ST ALFONSA MUTTATHUPANDATHU, VIRGIN - 28 JULY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN JULY

Saints celebrated on the 28th of July

WELCOME!

SAINT ALFONSA MUTTATHUPANDATHU, VIRGIN 

Saint Alfonsa was born Anna Muttathupandathu in 1910 in Kerala, India. She belonged to the Syro-Malabar rite of the Catholic Church. The fourth child of Joseph and Mary Muttathupandathu, she was baptised on August 27 at Saint Mary's Church in Kudamaloor. 

Her parents died when she was very young, so she was raised by her grandmother and her great-uncle, Fr Josef Muttathupandathu. At the age of three, she developed an inflamed and painful eczema, of which she suffered all her life. 

SHE RECEIVED THE VEIL

She entered the convent of the "Ordinary Sancti Francisci (OSF) of the Sisters of St. Francis" in Bharananganam in the diocese of Palai in southern India. She arrived there at Pentecost 1927, and on August 2, 1928, she received the veil as a postulant. She then took the monastic name "Alfonsa of the Immaculate Conception" in honour of St Alfons Maria Liguori. She worked as a teaching assistant at the school in Vakakkad. 

SHE ACCEPTED HER MAIN APOSTOLATE

The sisters were mainly engaged in education, and Alfonsa graduated as a teacher while still a postulant and began teaching. But from the time she entered the convent, Alfonsa suffered increasingly from poor health. For the rest of her life she was disabled. But she accepted these physical ailments as her main apostolate.

MIRACLES HAPPENED THROUGH HER INTERCESSION

There began to circulate stories of miracles that had happened through her intercession. In addition to her already bad health, she suffered a severe hemorrhage, and bilateral pneumonia, which weakened her even more. Her condition worsened, and she received the last rites (Anointing of the Sick). She died on July 28, 1946 in Bharananganam. She was buried in the chapel adjacent to the cemetery at St Mary's Church in Bharananganam in the diocese of Palai in southern India.

PRAYER:

Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that the venerable feast of Saint Alfonsa may increase our devotion and promote our salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.