No.
1/2005
PASTORAL LETTER ON THE OCCASION OF
THE BI-CENTENARY CELEBRATION OF THE
BIRTH OF BL. CHAVARA KURIAKOSE ELIAS
VARKEY CARDINAL VITHAYATHIL, by the
Grace of God, the Major Archbishop
of Ernakulam-Angamaly, to the
Archbishops, Bishops, priests, Men
and Women Religious and Lay Faithful
of the Syro-Malabar Church,
blessings and peace in our Lord
Jesus Christ.
Venerable Brothers and Beloved
Children,
The 200th
Janmajayanthi of Blessed
Kuriakose Elias Chavara, who made
unique contributions to the
spiritual and social life of the
Church in Kerala, is being concluded
on 10th February 2005. By
raising Father Chavara, Sister
Alphonsa and Sister Mariam Thressia
to the rank of the Blessed, the Holy
Father has filled the lacuna in the
Syro-Malabar Church of not having
any person raised to such heights of
sanctity proposed officially for
public veneration, even after twenty
centuries of Christian living.
May I use this occasion to make a
special appeal to our venerable
bishops, reverend priests,
consecrated persons and the entire
people of God, to make a study of
the relevance of Blessed Chavara in
our ecclesial life and to assimilate
his life-model in our personal life
and in the life of our community and
the society at large. We can be
very happy that the Holy Father has
declared this year as the Year of
the Eucharist when we celebrate the
bi-centenary of the birth of Blessed
Chavara, a great devotee and apostle
of the Eucharist.
Our loving God the Father often
sends apt persons in crisis
situations to solve them. In the 19th
century it was Blessed Chavara whom
God sent to propose solutions to the
religious, social and cultural
problems that affected the Church
and the society of that time and to
give a new vitality to the people by
opening up new avenues of growth.
Blessed Chavara’s first priority was
to equip the priests and religious
to give leadership to the people of
God. He supervised the training of
priests as malpan (master)
and examiner for 35 years from 1829
to 1864. It was mainly the priests
trained by him that stood by him and
promoted unity in the Church by
wiping out the Roccos schism. For
remedying the lack of Institutes of
consecrated life in the Syro-Malabar
Church Blessed Chavara and his
companions started two indigenous
religious Congregations, the CMI and
CMC.
As part of his educational, social
and cultural reforms, Blessed
Chavara promoted the starting of
schools attached to Churches, and
provided the depressed and backward
sections of the society with the
opportunity of studying together
with the upper class children, by
giving them economic aid such as
clothes, books, and noon meals,
etc. With this same zeal and
vision, Blessed Chavara started the
publication of prayer books and
Christian literature with the help
of a wooden printing press, designed
in plantain marrow.
Blessed Chavara took the initiative
to lead women, confined mostly to
the kitchen, through education to
work-oriented activities. The lay
confraternity called ‘St. Joseph’s
Society for good Health’, and the
‘House of the Destitute’ for the
poor and sick were inspired by his
motto – ‘service through people’s
participation’. Blessed Chavara was
responding to the great demands of
the 19th century Church
and society also as the Vicar
General, with authority over the
whole Syro-Malabar Church. The
various methods and projects Blessed
Chavara initiated for the financial
self-sufficiency of the Church
through lay participation such as
Pidiyari, nootikanju,
kettuthengu, are methods still
relevant today.
It was for the renewal of the
family, which is the basic unit of
the Church that Blessed Chavara gave
the greatest emphasis. He tried to
renew families through regular
Sunday sermons and parish retreats.
“The Testament of a Loving Father”
of Blessed Chavara is a guiding
light for the families even today.
Blessed Chavara’s definition of the
family has five factors: A good
Christian family is similar to
heaven. It is a community of people
joined together by a bond of blood
and love, where the members manifest
respect and obedience to elders and
walk in peace with the Lord and the
people, and seek to attain eternal
salvation, living peacefully
according to his proper state of
life. The children are treasures
entrusted to the families by God to
sanctify their souls with his
precious blood, to make them His
ministers in this world, and to
return them to Him on the day of
final judgment.
These were a few works that Blessed
Chavara did for the Church and
Society. But what made him great
was, above all, his holy life. A
great devotee of the Holy Eucharist,
of the Blessed Mother and St.
Joseph, Blessed Chavara was a man of
God and attained lofty heights of
mystic prayer. Before he died he
could say that he had not lost the
grace he received at baptism. His ‘Compunction
of a Soul’ (Athmanuthapam),
‘Spiritual Colloquies’ (Dhyanasallapangal)
and letters are imbued
with his deep God-experience.
Blessed Chavara who made such great
contribution to our Church and
society should always remain a model
and inspiration for our life. To
realize this objective, it would be
very helpful to celebrate the
bi-centenary of the birth of Blessed
Chavara with appropriate programmes
in all our Archdioceses, dioceses,
parishes and institutions and to
conduct pilgrimages to the holy
places associated with Blessed
Chavara, such as Kainakary, Mannanam
and Koonammavu. Let Blessed Chavara
intercede for us.
Wishing you the joy and peace of the
birth of Jesus and the New Year, I
bless you in the name of the Father
+ and the Son + and the Holy Spirit
+.
+Varkey Cardinal
Vithayathil
Major Archbishop
of the Syro-Malabar Church
Given from the Major Archiepiscopal
Curia of the Syro-Malabar Church at
Mount St Thomas on 1st
January 2005.
________________________________________________________________________
N.B:
This
pastoral letter is to be read out
during the Holy Mass on a Sunday
before 10th February2005
in all churches and chapels of the
Syro-Malabar Church where there is
Sunday Mass for the public. |
