By Filomena Saraswati Giese –
With the 10th National Eucharistic Conference in the U.S. slated for July 17- 21 this year, there have been many Eucharistic events and publicity about the need for Eucharistic revival in the various dioceses in the US.
One wonders if the work of the very great Indian-Sri Lankan St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz which relates very much to revival of the Eucharist in places where there is opposition and hostility to the Catholic devotion to the Eucharist merits equal attention at Eucharistic Congresses. As aptly put by Msgr. John Condon in his article titled “Propagation of the Faith: Sri Lanka Pioneer Beat Persecution” in the New York paper Tablet (August 1987), St. Joseph Vaz is looked on mainly as:
“Savior of the Catholic faith in Sri Lanka, founder of a native religious
congregation at a time when such institutions were non-existent,
coordinator of a missionary society which supplied Asian
missionaries to another Asian country, and capable Church
administrator even during times of persecution, Father Joseph Vaz
holds a very special place in mission history.” [i]
However, St. Joseph Vaz did much more besides evangelization. He re-founded the Church of Sri Lanka and organized it along lines which we would approve of in our own twenty-first century that value human liberation and justice. He honoured native identity, used inculturation and founded a Catholic para-liturgy and literature in Tamil and Sinhala, the two main languages of Sri Lanka. He trained and used the Laity extensively to run his underground network of chapels, attached free health clinics to his churches and underground chapels, and established underground schools for his Catholics who were banned from getting an education by the Dutch.
In view of the great interest in the Eucharist as a focal point of our Christian life and worship today, perhaps the spotlight should be shifted to his real mission in Kanara and in Sri Lanka, which was to bring the Eucharist and the Holy Mass at the risk of his life to the abandoned and persecuted Catholics of India in Kanara and Sri Lanka and serve the marginalised as well as the victims of a deadly infectious disease.
Simply put, St. Joseph Vaz dedicated a total of twenty-seven years of heroic mission work in Kanara and in Sri Lanka, bringing the Eucharist and the Holy Mass to abandoned and persecuted Catholics and providing access to health care and schooling. We can outline the history of that Eucharistic mission as follows:
- From 1681 to 1684, in Mangalore and the surrounding villages and towns of Kanara, geographically today’s south-western Karnataka in India, he served persecuted Catholics, re-building churches and Catholic missions that had been destroyed by the Dutch, heard confessions under cover of night, and brought the Eucharist to Catholics abandoned by European missionaries fleeing Dutch persecution.
- In 1687, he voluntarily smuggled himself, dressed as a coolie, into Sri Lanka with his Mass vessels and prayers hidden in a cinnamon container. Had his Mass vessels been detected, and he been identified as a priest, he would have been immediately arrested and executed for defying the Dutch ban on priests and missionaries entering the island.
- He was hidden by underground Catholics in Sillalia, near Jaffna. He said Mass at night in secret locations where he was kept in hiding. At a Christmas Eve Mass, Dutch soldiers broke in to arrest him. The story recorded in historical documents is that they could not see a priest saying Mass. Instead, they saw a woman in the room. Father Vaz walked through the ranks of the soldiers and escaped arrest and execution.
- “Faithful Catholics took him to Kandy to seek refuge in the Buddhist kingdom of Kandy. Instead, he was arrested as a Portuguese spy and thrown into prisons without food or water for the first few days. He was kept in prison for almost two years.
- In time, King Vimaladharma Surya II realised that St. Joseph Vaz was a saint with no political designs and released him from prison. After the Saint worked a miracle of rain during a severe drought in his kingdom, the Buddhist King gave him freedom to preach and build a church in his kingdom.
- This Saint then went out into the neighbouring territories ruled by the Dutch Calvinists, defying anti Catholic laws called “Plaakats” banning the practice of the Catholic faith and priests. Father Joseph Vaz hid in the jungles during the day to avoid capture and punishment. He heard confessions, said Mass and distributed the Eucharist by night, until his death in 1711, twenty-three years later.
- In 1706, he risked his life and organised a petition of freedom of religion to the Dutch authorities.
In risking his life in India and Sri Lanka to bring the Eucharist to persecuted Catholics as well as to work for religious freedom and serve the marginalised, he showed that the Eucharist is a Signpost of justice and freedom. Perhaps the spotlight of any Eucharistic Congress could well be shifted to that central mission of the Eucharist, given the precarious state of religious freedom and human justice in today’s world.
March 19, 2024, Berkeely, California
[i]Tablet, August 1987, New York
About the Author:
Filomena Saraswati Giese is the President-founder of the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute, California. Filomena has done a Master’s in Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology, Berkeley, and has a doctorate in multicultural education from the University of San Francisco. She founded the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute in 1980 to keep alive the memory of then Ven. Fr. Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Sri Lanka and Kanara, India, and work for his Beatification and Canonization which was long overdue.
In 2014, H.H. Pope Francis asked for evidence of international devotion to then Blessed Joseph Vaz. The Postulator for the Canonization, Rev. Dr. Thomas Klosterkamp, O.M.I., submitted the Petition for his Canonization to H.H. Pope Francis by the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute as evidence of the international devotion to him. The Pope canonised St. Joseph Vaz in 2015. The Institute has submitted a new Petition to have him made Patron Saint of Medical First Responders and others of his contributions on change.org.
She has had her articles on St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz published in various papers and journals such as the Bombay Examiner, Times of India, Vidyajyoti (Jesuit Journal of Theology in India), Fr. Agnelo’s Call (Goa), The Catholic Voice of Oakland, California. Her latest article in Vidyajyoti was published in January 2024, titled “Should St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz be Called ‘Apostle of Ceylon’ or ‘Apostle of Sri Lanka and Kanara (India)?’