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Fr.VARKEY KATTARTH VC: OUR FOUNDER
Fr.Varkey Kattarth is the founder of the Vincentian Congregation. He was born in Poonjar, Kerala, India, on October 13, 1851. After completing his seminary formation and ecclesiastical studies at Pala and Mannanam, he was ordained a priest in 1873 at the age of twenty two.
He served the Lord and his people for many years as a zealous parish priest. He was the parish priest in Vaikkom parish for thirteen years. Serving at Vaikkom, Fr. Kattarth worked for the spiritual and educational upliftment of his parishioners. He was the founder of St. Louis School, Vaikkom. It was around this time bishop Louis Pazheparambil of Eranakulam eparchy and Nidhiyirikkal Manikkathanar, the community leader of the Syro-malabar catholics were reflecting on the possibility of establishing a religious community rooted in the spirituality and charism of St. Vincent de Paul in Kerala, India. They wanted a zealous and saintly priest to undertake this spiritual project for them. They found that Fr. Varkey Kattarth will be the apt person to undertake this ministry.
On November 20, 1904, Fr. Varkey Kattarth together with three other priests began to live a community life according to the spirit and charism of St. Vincent de Paul in Thottakam, Kerala. Though this small beginning of the new community was a failure in the beginning, in 1927 three other young priests came forward to continue the community living according to the spirituality of St. Vincent de Paul. Fr. Varkey soon joined the community and made his religious profession in the community in 1929 and became the first member of the community. Fr. Varkey died on October 24, 1931 and his mortal remains are kept in Thottakam Monastery of the Vincentian Fathers. The initiatives of Fr. Varkey Kattarth is being carried out by his religious community around the globe.
ST. VINCENT DE PAUL: OUR PATRON
St. Vincent was born of poor parents in the village of Pouy in Gascony, France, about 1580. He enjoyed his first schooling under the Franciscan Fathers at Acqs. Such had been his progress in four years that a gentleman chose him as subpreceptor to his children, and he was thus enabled to continue his studies without being a burden to his parents. In 1596, he went to the University of Toulouse for theological studies, and there he was ordained priest in 1600.
In 1605, on a voyage by sea from Marseilles to Narbonne, he fell into the hands of African pirates and was carried as a slave to Tunis. His captivity lasted about two years, until Divine Providence enabled him to effect his escape. After a brief visit to Rome he returned to France, where he became preceptor in the family of Emmanuel de Gondy, Count of Goigny, and General of the galleys of France. In 1617, he began to preach missions, and in 1625, he lay the foundations of a congregation which afterward became the Congregation of the Mission or Lazarists, so named on account of the Prioryof St. Lazarus, which the Fathers began to occupy in 1633.
It would be impossible to enumerate all the works of this servant of God. Charity was his predominant virtue. It extended to all classes of persons, from forsaken childhood to old age. The Sisters of Charity also owe the foundation of their congregation to St. Vincent. In the midst of the most distracting occupations his soul was always intimately united with God. Though honored by the great ones of the world, he remained deeply rooted in humility. The Apostle of Charity, the immortal Vincent de Paul, breathed his last in Paris at the age of eighty. His feast day is September 27th. He is the patron of charitable societies.
ST. FAUSTINA: PATRONESS OF DMRC
Saint Faustina was born Helena Kowalska in a small village west of Lodz, Poland on August 25, 1905. She was the third of ten children. When she was almost twenty, she entered the Congregation of the Sisters of Our Lady of Mercy, whose members devote themselves to the care and education of troubled young women. The following year she received her religious habit and was given the name Sister Maria Faustina , to which she added, "of the Most Blessed Sacrament", as was permitted by her congregation's custom. In the 1930's, Sister Faustina received from the Lord a message of mercy that she was told to spread throughout the world. She was asked to become the apostle and secretary of God's mercy, a model of how to be merciful to others, and an instrument for reemphasizing God's plan of mercy for the world. It was not a
glamorous prospect.
Her entire life, in imitation of Christ's, was to be a sacrifice - a life lived for others. At the Divine Lord's request, she willingly offered her personal sufferings in union with Him to atone for the sins of others; in her daily life she was to become a doer of mercy, bringing joy and peace to others, and by writing about God's mercy, she was to encourage others to trust in Him and thus prepare the world for His coming again. Her special devotion to Mary Immaculate and to the sacraments of Eucharist and Reconciliation gave her the strength to bear all her sufferings as an offering to God on behalf of the Church and those in special need, especially great
sinners and the dying.
She wrote and suffered in secret, with only her spiritual director and some of her superiors aware that anything special was taking place in her life. After her death from tuberculosis in 1938, even her closest associates were amazed as they began to discover what great sufferings and deep mystical experiences had been given to this Sister of theirs, who had always been so cheerful and humble. She had taken deeply into her heart, God's gospel command to "be merciful even as your heavenly Father is merciful" as well as her confessor's directive that she should act in such a way that everyone who came in contact with her would go away joyful. The message of mercy that Sister Faustina received is now being spread throughout the world; her diary, Divine Mercy in my Soul, has become the handbook for devotion to the Divine Mercy. |
