Kerala congregation mourns sudden death of superior general

By Jessy Joseph

Changanacherry, Nov 23, 2021: A Catholic religious congregation for women founded 40 years ago in Kerala to work under any Rite and anywhere in the world is mourning the sudden death of its superior general.

Sister Rosy Puthuprambil, the second leader of the Fervent Daughters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (FDSHJ), died of heart attack on November 19. She was 57.

Funeral is scheduled on November 23 at the congregation’s newly built cemetery at Punnavely in Pathanmthitta district.

Her mortal remains were kept in the mortuary of St Thomas Hospital in Chethipurzha.

A press release from the congregation says, “We cannot believe that you are the first one to be buried in the cemetery you built for our sisters.” Sister Puthuprambil had faced lots of hurdles to get the clearness from the authorities, the press release says.

Sister Puthuparambil was born September 20, 1964, as the youngest of five children of Varghese and Annmma Varghese in Kainady in Alappuzha district.

One of her two brothers is Father Thomas Puthuparambil who works in the Itanagar diocese of Arunachal Pradesh. One of her two sisters is Sister Vimala of Little Sisters of Jesus who is now in South Africa.

She joined the congregation soon after her tenth grade in 1984 and took first profession on June 29, 1990. She completed her bachelor’s course from Kerala’s Calicut University and diploma in theology from Bethaniya Institute at Satna in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

Sister Puthuprambil was the first missionary to work in the congregation’s new mission opened in 1996 in Maharastra’s Markbodi village. The mission station comes under the Chanda Syro-Malabar diocese.

She became the second Councillor in 2003. In 2011 she elected the assistant general and became the superior general in 2013 when Sister Marykutty Puthuparampil, her aunt and the founder and the first superior general, resigned. She was re-elected in 2019 for a second term of six years.

A condolence message from the congregation says, “You were an embodiment of compassion to the poor and needy; you never turned away them. You had a special concern for the mentally disabled children.”

The congregation was founded on April 18, 1981, by Sister Marykutty Puthuparampil, a former Salesian nun who had worked 25 years in northeastern India.

Since 1972 she heard a call from the Sacred Heart of Jesus to start a new congregation to revive the Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus that had begun to grow cold after the Vatican II.

After nine years of prayer, penance and reflection, she left the Salesians with proper permission to start the congregation at Sneha Bhavan, in Perunna West, Changanacherry.

She died December 26, 2014. After her death, her niece took the responsibility to lead the congregation.

Its first house was under the Syro-Malabar Archdiocese of Changanacherry in Kerala under the patronage and guidance of Archbishop Antony Padiyara, who later became a cardinal.

The congregation, which continues to be under Changanacherry archdiocese, works to spread the Gospel message in any part of the world and under any Rite. It has 157 members in 41 communities working in rural areas of various states of India and Germany.