By Matters India Reporter
Junagadh, May 14, 2022: A Catholic priest has stepped in to care for an aged and ailing Catholic woman, who had spent four decades as a hermit among wild animals in western India.
Sister Prasanna Devi, the only surviving Catholic ascetic of the Syro-Malabar Church, is now under the care of Carmelite Father Vinod Kanatt, parish priest of St Ann’s Catholic Church in Junagadh, parish under the diocese of Rajkot in Gujarat state.
“She is very fragile and needs special attention,” Father Kanatt told Matters India.
Sister Devi, who is now 88, had lived alone for 40 years inside the famous Girnar mountain range forest, only habitat of Asiatic lions in India.
An accidental fall in September 2014 made her stay in her mountain top hermitage difficult, so Father Kanatt brought her to the parish, 6 km away, on his bishop’s advice.
While other nuns shied away from the saffron-clad who resembles Hindu ascetics, Father Kanatt offered to help Sister Devi as he finds his mother in her.
Initially, Father Kanatt accommodated Sister Devi in the parish church’s annex so that her devotees could visit her. She was shifted to the presbytery for safety after the pandemic outbreak two years ago.
“She now lives in a room adjacent to mine and I leave no stone unturned for her well-being,” says Father Kanatt, who takes help from women parishioners to bathe the hermit nun and meet her other needs.
Although she is unable to speak, hundreds of her devotees, most of them Hindus, still visit her to seek her blessings.
Among them is Kishor Kotecha, a Rajkot-based real estate developer, who visits her every week, a practice he had started when Sister Devi was in the forest. Describing her as his spiritual guide, Kotecha admits that being in her mere presence solves all his problems.
Janet Chandeker, a parishioner, says the nun is alive because of the excellent care of Father Kanatt.
“It is hard to believe that a priest takes care of an elderly nun in his parish house when children are not ready to look after their aged parents,” says Chandeker, who has known Devi since her initiation into acetic life.
“Whenever her health deteriorates, he takes her to hospital and stays with her as if he is taking care of his mother,” the 73-year-old retired schoolteacher, told Matters India.
She says looking after the sick and elderly comes naturally for Father Kanatt. “He comes to the help of elderly people who have no support to take to them to hospital or arrange medicine, food and other requirements,” she added.
Chandekar is also happy for Devi. “We are happy that she is with us. We used to visit her in her hermitage,” she recalled.
The schoolteacher hailed Sister Devi for breaking down the “walls of religious differences through renunciation and disciplined life. “Hindus flock to seek her blessings as they consider her a goddess.”
Victor D’Souza, another parishioner says Father Kanatt is different from other priests and endeared himself to his people. “He is with us in our times of struggles and sorrows. He is our constant companion unlike other priests who seldom find time to visit our families,” he told Matters India.
Father Kanatt was first appointed to the Junagadh parish in 2008 and was transferred in 2014. He was brought back two years later following continued requests from the parishioners.
D’Souza say Father Kanatt has made it “a habit to visit the elderly every week and distributes Holy Communion and attends to their other requirements. We cannot find a priest like him.”
He says Father Kanatt feeds Sister Devi with his hands. “Who will do like this?” he asks.
Father Kanatt shrugs off such praises. “I don’t find anything special in looking after her. I do it for the glory of God. It is my duty as a missionary priest to help those in need,” said the priest who is known as the bicycle priest.
She was born in 1934 as Annakutty Joseph, the eldest of three children of Joseph and Mariamma Kunnapallil in Kerala, southern India.
As she was not sure of her future after 10th grade, she remained at home for two years spending time in church activities including prayers and finally decided to become a nun.
She joined the Order of the Little Sisters of the Sacred Heart at the age of 22. She however, had to leave the congregation after five years as the congregation’s only house in India was closed.
She moved around different places in India visiting monasteries and Hindu temples and finally opted to live an ascetic life.
In Sept.1974, at the age of 48, she responded to the call of her inner soul and adopted an ascetic way of life and moved on to the Girnar mountain range and adopted the name of Sister Prasanna Devi.