ABOUT

Sister Alphonsa became the first native Indian saint, canonised in 2008. She was the first woman of Indian origin to be canonised as a saint by the Catholic Church, and the first canonised saint of the Syro-Malabar Catholic Church, an Eastern Catholic Church of the Saint Thomas Christian community. St Alphonsa was born as Anna Muttathupadathu in a Syro-Malabar Nasrani family in Kudamalloor, near Kottayam, on 19 August 1910. She was baptised on 26 August. Alphonsamma, as she was locally known, was born in Arpookara, a village in the princely state of Travancore within Kerala, India. "From early in her life, Sister 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. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity, but also the spiritual suffering of being misunderstood and misjudged by others. But she constantly accepted all her sufferings with serenity and trust in God, … She wrote to her spiritual director: "Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves me so very much, I sincerely desire to remain on this sick bed and suffer not only this, but anything else besides, even to the end of the world. I feel now that God has intended my life to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering" (20 November 1944). She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to love the Cross through her love of the crucified Lord.”