Kerala nun’s sainthood process enters second stage

By Jose Kavi

New Delhi, Nov 8, 2023: A 19th century nun, considered the “mother of consecrated women in Kerala,” has reached the second stage of the four-phase canonization process in the Catholic Church.

Pope Francis on November 8 approved the heroic virtues of Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founder of the first indigenous congregation for women in India. She died July 18, 1913, in Varapuzha near Kochi in the southern Indian state. She was then 81 years old.

The Pope has authorized Cardinal Marcello Cardinal Semeraro, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, to promulgate the decrees that raises the nun as a Venerable. Until now, she was a Servant of God, the first stage of the canonization process. A miracle through her intercession and approved by the Pope will her to the next stage of beatification.

Venerable Eliswa founded the Congregation of the Third Order of Discalced Carmelite Nuns, now Congregation of Teresian Carmelite Sisters.

Mother Eliswa is the mother of all consecrated women in Kerala, says a press note from the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India.

She was the precursor of women religious in Kerala and the congregation she founded was later bifurcated to the Congregation of Teresian Carmelites (CTC), which is under the Latin rite, and the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) under the Syro-Malabar rite. The two congregations together has more than 7,000 members now.

Mother Eliswa, as she is popularly known, set up the first convent school, boarding house and orphanage for girls in Kerala and provided integral formation for girls and women.

She was on October 15, 1831, the feast day of Saint Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century Spanish Carmelite nun, mystic and religious reformer, in Cruz Milagris Parish at Ochanthuruth near Varapuzha (Verapoly).

She was the first of eight children of Thomman and Thanda Louis in Vyppissery Capithan family.

Her third brother was the first to be ordained a priest for the St Pius X Province of the Discalced Carmelite Order in India. He also founded the first Catholic bi-monthly, ‘Sathyanadhakahalam.’ He was a scholar, a linguist and one of the translators of the Bible into Malayalam.

In 1847, when Eliswa was 16 she married Vatharu Vakayil at Koonammavu and bore a daughter, Anna. When Vatharu died of an illness, Eliswa refused to remarry and chose a life of prayer, detachment and solitude.

An Italian Carmelite Missionary, Father Leopold Beccaro revealed God’s plan to Eliswa, who along with her daughter, Anna, decided to be consecrated. Thresia, Mother Eliswa’s youngest sister also decided to offer her life to God.

Carmelite Archbishop Bernardine Baccinelli, the then vicar apostolic of Verapoly, officially recognized the foundation of the Third Order of the Discalced Carmelite Congregation for women. On February 13, 1866, these three Latin-Rite women moved to a newly built bamboo convent on their property, the first convent in Kerala.

Later Mother Eliswa admitted the members of the Syro-Malabar Rite. On March 27, 1867, the sisters moved from the bamboo convent to St Teresa’s Convent at Koonammavu recently built on the property owned by Mother Eliswa and her daughter.

On March 24, 1890, the Vatican Congregation of Propaganda Fide changed the jurisdiction over the Koonammavu convent to the Vicariate of Trichur. On September 17 the same year, all the Latin sisters, including Mother Eliswa, left the convent, signalling the inter-rivalry in the Kerala Catholic Church.

They were sheltered in St. Teresa’s Convent Ernakulam for a few days. They then were brought to Varapuzha by the Archbishop of Verapoly.

Mother Eliswa was buried in front of the St. Joseph’s and Mount Carmel Church at Varapuzha. In 1997, her mortal remains are shifted to the tomb inside the memorial building called Smruthi Mandir in St. Joseph’s Convent at Varapuzha.