Brazil gets first female saint
Vatican City: Indian nun Mariam Thresia and four others were declared Saints by Pope Francis at a grand ceremony at the Vatican City on Sunday.
Mariam Thresia, who founded the Congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Family in Thrissur in May 1914, was raised to the highest position within the centuries-old institution during the ceremony at the St Peter’s Square. The nun from Kerala was canonised along with English Cardinal John Henry Newman, Swiss laywoman Marguerite Bays, Brazilian Sister Dulce Lopes and Italian Sister Giuseppina Vannini.
The ceremony included a Latin hymn and a recommendation by a representative of the Congregation for the Saints. Huge portraits of the five new Saints were hung from Saint Peter’s Basilica during the ceremony, which was attended by tens of thousands of devotees. Minister of State for External Affairs V Muraleedharan led the Indian delegation at the ceremony.
With Sunday’s canonisation, the centuries-old Syro-Malabar Church in Kerala now has four Saints, the first being Sister Alphonsa, who was declared a saint in 2008. Others are Father Kuriakose Elias Chavara, popularly known as Chavara Achen, and Sister Euphrasia, popularly known as Evuprasiamma, who were declared Saint by the Pope in 2014. Mariam Thresia was called during the first half of her life simply Thresia, the name given to her at baptism on May 3, 1876.
Since 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. The Church has declared her as one of the rare holy persons who moved constantly and consciously among the inhabitants of this world as well as with visitors from the world above and below.
María Rita de Souza Brito Lopes Pontes, known as “Irma Dulce” and considered to be the Brazilian equivalent to Mother Teresa on Sunday became the first woman born in the South American country to be declared a saint.