving us an example that we may follow in his steps” as the Saint from Assisi reminds us. Christ suffered for us and therefore we have to follow him in our suffering, this is what gives meaning to the suffering of a Christian which this simple Clarist nun of Bharananganam understood very deeply in the core of her being. Even the holy Stigmata of Francis of Assisi can be seen from this angle. In brief it would suffice to say that Alphonsa went through a host of physical infirmities and its corresponding mental agonies till her last breath but the graciousness and courage with which she suffered them make her markedly different from other mortals. All her pains she offered to Jesus and got immense consolation from him. She used to say: “My consolation is that even when I go through all these sufferings, I know that Jesus is in my heart.” This firm faith helped her to remain cheerful even amidst pains and sorrows. “She had a joyful and cheerful countenance,” testified 82 year old Sister Thomasina and 81 year old Sister Josephina, contemporaries of Alphonsa whom this writer met at Bharananganam on 30th May 1997. Both of them said that Alphonsa had a childlike heart that was very sensitive to the sufferings and difficulties of others even when she herself was in great suffering. Occasionally her sufferings became extremely acute when she experienced a sense of abandonment by God, a dark night of the soul as experienced by John of the Cross and several other saints. She might not have realized it as dark night of the soul but from what she had shared with others we could construe that in fact her intense desolations were nothing but dark nights of the soul. Even then she held on to believe that God is with her and it is indeed a heroic faith which only saints possess. Didn’t even Jesus ask on the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27: 46). Perhaps Alphonsa too asked such questions but like Jesus in deep faith and love, and thus taking her closer to Jesus and people who will kneel at her tomb for sundry favors in fervent faith and devotion like little children before a mother. I still remember the day when my own mother made me lie down on Alphonsa’s tomb at around the age of five and fervently praying to her for some special blessings for me. I don’t know for what she prayed but still I can recall my mother’s face in fervent prayer before the tomb of this venerable Clarist nun. I am not sure whether my own personal devotion to Blessed Alphonsa started from here or not, however, whenever I get a chance I make it a point to go to her tomb at Saint Mary’s Church and pray to her, I see it as a natural devotion that draws me to this simple Franciscan nun just like the children who flocked to her tomb immediately after her death. And the children flock to her On 28 July 1946, Sunday, after attending the morning Holy Mass halfway through though in her last stage, around one in the afternoon Alphonsa died reminding everybody the lines written by the Malayalam poetess Sister Mary Beninja, CMC, Kerala’s most famous nun poetess and contemporary of Alphonsa: “We shall meet in the eternal land where we will live without sorrows and anxieties!” But the almost instinctive way people went to her tomb just after her funeral on 29th July imploring her to look at them graciously from heaven was a sign that they were not ready to wait till that eschatological meeting in the eternal land free of tears and fears. Like her hidden life confined to the sickbed, her funeral too was an unostentatious one with very few people who were close to her including her aged father Joseph Muttathupadathu present for the occasion but the funeral oration by her spiritual guide Father Romulus, CMI, was a prophecy of sort: “In fact, we are here to take part in the funeral of a saint. If it were known, not only there would have been the greatest crowd of the faithful but also of the prelates and priests from all over India.” With the visit of cardinals, bishops, governors and chief ministers to her tomb over the last 62 years, now that prophecy has come true on several occasions. And the most astounding realization of those prophetic words will be on 9th November 2008, when cardinals and bishops from all over India will gather at Bharannganam to honour Saint Alphonsa Muttathupadathu in a Holy Mass and civic gathering after her canonization in Vatican on 12th October 2008. What is more significant is the spontaneous overflow of devotion one witnesses at Bharananganam, the largest crowd gathering Catholic pilgrim centre in Kerala. One day when I visited Bharannganam on 28th July, the traditional day of devotion to Blessed Alphonsa, this spontaneity was quite palpable in the air when I saw the fervour and devotion of the huge crowd from different parts of India. The beginning of the devotion itself was very impromptu. The first devotees were the little kids studying in the parish school of Bharananganam, located on the banks of Meenachil River, five kilometres east of Palai town, Kottayam district, Kerala. Bharananganam belongs to the Syro-Malabar Rite Diocese of Palai which has nearly 300,000 Catholics inhabiting mainly the civil district of Kottayam. The above mentioned little devotees of the parish school used to call Alphonsa “a saintly mother” even when she was alive and they used to visit her for her motherly advice and guidance. The nuns whom this writer met at the Clarist convent of Bharananganam put it this way: “The devotion to Alphonsa evolved as a spontaneous development. It all started with the little children of the parish school who used to visit her while she was alive.” “When she died,” continued the Sisters “the same children asked one of our Sisters, ‘Now to whom we will go?’ to which the Sister replied, ‘Though Sister Alphonsa is dead now, you can pray to her and she can intercede for you from heaven.’ The children took this as a serious piece of suggestion and started praying at her tomb.” As they prayed they began to get favourable responses from Alphonsa. But what looked like a miracle was the healing of a painful sore on the leg of a seven year old Hindu kid who also prayed to her within a few days of her funeral. Lo and behold, the next day the sore was healed. From the kids gradually the devotion spread to the parents and the wider public. As the word went around about the favours received, people from all creeds and walks of life began to converge on Bharananganam on July 28th turning it into the biggest Christian pilgrimage centre in the southern Indian state of Kerala. Though the major and officially confirmed miracle that became the basis for Alphonsa’s beatification was the healing of a child’s clubfoot, hundreds of recorded and unrecorded miracles have taken place through the intercession of Blessed Alphonsa till today. And that makes Bharananganam a highly revered place for the incessant flow of pilgrims from various parts of India and even from some places abroad. Now there are even several churches and shrines named after this Clarist nun across Kerala, India and also in the United States. On 12th October 2008 onwards Alphonsa Muttathupadathu will draw much more crowds of pilgrims than the previous years when she is canonized a saint for the altars of the churches across the globe. But besides all these, the most fundamental reason for this incessant flow of pilgrims to her tomb nobody has put so insightfully as the Hindu poet Pala Narayanan Nair, one of the greatest poets of Kerala (who died on 11th June 2008 at the age of 97), Professor of Malayalam literature at Alphonsa College, Arunapuram, Palai, named after the Blessed herself, in his Malayalam poem on this simple Clarist nun:
“Without desires, without ambitions Heart yours was in the sacred wounds of Jesus And your lips in deep meditation Followed him kissing the cross in imitation.” _____________________________________________________________________________ © Joe Palathunkal NB: Joe Palathunkal M.A.; MHR; PGDM is a development journalist and human rights writer based in Ahmedabad, India. He is the chief editor of “Fellowship”, a monthly journal of Malayalee Catholics settled in Gujarat. He can be reached at joepalathunkal@yahoo.com Telephone: 079 – 22844401 Mobile: 09328151895 Postal address of the author: Joe Palathunkal 201 Dharmanath Prabhu Society Near Saint Mary’s School NARODA – 382 330 Ahmedabad, Gujarat |