6th Sunday of Ordinary Time
Meet India’s newest recognized Saint
Pope Francis this week recognized a miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Mariam Thresia Chiramel Mankidiyan, founder of the Con-gregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family (CHF) in Kerala, India, making her the third nun to be elevated to the status of sainthood from Kerala. Mariam Thresia was called during the first half of her life simply Thresia, the name given to her at Baptism on May 3, 1876. Beginning in 1904, she wanted to be called Mariam Thresia, as she believed that she was asked to add “Mariam” to her name by the Blessed Virgin Mary in a vision. And it was as Mariam Thresia that she was professed in 1914, the foundress and first member of the Congregation of the Holy Family.
She was born April 26, as the daughter of Thoma and Thanda Chiramel Mankidiyan in the village of Puthenchira, Trichur District, Kerala. Though once a rich and noble family with extensive property, they became poorer and poorer as Thresia’s grandfather married away seven daughters one after the other, selling the property to pay for each a costly dowry. To forget the poor straits to which the family was reduced, Thresia’s father and brother took to drinking.
Such was the family background in which the future pioneer of the family apostolate was born. The third of five children, two boys and three girls, Thresia grew up in piety and holiness under the loving guidance of her saintly mother Thanda.
As she wrote later in her autobiography (a small document of barely six pages written under obedi-ence to her spiritual father), from early childhood Thresia was moved by an intense desire to love God. For this purpose she fasted four times a week and prayed the Marian Rosary several times a day. Seeing her thinned down at 8 years of age, Thanda tried to dissuade Thresia from her severe fasts and night vigils. But Thresia wanted to be ever more in the likeness of the suffering Christ; to him she also consecrated her virginity when she was about 10 years old.
Source:Indian Catholic Matters | Feb 14, 2019
(To be continued.)