Kerala nun to be ordained saint on Oct 12

India will have its first woman saint, as preparations are underway for the canonisation of a Kerala born nun on October 12, this month.

Sister Alphonsa from Kottayam district will be canonised by Pope Benedict XVI at a ceremony in the Vatican. The Kerala nun had been in line for sainthood long before Mother Teresa died in 1997.

A group of nuns from Alphonsa's Franciscan Clarist congregation have already left to Rome with the mortal remains and a portrait of the late nun to be displayed during the canonisation.

Syro Malabar Major Archbishop Varkey Vithayathil and other senior bishops of the Church would attend the ceremonies at Vatican. Indian priests and nuns studying in Vatican and migrant Indian Christians will also attend the ceremonies, senior nuns said.

Born in an ordinary family in Kudamaloor in Kottayam, Anna Muttathupadath became a nun when she was 18 and was christened Sister Alphonsa. Until her death in 1946 at the age of 36 after 16 years of illness, she was largely unknown outside her village.

A number of miracles attributed to her started coming to light after her death which were formally examined first by Indian church authorities and then by Vatican’s various committees, papal courts and medical panels.

Pope John Paul II declared her the Blessed Servant of God in 1985 following his approval of a miracle attributed to her, related to the healing of a young boy’s twisted feet after his family prayed at her tomb in at the Alphonsa Chapel at Bharananganam in Kottayam.