This article was first published in Indian Catholic Matters on this link
We are at the crossroads of where the Church is heading as great changes take place in independent countries free from colonial rule, and in relations between diverse cultures and religions. Indian Catholics could look upon St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz as a model and a guide for the years to come in this changing world because they have a long historical and spiritual connection to him. And he lived and worked as a missionary in conditions very similar to their own.
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Past Indian Connections with St. Joseph Vaz
1. Devotion to him has been long and constant in India For over three centuries, there has been a strong devotion to St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz in India. Without that devotion, as much in India as in Sri Lanka, there would have been no Beatification in 1995 and no Canonization in 2015.
2. Indian ancestry and connection to early Christianity in India St. Joseph Vaz is an Indian whose ancestors were converted only 90 years after European colonialism came to India with the Portuguese conquest of Goa. His family is one of those who bridged the transition from the ancient religion of India to a new faith and way of life brought to India by the Portuguese.
Despite the pressures to change their identity, they saved their Indian language and culture, and developed a composite Indian-European identity of their own.
His apostolic work to rescue the Church in Mangalore and “Kanara”
St. Joseph Vaz has had a deep and abiding influence on his native Goa but also on what used to be the most Catholic part of the state of Karnataka. This is Mangalore and its surrounding coastal area of “Kanara.” The Dutch had begun to compete with the Portuguese for the spice trade monopoly held by the Portuguese in India and Sri Lanka and also the Moluccas to the east. They made alliances with Hindu rulers around Mangalore and with Buddhist kings in Sri Lanka to drive out the Portuguese, take their seaports and put a ban on the Catholic faith. In Mangalore and the Kanara region, they burned and destroyed Catholic schools, colleges, and institutions including the many that had been established by the Jesuits along that coast. They also banned all European missionaries from entering and working in those territories.
When the young Father Joseph Vaz heard about the plight of the persecuted Catholics in Sri Lanka who had been abandoned for forty years since Sri Lanka fell to the Dutch in 1656, he felt called to go to Sri Lanka to serve them. Instead, the Chapter of Goa sent him to Kanara to re-build missions and churches there.
He left for Goa in 1681. He had started to walk barefoot since his Ordination to the priesthood in 1676. Now he walked barefoot from Goa to Mangalore.
It is recorded that he crisscrossed the region, re-building churches and schools and establishing new ones. He also visited the sick and treated them as needed. He ransomed Christian slaves that had been enslaved for forced labor by the local rulers.
3. His biggest and most lasting public miracle took place in India. It should be noted that his most lasting public miraculous shrine is in India, not Sri Lanka. The miracle took place in a small remote village called Ullal not far from Mangalore, on a high hill called Mudipu.
In 1684, Father Joseph Vaz was taken there by a group of men who didn’t like his preaching. He had been exhorting the local people to return to the Catholic faith and to regularize their marriages in the Church. The men who objected to his counsels, told him that he was needed by a sick person. But when they reached the hill of Mudipu, they took out knives to kill him. He knelt down to say his last prayers. Three springs burst out of the ground where his knees and his staff touched the earth. Pilgrims of all faiths have been going there for healing and consolation for three hundred and thirtyeight years. There are still many families in Mudipu whose family history is connected to that shrine.
4. He gained entry for Indians into Catholic religious Congregations and Orders. Indian Catholics can credit St, Joseph (Naik)Vaz for Indians being able to gain entry for non-Europeans into religious congregations and later, into religious Orders.
In 1684, St. Joseph Vaz returned to Goa from Mangalore and joined a group of native priests who wanted to live, pray, and work in community. They were given the dilapidated Church of the Miraculous Cross (Cruz dos Milagres) in Old Goa. He was advised by his spiritual advisor to apply to the Oratory of St. Felipe Neri in Lisbon to be affiliated to the Oratorian Congregation. On September 25, 1685 this Congregation adopted the Oratorian Constitution and became an Oratory in Goa.
The final approval from the Pope was gained just before he died. This was the first fully Indian native religious congregation of our times.
Present and Future Importance of St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz to Indian Catholics
1. He is an inspiration and a model for all those who must face persecution and hostility to their faith even in modern countries that guarantee religious freedom.
2. He petitioned the Dutch authorities in 1706 publicly and at the risk of his life for Freedom of Religion as a human right which state authorities should grant to people
3. As Pope Francis said at his Canonization ceremony in 2015 in Colombo, he knew how to present the beauty of the Gospel in a multi-faith context, and he represents the Church’s mission of mercy to those who are ill and suffering because of his service and nursing care of the abandoned victims of smallpox. Both are ideals for modern Indians.
4. He lived and worked under the native, non-Christian rulers of the Buddhist kingdom of Kandy, and gained their protection for the twenty-three years of his workthere. He is a model for Catholics who have to live under non-Christian rulers.
5. He admired, studied, and used the native languages, cultures, poetry, and music to present the Gospel. He’s a model for those Indian Catholics today who are building a liturgy and a Church in India that is fully enculturated.
6. Perhaps one of the most prophetic examples he set was his trust and use of the Laity. He trained them to teach entire communities the Catholic faith, he took their advice and counsel, he allowed them to run chapels and churches, and to manage their funds. Will modern Indian Catholics adopt his use of a synodal Church instead of a Church imprisoned in the clericalism he tried to avoid?
Filomena Saraswati Giese was born in Goa, India and brought up in Singapore. She’s educated in Singapore, Australia, and the U.S. She’s currently based in Berkeley, California, US.
She founded the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute in 1980 to keep alive the memory of then Venerable Fr. Joseph Vaz and to work for his Beatification and Canonization. Her sister, Ligia, inspired her to work for the recognition of St. Joseph Naik Vaz as a Saint of the Catholic Church. She has a Master’s in Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her Master’s thesis was on the aspect of Indian “Sannyasa”(Renunciation and Yogic lifestyle) in the life and missionary work of St. Joseph Naik Vaz. The work of the Joseph Naik Vaz for the Cause of St.. Joseph Vaz has been recorded in the Positio Historicas for the Cause and accepted as evidence of international devotion to him by the Church.