St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal, the Praying Mother of Ollur

Who was St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal?

St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal was a Carmelite sister from Kerala, India, who lived almost her whole religious life in one convent and became a saint there through prayer. She belonged to the Syro-Malabar Church, the ancient Eastern Catholic Church of the St. Thomas Christians, and to the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, the first religious congregation founded among them. The people of Ollur called her the "Praying Mother." Pope Francis canonized her on November 23, 2014, and we keep her feast on August 29, the day she died.

The life of St. Euphrasia

Rose of Kattoor

She was born Rose Eluvathingal on October 17, 1877, at Kattoor, in what is now the Archdiocese of Thrissur, the daughter of Anthony and Kunjethy Eluvathingal Cherpukaran. The Vatican's biography says her mother's deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin shaped her from childhood, and that the stories her mother told her of St. Rose of Lima made her long to suffer for Jesus and be holy in a quiet, hidden way. At the age of nine, the biography says, she saw the Blessed Mother and gave herself entirely to the Lord.

Her father wanted her to marry into a rich family. Rose prayed the rosary, fasted and held firm. After the sudden death of her younger sister, her father changed his mind and took her himself to the Carmelite convent at Koonammavu.

Illness and a healing

Rose was often sick, and at one point the sisters were ready to send her home for good. The Vatican biography tells how, during a painful attack, she saw the Holy Family and was healed, so that she could stay. On May 10, 1897, she entered as a postulant and took the name Sister Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She received the Carmelite habit on January 10, 1898.

Ollur

On May 24, 1900, St. Mary's Convent was founded at Ollur, and on that same day Sister Euphrasia made her perpetual vows. She called it a day of unspeakable joy. Ollur was her home for almost 48 years.

From 1904 to 1913 she was novice mistress. Then, against her own wishes, she was named superior of the convent. The Vatican biography says she bought a statue of the Sacred Heart, placed it in the middle of the house and entrusted the office of superior to Him. She served from 1913 to 1916.

The Praying Mother

She spent much of each day before the Blessed Sacrament in the convent chapel, and she loved the rosary. The local people called her the Praying Mother, and her sisters called her a "Mobile Tabernacle." Bishop John Menacherry, her spiritual director, told her to write to him about everything in her soul, and he kept all her letters. When his successor, Mar George Alappatt, retired, he handed the letters to the superior of her congregation with the words, "You will need them." They became the main witness to her inner life.

Those who came to her for help went away comforted. When anyone did her a small kindness she would answer, "I will not forget it, not even after death." She offered her penances for Christians separated from the Church and asked novices and children to pray for them too. Sister Athanasia, a student at the convent school, told The Hindu she remembered watching her pray in the chapel with a rosary in her hand: "She was a living saint."

She died at Ollur on August 29, 1952.

The road to sainthood and her miracles

After her death, people who had asked her help in life kept coming to her grave. In 1990 her tomb was opened and her remains were moved into the convent chapel. Pope St. John Paul II declared her Venerable in 2002, recognizing her heroic virtue. She was beatified on December 3, 2006, the Vatican noted, as the fifth Blessed of Kerala.

As the Church requires, a healing attributed to her prayers was approved for her beatification, and a second healing was approved before Pope Francis canonized her in St. Peter's Square on November 23, 2014, together with St. Kuriakose Elias Chavara, a co-founder of her congregation. Many other favors are reported by the pilgrims who pray at Ollur.

Symbols of St. Euphrasia in art

St. Euphrasia lived in the age of photography, and her real photographs are the best images of her. Devotional art in Kerala shows her with:

• The brown habit and black veil of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel.
• A rosary in her folded hands.
• The Sacred Heart of Jesus, to whom she entrusted her convent.
• Jesus taking her hands, as in the statue group at Ollur, for the spiritual marriage her letters describe.

Where St. Euphrasia is honored

Her tomb is in the chapel of St. Mary's Convent at Ollur, near Thrissur, and a museum at the convent keeps the bed on which she died. Ollur is also home to the great St. Antony's Forane Church, the parish church of the town where she spent her life. She is one of the saints of the Syro-Malabar Church, with St. Alphonsa and St. Mariam Thresia. See our feast days calendar for other saints of August.

Prayer to St. Euphrasia

We haven't found a traditional English prayer to her with a source we can cite. Let us ask her in our own words: St. Euphrasia, you who never forgot a kindness, pray for us. Teach us to stay close to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, to trust His Sacred Heart with what we cannot carry, and to keep praying when we are sick or tired. St. Euphrasia Eluvathingal, pray for us.