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| Rev. Fr. Augustine Vallooran V.C. |
The Feast Day of St. Alphonsa - India's 1st Saint - is 28 July.
She was canonized by H.H. Pope Benedict XVI at Vatican on 16 October 2008.
An agnostic political leader visited
the tomb of St. Alphonsa at Bharananganam. He stood awhile at the tomb and
later in a spontaneous move, this world renowned leader of Marxist leanings,
knelt before the resting place of a nun unknown in her lifetime. He remained
there a long time on his knees. Later he narrated his experience. As he was
standing at the tomb, he felt overwhelmed by a peaceful stillness filling the
depth of his heart that he had never known was even possible.
All his life he was busy working out
the establishment of a paradise on this earth. What he was left with however was
the frustration that he could not manage to bring the peace and joy of paradise
even to his own heart. It was irritation and anger that would only well up from
his heart every time he met with the slightest resistance. After all the ideals
that were professed and energy put in, the society was only getting more
corrupt. Unjust structures were getting more firmly rooted and the lives of
people more difficult. It was at the tomb of this unknown nun that an
inexplicable peace pervaded his heart to give him a glimpse of what he was
struggling for all through his life. He ended by saying, “I will come back here
whenever my inner self cries with the thirst for peace.”
“I Will Give You As A Light To The Nations” (Isaiah 49:6)
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| St. Alphonsa |
Sr.
Alphonsa was never known outside the convent walls until her death in 1946. There
was nothing even remotely remarkable by human scales of judgment. She was a nun
living in the confines of the Clarist convent in the remote and insignificant
Bharananganam - without any glitter or glamour which makes for stardom in the
world. Even her funeral was attended only by a few of her family members and a
small number of nuns from her community. But those who knew her closely could sense
the sanctity of her soul. One such person was her Spiritual Guide, Fr. Romulus C.M.I.
In the funeral oration, as if being inspired by a prophetic vision he exclaimed
- “In future, pilgrims from all over Kerala and India will
visit this tomb of Alphonsa. Bishops and Cardinals will come and pray in front
of it.” Down the years, all this came
to pass when Sr. Alphonsa was declared a saint and her tomb has become a teeming
pilgrim centre. Thousands of distinguished men and women of her time are now
forgotten - yet Sr. Alphonsa remains a radiant beacon of hope inviting the
whole world to a new vision of eternity by the message of her life.
Sr. Alphonsa was born on 19 August
1910 in a beautiful little hamlet called Kudamaloor in the district of Kottayam
in South Kerala. The child was christened Annakutty on August 27. Just three months
after her birth, Annakutty lost her mother Mariam and was entrusted to the care
of her aunt Annamma. Her entire life from the earliest days of her childhood right
until the last agony which ended in her premature death on 28 July 1946 was
plagued by different forms of physical sickness and mental distress.
“Thou Hast Hidden These Things From The Wise And Understanding
And Revealed Them To Babes” (Matthew 11:25)
After her death and burial, it was to children
that the extraordinary spiritual significance of her life was revealed. They
flocked with flowers in their hands to offer their little pains and needs and
they felt assured that the Sister who loved them when she was alive continues
to live praying for them. It is always the children who recognize the wonder of
the extraordinary in the ordinary! One might wonder what could be extraordinary
in the simple life of this nun. If anything was extraordinary about her, it was
her insignificance! Most of her days, she spent on the sick bed suffering
excruciating pain. Added to this, what she received was only an unbearable isolation
with her extended periods of sickness being misunderstood by her own Sisters. She
suffered the deepest agony when even her own community members alleged that she
was pretending it to attract sympathy and love. So much so that she had to go
through the most embarrassing process of being questioned by her superiors and
spiritual Father. In such moments of pain and loneliness, she jotted down her
thoughts. These notes reveal to us how she struggled to find meaning for her
sufferings in her love for the Crucified Lord.
St. Alphonsa was given a rare vision
to understand realities in Divine Light and to accept everything that came to
pass from the Hands of God. Even as a child, seeds of contemplation and commitment
were sown in her heart. Her years at home was marked with much difficulty and
yet was the time when her heart was imprinted with a great love for Jesus and
an ardent longing to remain His spiritual bride. When her aunt began to search
for a groom for her, Annakutty revealed this deepest desire enshrined in her
heart to be consumed by the Fire of the Love of Jesus.
“I Bethrothed You Too Christ To Present You As A Pure Bride ( 2Corinthians 11:12)
When she was given the official habit
of the Clarist nun, she was also given together with it a crucifix. She would
wear it as a bride in the traditional Kerala family wore the wedding pendant -
the “mangalsutra”. This cross was a constant reminder of her commitment of
unflagging love and fidelity to the Divine Bridegroom. In her unique form of
spirituality, love and pain would merge into an act of total self surrender to
the Lord. This sacrificial love led her into a mystic marriage with the Crucified
Lord. Every form of pain, whether physical or mental, became an offering of
love to the Divine Bridegroom who became more real to her than anyone else -
offering the deepest consolation in the lonely moments of her bedridden life. She
was most deeply hurt when even her excruciating bodily pain was met with
misunderstanding. When the pain was intense in her body and all she received
was suspicion and rejection, she would clasp the crucifix and offered herself
as a holocaust for the Love of Jesus. This transformed the bitter chalice of
her suffering into a pleasing offering to the Lord.
In a mystic marriage, every form of
suffering was accepted as an invitation and occasion to partake of the intense
Love of the Lord and transformed into a spiritual force uniting her with her Beloved.
In this spiritual discipline, Alphonsa becomes a radical answer to the modern
man who shuns any form of pain as a curse all the time - rushing towards the little
consolations the world offers. In the process, man meets with more sufferings! He
cannot face life’s many unresolved conflicts and he ends up in despair. This is
the rough texture of life today. It is against this dark background that the
life of Alphonsa shines out giving us a transcendent hope - specially in
moments of inconsolable pain and mindless suffering. What makes her life unique is not the
multitude of her sufferings but the extraordinary ability to accept these
sufferings and transform it into a force of love. She is indeed a
perfect disciple of Jesus Christ! What makes the Crucified Lord precious for us
is not so much the Cross He bore but the way He harnessed it into a spiritual
force that defeated the finality and bitterness of pain. Here lies the
uniqueness of the Christian faith! A faith that Sr. Alphonsa professed most
meticulously without any corruption or dilution.
“I Am To Be Poured As A Libation Upon The Sacrificial Offering
Of Your Faith” (Philippians 2:17)
When one meditates on the life of St. Alphonsa,
one can clearly recognize the strong hues of the spirit of the early Christian
community. The Cross of Jesus was a scandal the disciples themselves were
unable to accept initally. They could not understand why the Master who went
about doing good should be condemned and crucifed. The words of Simon Peter
were an echo of the heartbeat of the small band of followers. When Jesus
predicted his passion and death, Simon Peter quipped “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen
to you.” (Matthew 16:22) Suffering was a horrific curse that one must
flee from at the remotest warning. And this is how the disciples responded when
they were faced with the uncertainty of the Passion of Jesus. In Gethsemane
when Jesus was arrested, they all fled from His vicinity. Even when they saw
the Master in the glorified form of the Resurrection, they could not understand
that the Cross had been the key to the Glory of the Resurrection. They doubted Him
(Matthew
28:17). But with the anointing of the Holy Spirit on the day of
Pentecost, a new vision and a tremendous power transformed their lives! Simon
Peter and John would rejoice when they were flogged in the jail for being
counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus (Acts 5:41). From then on, every
time they were threatened, a fresh force was released from within, invigorating
them to proclaim their love for Christ. Every time pain burned into them, an
ineffable comfort soothed their hearts. In the midst of painful rejections and
atrocious persecutions, the Christian community flourished in the Joy of the
Spirit. St. Peter gives expression to this changed spirit of the disciples in
his epistle - “Beloved,
do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal which comes upon you to prove you, as
though something strange were happening to you. But rejoice in so far as you
share Christ's sufferings, that you may also rejoice and be glad when his glory
is revealed.” (1 Peter 4:12-13)
St. Alphonsa lived this remarkable
spirit of the Pentecost experience that marked the beginnings of Christianity.
Of her trials she wrote to her spiritual director, Fr Louis: “For a long time
now, my suffering has been both physical and mental and I have sometimes felt
that it was beyond my endurance. I shed tears over it. But until now I have
kept them hidden before the eyes of others…There are those who think that I do
not suffer any mental agonies because I am always cheerful before them but my
desire is to immolate myself totally at the sacrificial altar of love.”
Whenever there was anything to suffer, she would remember the invitation of
Jesus - “Take
up your cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24). Every pain that she bore gave her an ecstasy of
the loving touch of the Lord. While talking to the novices and junior sisters, she
once shared this reflection: “By giving us crosses He shows us His Love. He send
crosses only to those whom He loves.” Because of this contemplative attitude to the sufferings of
life no amount of pain could leave a shadow of despair in her soul. What
impressed everyone who visited her was the disarming smile on her face.
Fr. Sebastian Pinakatt who knew her closely recalls, “Sr. Alphonsa’s
countenance radiated an extraordinary serenity. She had a habitual smile on her
face which reflected her stainless soul. Although she was beleaguered by
sickness and trials, these in no way affected her gracious behavior or her
natural gait.”
“The Memory Of The Righteous Is A Blessing” (Proverbs
10:7)
The psalmist exclaims “It is good for
me that I was afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes.” (Psalm 119:71) To
learn the Will of God and be conformed to the mind of God was the one aim of
the life of the seeker. When afflictions came his way, he realized that this was
indeed the Divine process to effect in oneself conformity with God’s Will.
Suffering for Alphonsa was like the potter’s wheel moulding the clay to a
beautiful shape. Whenever her body was in pain she recognized that she was at
the centre of the wheel and was being acted upon by God, the Potter. Every one
of her groans was turned to a heavenly hymn of praise. In 1939 she suffered
from a severe convulsion that drained her thoroughly. In the midst of such agony
she wrote in her diary, “When the grains of
wheat are ground and crushed, then the wheat flour is obtained and is baked and
transformed into the host for the Holy Eucharist. Even so must we be ground and
crushed and transformed by suffering like the host. It is when grapes are
pressed that we get the juice, the wine; they do not yield wine of themselves.
When God purifies us by suffering, we become like good wine.” She understood
her salvific value of suffering and accepted every bit of pain from the Hands
of God in order that she would be conformed to the Image of God. One remembers
what the Book of Hebrews says of the sufferings of Jesus: “For it was fitting that he,
for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should
make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through suffering.” (Hebrews 2:10) She did not complain at any moment of her
bodily pain or mental distress because she knew that it was all part of a great
Plan of God to make her perfect. Resounding in her heart and often on her lips
was this word of Jesus - “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies,
it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.” (John 12:24)
St. Alphonsa’s spirituality was marked
with a burning zeal for the salvation of all men and women. She knew the only
way she could become a supple instrument in the hands of God was to be
connected to Jesus in the moments of His sufferings. She had a deep insight
into what St Paul says - “I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh
I complete what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body,
that is, the church.” (Colossians 1:24) Even when her body was languishing in pain,
her spirit rejoiced that her decaying body was giving life to many for whom
there was no one to pray for. She compared herself to a leaf that falls from
the plant and gets dried and decayed on the earth - nourishing it to bring forth beautiful
blossoms that would spread fragrance and beauty on the altar of God.
The message of St. Alphonsa is most
crucial to the men and women of this generation. All of us are searching for
the way to fulfillment in life. We want to become winners by making a mark in
this world. However we seem to have lost track somewhere. No achievement seems
to fill the heart of anyone. No amount of pleasure that is grabbed has managed
to satisfy the thirst of man. Even those acclaimed to be winners in the arena
of life seem to be utterly frustrated with the flashes of victory. The quest to
amass more wealth, to make life more comfortable and secure has only rendered
man more insecure and dissatisfied than at any other epoch of human history.
The paradise everyone is trying to build around them seems to be escaping the
reach of everyone. Thinkers of this century seem to wonder whether there is any
meaning for life at all. Where have we lost our way? St.
Alphonsa is a beacon beckoning us on to the road to life in all its fullness. Her
life, an apparent failure by the scales of worldly understanding, is in fact
the ultimate answer for the quest of every human heart. She did not make any
mark in any field of life. Her life was spent in obscurity. Her body decayed
even before her breath left it. Her days too few to begin any notable work. And
yet her little life that was poured out as a libation for her Divine Bridegroom
has an eternal worth that the heavens declare. “Those who are wise shall shine like the
brightness of the firmament; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the
stars for ever and ever.” (Daniel 12:3) St. Alphonsa has become a star that guides the wanderer here on earth.
Let Us Pray
Lord Jesus we thank You for the gift of St. Alphonsa to us as a beacon
of hope in our dark nights. Her life assures us that even the worst sufferings
are but transitory and that You will be with us to lead us to the great reward
of heaven for us to rejoice over in eternity. We praise you Lord that every
suffering has the promise of glory because of Your exceeding Love that triumphs
over all evil. We offer to You in thanksgiving every cross of our life for here
we are united to Your Most Precious Love. May our lives of commitment and love
be a fragrant offering pleasing to You most gracious God.
Amen
