A Life of love

Sixty one years ago Bharananganam was quite an unknown place and found no mention in the history of the world. By the holiness of a poor clarist nun called Alphonsa it has come to be known all over the world.

Sister Alphonsa was a noble woman who lived all human virtues in their fullness. Love was the special attribute of her personality. She loved everybody with a strong feeling of affection, not only those who loved her but also people who were harsh towards her. A heart which is filled with genuine love can never keep any kind of animosity, resentment or ill feelings against anybody and anything. She would say that her heart was full of love. This was the cause of her holiness.

Jesus, her beloved spouse, bestowed upon her all the virtues like prudence, fortitude temperance etc. Besides these, the theological virtues such as faith, hope and charity were granted abundantly to her. In short, we can describe her as an embodiment of virtues and love. God himself prepared her in a special way to entrust certain sacred duties to her.

The duty was to love Jesus with all her strength and might. Real love means to renounce one’s own comfort and pleasure for the sake of the loved ones. Blessed Alphonsa forced herself from the depth of her heart to abstain from everything which was found worthy in the eyes of the world. She asked for more and more sufferings to become one with the crucified Jesus. Her sufferings and agonies were never a curse for her, but a sign of the greatest love. She was ready to take any kind of sacrifice for the sake of Jesus. She felt immense joy while suffering for her beloved Jesus.

There were sleepless nights due to the violent attack of diseases; there were times of intense sufferings and hardships. There were occasions of blame and accusations. There were moments of misunderstanding and helplessness. She never felt any regret over it since she found an interior happiness in the midest of all these sufferings. Because she had an unceasing thirst to love the crucified Jesus everything was for Jesus. She was a moving temple. Here Temple means a place made holy by the presence of God. People would find the face of Jesus in her. Really her life was a holocaust for love.

The remarkable life of a young Catholic nun came to an end on 28 th July 1946. She was unknown to the public till her death. Only a few attended her funeral. There appeared no news in the media about the death of Sr. Alphonsa.

God the almighty had been well pleased to exalt and honour the one who became a burnt offering for his sake. The very next day of the funeral people who knew her sanctity started to pray through her instrumentality and received favours.

Now there is an incessant flow of pilgrims to her tomb. She lies buried in the cemetary of Bharananganam parish church. A cemetary inspires fear in the minds of the people. People will hesitate to enter it. But the cemetary of Bharananganam became a crowd puller almost as soon as her death. It continues to be so.

Courtesy: Sr. Lilly FCC

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St. Alphonsa - Prayer

O Lord Jesus, hide me in the wound of your sacred heart. Free me from my desire to be loved and esteemed. Guard me from my evil attempts to win fame and honor. Make me humble till I become a small spark in the flame of love in your Sacred Heart. Grant me the grace to forget myself and all worldly things. Jesus, sweet beyond words, convert all worldly consolations into bitterness for me. O my Jesus, Sun of Justice, enlighten my intellect and mind with your sacred rays. Purify my heart, consume me with burning love for you, and make me one with you.

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The Centrality of Jesus Christ

Alphonsa is usually noted for her acceptance and love of suffering and pain. She would even ask for it! What does this apparently ‘non-sensical’ yet theologically rich dimension of the spiritual life of Alphonsa reveal to us? The answer to this riddle is found in the centrality of Jesus Christ in her life and spirituality. Her acceptance and love for suffering and her growth in the path of sanctity through such suffering and pain opens up the depth of her relationship with and in Jesus Christ and what became for her an experience of the redemptive value of suffering when joined to His suffering. This is what in fact makes her worthy of the honor of the altar universally.

To shed light on this it is fitting to cite the words of Martindale SJ: “We must however insist that the history of Sister Alphonsa will remain unintelligible unless we take into account the whole Catholic doctrine of the person and work of Our Lord. That this girl appreciated to the full the supreme importance of prayer should surprise no Christian; but there may be those who are disconcerted by her intense wish to suffer. We must insist that there was nothing morbid in this, and that no Catholic attaches any value to suffering as such, but only, as we said within the full doctrine of our Lord’s redemptive work.” Thus for the catholic Christian doctrine suffering gains a new sense and value only in the light of the passion of Christ and its spiritual acceptance would mean a positive inclusion of God and others with a constant self-emptying of the victim concerned.

Suffering thus understood, accepted and offered is a rare spiritual height for the Christian soul than a passive fatalistic resignation to one’s problems or pain. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches, “…the sufferings to be endured can mean that “in my flesh I complete what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his Body, that is, the Church…Suffering….becomes a participation in the saving work of Jesus.”

A letter written by Alphonsa, certainly with an explicit theological awareness, but showing a rare personal Christological dimension reveals the redemptive dimension of the suffering of Christ as well as her own adherence to it giving an immense value of discipleship. She writes: “Since only grief and suffering have fallen to the lot of my Spouse, I too lovingly embrace them, and my soul is at peace, though my body continues to be tormented. For the last seven years I have ceased to be my own, being given over entirely to my Divine Spouse. You know all that; and now let the Lord do as He will with me. It is not a cure I am anxious for, but only that His Holy Will be fulfilled in me.” Thus, behind the suffering Alphonsa cheerfully accepted is the truth of a living and loving encounter with Jesus Christ. She denies herself. She dies to herself. She forgoes everything imaginable of a personal sense of ownership or belonging. In all this “kenosis” or self emptying she gains everything in Jesus Christ. Christ takes hold of her in the true Pauline sense. She becomes a person living in Christ so that all her sufferings and pain are not thought to be experienced apart from Christ but in Christ and with Christ.

More than the lonely void of the sense of loss and utter helplessness which so often found results from in sickness and misunderstanding, Alphonsa appears as a person filled with Jesus Christ,intimately and immensely. Bishop Pothacamury’s observations also shed light on this foundational Christocentric experience of Alphonsa. According to him, “The keynote of her life was death to self and life to Christ and in Christ….Without renunciation and detachment from earthly things, there is no spiritual life. Christ was the centre of Sister Alphonsa’s life and character and not self. She dethroned herself to enthrone Christ, and made Him, with unerring vision, the focus of her life.”

In fact the words of the Servant of God John Paul II, of venerable memory, during the beatification ceremony at Kottayam reveal to us the depth of the Christological treasures hidden in the suffering of Alphonsa: “From early in her life, Sister Alphonsa experienced great suffering. With the passing of the years, the heavenly Father gave her an ever fuller share in the Passion of his beloved Son. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity, but also the spiritual suffering of being misunderstood and misjudged by others…. She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to love the Cross through her love of the crucified Lord.”

The central message that comes from the life of Alphonsa is thus only a living experience of Christ can lead us to a loving appreciation of his suffering for us and a meaningful acceptance and offering of our sufferings to the Lord in love. Because the suffering accepted with the crucified Lord is saving and redeeming. “Alphonsa, with this authentic Christian sense of the suffering from her experience of the crucified Lord finds in the painful moments of her life the sweetness of the love of the Lord, the sweetness of the Love of His heart as though like a love-laden girl in the presence of her beloved!

Mystically yet poetically like a perfect cascade of love, she pours out her heart of her relationship and experience of the Lord, the experience of a soul who is in graced to be madly in love with the source of the most divine Love of the heart of the Lord. Hence she says, “I am absolutely incapable of describing it in words. I fall into some kind of trance on the nights following the convulsion. I cannot describe the visions I see during the trance. It appears to me that Our Divine Lord comes to me, caresses me and pours out upon me all the affectionate sweetness of His Sacred Heart. The whole room seems to be flooded with the splendour of God. I do not know any more details. The happiness of the moment is unbounded and limitless.”

The personal prayer life of Alphonsa was an outflow of her intimacy with the Lord and was fulfilled in her conscious choice of making the Lord the center and priority of her life. She considered everything else as secondary in her practice of daring self-denial and self-negation. She left the egocentric eros of clinging to oneself and worldly things for the sake of loving Jesus Christ wholeheartedly.

Her prayer reads, “Lord Jesus, hide me in the wound of your sacred heart. Free me from my desire to be loved and esteemed. Guard me from my evil attempts to win fame and honour. Make me humble till I become a small spark in the flame of love in your Sacred Heart. Grant me the grace to forget myself and all worldly things. Jesus, sweet beyond words, convert all worldly consolations into bitterness for me. O my Jesus, Sun of Justice, enlighten my intellect and mind with your sacred rays. Purify my heart, consume me with burning love for you, and make me one with you.”

Courtesy: http://www.catholic.org

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St.Alphonsa Canonization Malayalam song- Vatican

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