Church history records the heroic lives of several canonized stigmatics. They include revered holy men and women such as Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Theresa of Avila, Saint Therese of Lisieux, Saint Mary Margaret Alacoque and the more recent mystic, Saint Pio of Petrocina.
Some 40 years before Padre Pio’s body began to manifest the sacred marks of Jesus’s passion, a 22-year-old young woman in a remote Sri Lankan village is recorded to have received Lord Jesus’ sacred stigmata. The spiritual saga of this holy woman was so inspirational that no soon after his elevation to the episcopate, Sri Lanka’s first native bishop published her life story in 1945 for the edification of the country’s Catholics.
“Helena,” one of the earliest of 16 books authored by the historian-Bishop Edmund Pieris of Chilaw, has been republished recently. The Sister Helena Foundation has republished it in Sinhala, Tamil and English. The book includes notes kept by French Archbishop Christopher Bonjean and excerpts from the diary of Spanish Father Florentine Garcia, parish priest and spiritual director of the holy woman all through her life.
Born in 1848 to a Catholic family of seven children, Helena lived in Gonawila, a remote village in north-western Sri Lanka. Originally a Buddhist, her father had sought Baptism before marriage with her Catholic mother. But after a while, he lapsed from the faith and engaged in witchcraft. Due to the mother’s effort, all siblings were baptised at birth. However, Helena’s elder brother followed his father’s footsteps and was opposed to the faith. But all female siblings followed their mother. In-family religious disputes led to frequent feuds at home.
The father and elder brother often spoke disparagingly of Lord Jesus. For three years, they made every possible effort to prevent the girls from going to church. Helena suffered uncomplainingly and showed not the least sign of anger or enmity toward the father and the brother. Instead she offered her prayers and sufferings for their conversion.
After parish-based catechesis, she received first Holy Communion and Confirmation in December 1860. Ever since her first Communion, she had a great desire to give herself up entirely to the service of Jesus. In 1868, Helena became a devout member of the local community of pious women founded by Father Garcia. That is how she came to be known as Sister Helena. Although she had received no formal schooling, she learned the alphabet from other members of the group with a view to reading religious literature. This helped her share in the group’s task of catechizing children.
Based on Father Garcia’s diary, Bishop Pieris’ book records that from her youth Sister Helena had experienced assaults of the evil one. It also narrates how she continued to ward off the devil with her fervent prayer-life. In 1870, in the midst of great suffering, Lord Jesus is said to have appeared to her saying “During the assaults of the devil and darkness of soul, I hear you. In future too I shall not abandon you.”
One day the evil one had offered her a ring saying, “Belong to me by wearing this ring,” but Helena despised him and repelled him so that the enraged devil beat her up mercilessly and left her half dead. On October 12, 1870, Our Lord said to her, “Share my heritage of sufferings.”
The book records that thenceforth she felt as if her heart and her head had been crowned with thorns. Her bodily sufferings increased and a few days later blood began to ooze from her head and from the side of her body.
From December 8, 1870, onward, Jesus’ five wounds appeared on her body: two on her palms, two on her feet and one on her side. She continued to suffer signs of scourging and crucifixion every Thursday and Friday. In these ecstasies, she conversed most familiarly with Our Lord who revealed to her the sufferings the Church had to face in Europe, at the time.
The book narrates how Lord Jesus consoled her often and encouraged her to suffer patiently. Spanish stigmatic Saint Theresa of Avila appeared to her one day and requested her to pray and offer her sufferings for Spain, which was then in the grip of revolution. She lived constantly in the Divine Presence and conversed familiarly with Lord Jesus.
After her spiritual director brought matters to the notice of Archbishop Bonjean, she was subjected to severe examination by medical and ecclesiastical authorities but these failed to reveal any fraud or any abnormal conditions. According to the diary of Father Garcia, in 1872, Archbishop Bonjean had submitted a report about her spiritual state to the Vatican’s Propaganda Fidei, currently known as the Sacred Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
Meanwhile, Sister Helena continued to joyously offer all her sufferings for the spiritual welfare of the Church and the salvation of souls. In spite of great suffering she spent her life catechizing children. Often she visited lapsed Catholics with a view to re-evangelizing them and bringing them back to the practice of the faith.
She was 82 when she died on February 8, 1931. Two days later in the presence of several priests, nuns and a large crowd of lay Catholics from several parts of the island, her mortal remains were interred in the village cemetery. A memorial monument was erected at her grave, which continued to draw devotees seeking her spiritual intervention. Miracles, performed by her intervention, have been claimed by devotees among regular visitors to the prayer shrine erected in the parish church.
This holy woman’s biography in Sinhala authored by Bishop Edmund Pieris includes a prayer composed by him for the cause of her beatification. Her cause continues to be promoted by the Sister Helena Foundation, convened by J.B. P. Dissanayaka, with encouragement from the current head of Chilaw diocese, Bishop Valence Mendis. The bishop, who is also secretary-general of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Sri Lanka, wrote to the Vatican in 2015 drawing further attention to the Cause of Sister Helena.
More recently, Sister Helena’s 85th death anniversary was celebrated on February 8, 2016, with the participation of 10 priests and a large crowd of laity. A film is also being produced about Sister Helena, and further moves are afoot to pool more historical documentation about this holy woman. According to an Oct. 29, 1871, diary record of Sister Helena’s Spiritual Director Father Garcia, Jesuit Father Galio, a reputed theologian from India, had visited Sister Helena during her trances and written a report. The Sister Helena Foundation welcomes assistance to obtain this report from Indian Church sources.
(Lucian Appuhamy, a former parishioner of Gonawila, is a Sri Lankan engineer currently resident in Australia. He may be contacted at lucianappuhamy@hotmail.com)