Parish Bulletin | Year of Saint Joseph | January 9-10 2021: Baptism of the Lord | 75th Anniversary Year

January 16: Feast of St Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Sri Lanka:

Father Joseph Vaz was born on April 21, 1651, in India. He was a Goan, born in Benau-lim, and was raised in the villages of Benaulim and Sancoale. When he grew up, his father sent him to a school at Benaulim to learn Latin as a preparation for his priestly studies. Joseph Vaz made such rapid progress in his studies that his father decided to send him to the city of Goa, to the Jesuit College of Saint Paul. After completing his studies with the Jesuits, Joseph Vaz entered the Academy of Saint Thomas Aquinas for his philosophical and theological studies. In 1676 he was ordained a priest.

How the call to mission came to him, we do not know exactly. He knew about the misery of the Catholics of Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and their complete abandonment. Ceylon was a Buddhist Country. But there were, at that time, a large number of Catholics living on the island without a priest or a church. In 1658, the Dutch, being adherents of the Dutch Reformed Church and fearing that Catholics would support the Portuguese, began to persecute the Catholics, forbidding the practice of the Catholic faith within their territory. Joseph Vaz’s heart was afire to go and save the Church in Ceylon at any cost. In April, 1687, he disembarked in Ceylon as a poor beggar.

In 1658, 120 Catholic missionaries had left Ceylon, and the churches were closed or destroyed. From 1658 to 1687 Catholics were isolated: no priest, no sacraments, and no church. Joseph Vaz arrived in Jaffna. He started his life in Ceylon without any logistic support. With a rosary on his neck he begged from door to door for his survival. That was how he made contact with Catholics. Joseph Vaz was the first non-European missionary to came to Ceylon. He came, not sent by civil, royal or ecclesiastical authorities. And he came in simplicity and poverty, without the support or protection of an institutional Church.

The Dutch commander of Jaffna noticed the revival of Catholic life in his district. On Christmas night, 1689, two years after Joseph Vaz had started his apostolate, the com-mander detected the presence of the priest. Three hundred Christians were imprisoned. But Joseph Vaz was not among the prisoners. No one knows how he escaped.

With the help of some Catholics, he went to Puttalam since this was part of the Kandy Kingdom outside of Dutch authority. Joseph Vaz had chosen Kandy the center of his apostolate to avoid the vigilance of the Dutch. But, as soon as the King, Vimaladharma Surya II, was informed, Joseph Vaz was bound in chains and conducted to a prison in Kandy, as he was seen as a foreign spy. Joseph Vaz had studied Tamil and now, in Jaffna, in the prison, he started to study the local language, Sinhala. In 1693 the king set the priest free. As soon as he obtained the freedom to minister to the Catholics of the city, Joseph Vaz had the people build a simple church and dedicated it to Our Lady.

(to be concluded next week)

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