Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara

He was born on February 10, 1805, at Kainakary, a small village on the west coast of Kerala, to Kuriakose and Mariam. ²³ The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints says he was baptized eight days later in the parish church of Chennamkary and given his father's name, Kuriakose, and that on September 8 of the same year he was presented to the Virgin Mary at her shrine at Vechoor. ³ The Holy See's booklet credits his mother with a decisive influence on him, above all in his devotion to the Holy Family. ²

Father Thomas Palackal saw the signs of a vocation in the boy and invited him to the seminary at Pallipuram, and he entered it in 1818, at thirteen. ²³ Not long after, according to the Dicastery, an epidemic in his home village killed both his parents and his only brother, and his uncles pressed him to leave the seminary so that the family would not die out. ³ He stayed. Bishop Maurelius Stabilini, Vicar Apostolic of Verapoly, ordained him a priest on November 29, 1829, when he was twenty-four. ²³

Soon after his ordination he joined two older priests, Thomas Palackal and Thomas Porukara, who had in mind a community life for priests. ¹³ On May 11, 1831, the foundation stone of a religious house dedicated to Saint Joseph was laid at Mannanam: the Dicastery calls it the first local religious institute for men in the Indian Church, known today as the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate. ³ The Holy See's booklet puts it more briefly, saying that in 1831 he established the congregation; John Paul II named all three priests as its founders. ¹² Chavara made his own religious profession on December 8, 1855, taking the name Kuriakose Elias of the Holy Family, and led the community as its superior until his death. ²³

On February 13, 1866, at Koonammavu, he and the Italian Carmelite Father Leopold Beccaro founded a convent of sisters, then called the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites, for the education of girls and the spiritual care of women. ²³ The Dicastery says it later grew into two congregations, one of the Latin rite and one of the Syro-Malabar; John Paul II knew the second as the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel. ¹³ It was in that congregation that Saint Euphrasia Eluvathingal lived and died, and Francis spoke of the two of them together when he met the pilgrims from Kerala after the canonization. ⁵

John Paul II listed what was begun under his leadership or inspiration: seminaries for the clergy, annual retreats, a publishing house for Catholic works, a house for the destitute and dying, schools for general education and programs for the training of catechumens. ¹ He added that Chavara contributed to the Syro-Malabar liturgy, spread devotion to the Eucharist and the Holy Family, and gave himself to encouraging and counseling Christian families, "convinced as he was of the fundamental role of the family in the life of society and the Church." ¹ The Dicastery calls him a great pioneer in education and in the press, and says he worked for the poor, the illiterate, the marginalized and the oppressed. ³

He also wrote. The booklet speaks of spiritual, liturgical and poetic works, and names one, the Testament of a Loving Father. ² His motto, given by the booklet and by Francis, was "sanctification of oneself and the salvation of others". ²⁵

He was the first vicar general of the Syro-Malabar Church in the Diocese of Verapoli, the booklet says, and worked to prevent a schism. ² The Dicastery is more specific: in 1861 a schism threatened the Church in Kerala, and Chavara, newly vicar general, is remembered for resisting the intrusion of Bishop Thomas Rocco; it adds that Pius IX thanked him for it in a personal letter. ³ For John Paul II, no cause was dearer to him than this one. The pope spoke of his efforts "to resist threats of disunity and to encourage the clergy and faithful to maintain unity with the See of Peter and the universal Church", and put his success down to "the intense charity and prayer which characterised his daily life." ¹

He spent his last days in the monastery at Koonammavu. ³ The Dicastery says he fell gravely ill in October 1870 and was completely blind for about three months. ³ On January 2, 1871, it records, he told his brothers, in words translated here from the Italian: "My time has come. Having always had the protection of the Holy Family, I have never lost the grace received in baptism. I dedicate our little congregation and each one of you to the Holy Family. May it reign in your hearts." ³ He died the next morning, January 3, and was buried at Koonammavu; his remains were moved in 1889 to the monastery church of Saint Joseph at Mannanam, the motherhouse. ²³ The Martyrology's entry for the day places his death in the monastery of Mannanam itself. ⁷ His age is given two ways too: John Paul II spoke of his "sixty-five years of earthly life", while the booklet says he died at sixty-six. ¹²

The cause was promoted by his congregation from 1936, the Dicastery says, and formally opened in the Eparchy of Changanacherry in 1955. ³ Long before his beatification he was already being invoked. Saint Alphonsa, gravely ill as a novice in 1935, was cured during a novena to him, according to the Holy See's biography of her. ⁶ John Paul II beatified the two of them together at Kottayam on February 8, 1986, the first time a pope had raised a son and a daughter of the Church in India to the altars in their own land. ¹ Francis canonized him in Saint Peter's Square on November 23, 2014. ³⁴

The Holy See's biography for his canonization says that his work the Testament of a Loving Father "has made him the patron of the family." ² That is the only patronage any source consulted here names. It fits what John Paul II said of him, that he dedicated himself to encouraging and counseling Christian families. ¹

His feast is kept on January 3, the day he died. ³ The Dicastery for the Causes of Saints gives it as his liturgical memorial, and the Roman Martyrology enters him on that day. ³⁷ The Martyrology text the Italian bishops print still calls him blessed, because it was written before his canonization in 2014. ³⁷

John Paul II said he and Alphonsa followed distinct paths: his was great apostolic works, hers hidden suffering. ¹ Both, the pope told the religious of India, were important in the life of the Church. ¹ Chavara's path was the busy one, and the Dicastery insists that prayer, silence, solitude and austerity made him a true contemplative all the same. ³

His motto put holiness and the salvation of others in the same sentence. ²⁵ Francis drew the lesson that God's love is the source of all holiness, and that love of neighbor is its clearest sign. ⁵

He lost his parents and his brother as a seminarian and refused to go home to keep the family going. ³ The man the Church calls patron of the family gave up having one of his own. ² What he spent the rest of his life on was other people's households: their schools, their prayer, and the counseling John Paul II described. ¹

His last recorded words were about the Holy Family, and his congregation was entrusted to it. ³ He did not ask his brothers to remember him. He asked that the Holy Family reign in their hearts.