By Emilie Ng
BRISBANE’S six Carmelites of Mary Immaculate priests are “overwhelmed with joy” after receiving news that their order’s founder will be canonised later this year.
CMI founder Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara will be canonised with five other blesseds on November 23, the feast of Christ the King.
CMI Father Josekutty Vadakkel said the CMI family was “very blessed with the happy news”.
“Our founder Blessed Chavara, who has always fascinated and heralded us in the footsteps of Christ, is now presented to the whole Church as a model of holiness,” Fr Vadakkel said.
“Essentially a man of prayer and intense charity, he stayed in close communion with the Lord, amidst his several religious and social activities, permeating his spirituality to all around him, so much so that he was accepted and referred to as a man of God, from his early years.
“The long journey, for which the whole CMI family has prayed and worked for decades, has reached a joyful completion.
“This is the event we were waiting for, the canonisation for which we are now preparing to live out.”
Blessed Chavara is credited with many firsts in the history of the Church in Kerala, which comes under the Syro-Malabar rite.
He was instrumental in preparing the first liturgical calendar in the Malabar Church, and in 1861 was appointed vicar general of the Syro-Malabar Church.
The Carmelites of Mary Immaculate is the first indigenous religious congregation in the Indian Catholic Church, and is the largest religious congregation for men in the Syro-Malabar rite.
Blessed Chavara will be canonised alongside fellow Kerala-based and Syro-Malabar Church Blessed Eurprasia, a member of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel (CMC) founded by Blessed Chavara in collaboration with Carmelite Father Leopold Beccaro in 1866.
“We are truly happy for this providential incidence which unites the two holy souls in glory and invites the faithful to venerate two saints of our land who contributed in their own way for the building up of the Kingdom of Christ,” Fr Vadakkel said.
Fr Vadakkel arrived in Brisbane in 2011 with Fr Jose Thekkemuriyil and they were the first CMI priests ministering in this archdiocese.
Since then they have been joined by four fellow CMI priests, Fr Antony Vadakara, Fr Paul Chackanikunnel, Fr Sunny Mathew, and Fr Joseph Vattaparambil.
Fr Vadakkel said the CMI priests in Brisbane hoped to travel together to the canonisation in November and be united with their international family.
“We feel so blessed to be part of the CMI family and looking forward to be a witness to the blessed moments of canonisation of our founder Blessed Chavara on November 23,” he said.
Also being canonised on November 23 are Italian layman, Amato Ronconi, of the Third Order of St Francis; Giovanni Antonio Farina, the bishop of Vicenza, and the founder of the Institute of the Sisters of Saint Dorothy and Daughters of the Sacred Heart; Blessed Nicola da Longobardi, a professed oblate of the Order of Minims; and Ludovico da Casoria, professed priest of the Order of Friars Minor and founder of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sisters Elisabettine.
