Vatican, June 27: Indian Catholics will rejoice as the Holy Father elevates the late Sister Mariam Thresia of Kerala. She belongs to the Syro-Malabar catholic Church.

Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family (CHF) in Kerala, India. Mariam became the third nun to be elevated to the status of sainthood from Kerala.

Mariam Thresia was called during the first half of her life simply Thresia, the name given to her at baptism on 3 May 1876. Since 1904 she wanted to be called Mariam Thresia as she believed that she was asked to add “Mariam” to her name by the Blessed Virgin Mary in a vision. She did so. And it was as Mariam Thresia that she was professed in 1914, the foundress and first member of the Congregation of the Holy Family.

Pope Francis has called an Ordinary Public Consistory of Cardinals in Rome next week to decide on the canonization of five Blesseds, including Sister Mariam Thresia of India and Cardinal John Henry Newman of England .

The Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff released a note on June 27 saying the Pope will preside over the celebration of the Liturgy of the Hours and an Ordinary Public Consistory in the Vatican’s Clementine Hall on July 1 for the canonization of the following:

– English Cardinal John Henry Newman, founder of the Oratory of Saint Philip Neri in England;

– Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini (born Giuditta Adelaide Agata), founder of the Daughters of Saint Camillus;

– Indian Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family;

– Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes Pontes (born Maria Rita) of the Congregation of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Mother of God;

– Marguerite Bays of Switzerland, virgin of the Third Order of Saint Francis of Assisi.

Pope Francis on February 12 authorized the promulgation of decrees regarding a miracle each attributed to the intercession of Sr. Maria Teresa and Cardinal Newman , clearing them for sainthood.

Sister Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, a member of the India-based Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, was born in Puthenchira in Kerala on 26 April 1876 and died in Kuzhikkattussery on 8 June 1926.

She is known for her extraordinary charity, with a preferential love for the poorest of the poor.

She was declared venerable on 28 June 1999, and was beatified on 9 April 2000, by Pope St. John Paul II in Rome.

Thresia placed her trust in the help of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph. She saw them frequently in visions and received guidance in her apostolate, especially for the conversion of sinners. She prayed for sinners, fasted for their conversion, and visited them and exhorted them to repentance. Her ascetical and penitential practices were similar to the extreme rigour of the ancient hermits and monks. She received several mystical gifts like prophecy, healing, aura of light, sweet odour.

And like St. Teresa of Avila she had frequent ecstasies and levitations. On Fridays, it is said, Mariam Thresia was often found lifted high and hanging in the form of a crucifix on the wall of her room. Like the well-known Blessed Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, she too bore the stigmata, carefully hiding it from public view.

Amidst such mystical favours, the Lord let her be tormented by diabolical attacks and vexations (again like Padre Pio) almost all through her life. She was repeatedly submitted to exorcism between 1902 and 1905 by Father Joseph Vithayathil, the parish priest of Puthenchira, acting under orders of the bishop, who wondered if she was simply a play thing of the devils.

Thresia submitted to the bishop’s orders with exemplary humility, but the exorcisms seem to have made some people regard Mariam Thresia as a dubious saint on the wrong presumption that a possessed person must be a sinner. Mariam Thresia had also to fight temptations particularly against faith and chastity and she passed through the dark night of the soul. From 1902 till her death she had Father Vithayathil for spiritual director. She opened her heart fully and confidently to him and followed his advice and obeyed him blindly. Of her extant letters fifty-three out of fifty-five are addressed to him seeking advice and spiritual guidance.

A new Congregation is formed

In 1903 Mariam Thresia requested her bishop’s permission to build a prayer house of solitude, but Mar John Menachery, the Vicar Apostolic of Trichur, first wanted to test her vocation. He suggested that she consider joining the newly founded Congregation of the Franciscan Clarists, but she did not think that she was called to it. In 1912 he made arrangements for her to live in a convent of the Carmelite nuns at Ollur.

Though the Sisters would gladly have admitted her into their Congregation, she did not feel that it was her call. Finally, a decade after her original request, in 1913 Mar Menachery permitted her to build a prayer house and sent his secretary to bless it. Thresia moved in, and her three companions joined her soon. They led a life of prayer and austere penance like hermits but continued to visit the sick and help the poor and the needy irrespective of religion or caste. The bishop discerned that here was in gestation a new religious Congregation for the service of the family. On 14 May 1914 he erected it canonically and named it the Congregation of the Holy Family (C.H.F.) while receiving the perpetual profession of Mariam Thresia. Her three companions were enrolled as postulants in the new Congregation, while she was appointed its first Superior with Father Joseph Vithayathil as chaplain.

The newly founded Congregation had no written Constitutions. The bishop himself procured the Constitutions of the Holy Family Sisters of Bordeaux from their house in Ceylon (today, Sri Lanka), adapted it and gave it to the foundress. Mother Mariam Thresia saw to its strict observance in the new Congregation, which she nurtured with great care. During and after the difficult years of the First World War, with indomitable energy and utter trust in divine providence, she built, in less than twelve years, three new convents, two schools, two hostels, a study house, and an orphanage.

Theology in Action

Education of girls was Mariam Thresia’s liberation theology in action. Several young girls were attracted to her by her simplicity, humility and shining sanctity. At the time of her death at the age of fifty there were 55 Sisters in the Congregation, 30 boarders and 10 orphans under her care. The co-founder Father Joseph Vithayathil continued, till his death in 1964, to nurture the Congregation, which grew steadily. Today, this Congregation of the Holy Family has over 2000 professed Sisters, serving in Kerala, in the mission areas of North India, in Germany, Italy, and Ghana, with a over 176 houses in 7 provinces and 119 novices.

Death, miracles, path to sainthood

Mother Mariam Thresia died on 8 June 1926 from a wound that defied cure owing to her diabetes.

After her death, the fame of Mariam Thresia spread as people prayed for her intercession and the sick and the needy obtained through miraculous favours. In 1971 a historical commission collected the necessary evidence regarding her life, virtues and writings and presented it in 1983 before an eparchial (diocesan) tribunal, which also collected the depositions of fifteen of the surviving eye-witnesses. On 28 June 1999 the Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated a decree stating that the Servant of God Mariam Thresia had practised the Christian virtues heroically, and so she was entitled to be called Venerable.

Of the numerous miraculous cures reported the following one was examined canonically in 1992. Mathew D. Pellissery, was born in 1956 with congenital club feet and till he was fourteen he could only walk with great difficulty on the sides of his feet. After 33 days of fasting and prayer invoking the help of Mother Mariam Thresia by the whole family, his right foot was straightened during night sleep on 21 August 1970. And similarly after 39 days of fasting and prayer his left foot was straightened overnight during sleep on 28 August 1971.

Ever since then Mathew has been able to walk normally. This double healing was declared inexplicable in terms of medical science by as many as nine doctors in India and Italy and was declared a miracle obtained through the intercession of the Servant of God Mariam Thresia by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on 27 January 2000. This miraculous cure thus met the last canonical requirement for her beatification. Mathew Pellissery was grateful to be able to be present at this solemn celebration of beatification in Piazza San Pietro.

Cardinal Newman

Cardinal Newman will soon become Britain’s first new saint since the canonization of St. John Ogilvie by Pope Saint Paul VI in 1976. The previous group of English saints, 40 martyrs of the Reformation, were declared saints in 1970.

Born in London on 21 February 1801 and died in Edgbaston on 11 August 1890, Card. Newman was an Anglican priest who later converted and became a Catholic priest and cardinal. The noted theologian and poet was an important figure in the religious history of England of his time.

He was one of the leading figures of the Oxford Movement that originated at Oxford University in 1833, which sought to link the Anglican Church more closely to the Roman Catholic Church. He is revered by both the Catholic as well as the Anglican Churches.

As a Catholic priest, he founded the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Edgbaston, England. Pope Benedict XVI beatified Cardinal Newman on 19 September 2010, in Birmingham, England.

One of the best known works of Card. Newman is the hymn and poem, “Lead kindly light.”

  Catholic Church, Miriam Thresia