Amma, 99, friend and classmate of Sister Alphonsa, at her house in Kerala. (AFP)

New Delhi/Kottayam, Oct. 11: India will get its first Catholic saint tomorrow when Sister Alphonsa of Kerala is canonised at the international Synod of Bishops in Vatican City.

If Mother Teresa, in line to become India’s second saint, was known for her social outreach, Sister Alphonsa was revered for her silent sufferings and prayers.

Tomorrow, she will become a “universal saint” and her name will be mentioned in every Catholic Mass around the world. The Vatican will assign a feast day in her name and her portraits will find a place in churches.

The Centre has decided to issue a stamp and a coin in Sister Alphonsa’s honour. A team headed by labour minister Oscar Fernandes is in Vatican City to participate in tomorrow’s ceremony.

At Bharananganam, 130km from Kochi, where the nun worked and died, Mary Veliparampil, 92, recalled that Sister Alphonsa loved her enemies. “She would radiate a smile, disarming even those she didn’t like. She used to be sick most of the time. She would eat only a little. But there was never a dearth of bonhomie.”

Sister Alphonsa is said to have burnt herself at a very young age to avoid getting married. Her life was largely confined to the four walls of her convent and to her bed because of illness. She died on July 28, 1946, at the age of 36.

She was declared “Blessed” — through a process called beatification that precedes canonisation — by Pope John Paul II on February 8, 1986. Beatification requires that the candidate must have performed one “indisputably proven miracle”, and canonisation requires a second miracle, to be ascertained by a team of experts.

Many sick people who prayed at Sister Alphonsa’s tomb are believed to have been cured miraculously.

The Vatican also scrutinises the candidate’s spiritual values and human qualities, the services he or she has rendered and the popular demand for his or her canonisation.

“Here’s a life well lived, loving even those whom she did not like. What better message can we give to those who hate us?” said Sister Grace Kalariparampil at Bharananganam, referring to the recent attacks on Christians in India.

The few who survive to recall their association with Sister Alphonsa say there was a modest crowd of nuns of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation at her funeral. Her own relatives didn’t number enough to carry the coffin to the cemetery, so the nuns were her pallbearers.

Sister Grace, who witnessed the funeral 62 years ago, says Father Romulus, the confessor, predicted that cardinals would come to Bharananganam to celebrate the holiness of the humble nun.

Believers, sceptics and the curious were making a beeline for the Alphonsa Museum, her tomb and the Franciscan Clarist Congregation convent in Bharananganam today.

There already, however, happens to be a saint of Indian origin: St Gonsalo Garcia, who was born in 1557 at Vasai near Mumbai.

But he left India at 15 and chose Japan as his area of work. Crucified there, he was beatified in 1629 and canonised on June 8, 1862, by Pope Pious IX.

“Since St Garcia never worked in India, he is not normally considered an Indian saint,” Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India spokesperson Fr Babu Joseph said.

Two non-Indians who made this country their home like Mother Teresa have also been declared saints by the Vatican. They are the Spanish-born St Francis Xavier and Portuguese-born St John de Britto.

Mother Teresa was the last and fifth Indian to be beatified by Rome and her canonisation awaits proof of a second miracle. The other Indians beatified include Joseph Vaz, Father Chavara Kuriakose and Sister Maria Theresa.