Kerala is counting down the last few days to a landmark moment when its daughter Sr Alphonsa will be declared the first Indian woman saint at the Vatican on October 12.Sister Alphonsa's birthplace, Kottayam district, is gripped by the sainthood event unfurling next week at the Vatican, and thousands of Keralites are expected to make the trip to Italy to witness the occasion.
A Malayalam song is proposed to be rendered at the event at the Vatican when Pope Benedict XVI declares her a saint.
Alphonsa was born Anna, in 1910, at Kudamalur near Kottayam to the Muttathudpadathu family and was brought up by her maternal aunt following the loss of her mother at a young age.
She had shown an interest to tread a religious path right from childhood and managed to fend off all efforts by the family to arrange a marriage for her.
On joining the Franciscan Clarist convent in 1927 at Bharananganam in Kottayam, Anna assumed the official name Sister Alphonsa. Her life in the convent was a story of a series of illnesses.
But even as she was confined to bed, she faced the suffering with a smiling face, which is considered to have eventually weighed in her favour.
She died aged 36.
The miracle healing was claimed by Jinil, a one-year-old boy in Kerala who could not walk because of a congenital problem, and managed to walk the day that he was taken to Sr Alphonsa's tomb for prayers by his parents.
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(Source: TNC)