By Jose Kavi
New Delhi, Jan 31, 2022: A 27-year-old woman, who died fighting cancer, is emerging as a possible saint from India, with people seeking her intercession for modern wayward youth.
Ajna George, a member of the Jesus Youth movement and an assistant professor, died January 21 in Kochi, the commercial capital of Kerala, southern India.
At the funeral on January 22, Father Jean Felix Kattassery, Ajna’s spiritual director for nearly two decades, compared her to Carlo Acutis, an English-born Italian who died of blood cancer October 12, 2006, and was beatified 14 years later.
Father Kattassery, parish priest of St Patrick’s Church, Vyttila, under the archdiocese of Verapoly, said like Blessed Carlo, Ajna had set apart her life for “devotion to the Holy Eucharist from a very early age, forbearing acceptance and offering of the excruciating pains of cancer for the glory of God, embracing the Eucharistic Lord with a smile even as death drew close.”
“An inspiring life… and death. Oh holy Ajna, pray for us,” writes Bella Rajan, headmistress of St Gabriel School, Ranjhi near Jabalpur in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh, in the Jesus Youth Facebook page.
Don Bosco Father Jose Koonananickal, who is in Andhra Pradesh’s Peddaboddepalli, writes, “Wonderful heroic life. May the Good Lord take her home to heaven. May she enjoy rest and happiness with God.”
Dora Lobo, another Facebook subscriber, exclaims: “How holy to welcome such suffering, in spite of youth. May she pray for all wayward youth. RIP holy one.”
Father Kattassery said Ajna was around 10 years old when she was introduced to him as the sister of one of his classmates. “As she grew older, her love for Jesus grew. She often spoke of the spiritual nourishment she received from being active in Jesus Youth as a student in college.”
After completing her master’s studies with “excellent grades,” Ajna was appointed as assistant professor in the Department of Commerce at Sacred Heart College, her alma mater. “It was at this juncture, around four and half years ago that cancer cells were first detected in her jawbone,” the priest recalled.
The priest said Ajna always strove to love Jesus. “Smiling even when the cancer cells claimed her eyes, ears, liver, mouth, and jawbone… Adamant in her desire to walk to church for Mass everyday even when her body was wracked with pain… Stubbornly demanding to receive the Eucharist even during the lockdown… Asking Jesus for greater suffering even as everyone prayed for her release from a world of pain… There could be no more fitting appellation for Ajna, who amazed everyone around her, than that of “Sister of Blessed Carlo Acutis,” the priest said in his eulogy.
The priest said he is grateful to God for granting him the opportunity to “witness a holy life at such close quarters” and allowed him to provide for her spiritual needs. “O God, you are so great.”
the Church, he adds, elevates a person to sainthood only after long years of intensive study and scrutiny. “But as someone who has known Ajna personally for around 17 years, I can testify that her life resembled that of a saint,” he adds.
Ajna’s treatment included an emergency surgery and she resumed normal life, but those days of good health were short-lived, the priest recalls.
“Even when the cancer began to affect her eyes, ears, liver, jawbone and lips, the smile on her face never faded, and the praise of God was ever present upon her lips. During this time, cancer did not just rob her of her vision in one eye and hearing in an ear, but also the beauty of her face. Two months back, she lost most of her ability to speak,” Father Kattassery explains.
The priest was appointed Ajna’s parish priest two and a half years ago, as the young woman was in the last phase of her suffering.
“Those days gave me an insight into her deep devotion for the Holy Eucharist. It often seemed to me that she was striving to love Jesus even more than Jesus loved her. She never stopped attending daily Mass, something she had been accustomed to since childhood, even on days when she was in great pain. She came to church for Holy Mass holding her mother’s hand, like a toddler learning to walk. How can I ever forget the words with which she stopped me from arranging transportation for her to come to the Church, ‘You’re tempting me to evade suffering, aren’t you?’”
The priest also recalls Ajna’s astounding persistence when “she stubbornly insisted on receiving the Holy Communion even when churches were closed to the public during lockdown. Many are the times I was subjected to questioning by the police during my journeys to her home with Holy Communion.”
“The very last week of her stay in the hospital at the height of her illness will forever be the most memorable days of my pastoral life, days when her hospital room was converted into a chapel of Eucharistic adoration. Only after offering an hour of silent worship and adoration of the Blessed Host that I brought her would she receive Jesus on her tongue.”
When she became unable to open her mouth to receive the Communion seven months ago, she started received the Eucharist dissolved in water through a gastronomy feeding tube.
The priest also says Ajna’s death will never fade from his memory.
“Having received the anointing of the sick and the Holy Eucharist, she held my hand and recited the ejaculatory prayer “Jesus, Mary, Joseph…” for almost half an hour, her voice slowly fading till finally her life breath, her offering to God, ceased. It was on a Friday, at exactly 3 o’clock in the afternoon, the very time Jesus gave up his breath!”