Feast Day: February 18th
I would like to describe the life and holiness of Fr. Kuriakose Elias Chavara in three things that he loved all his life.
1. Words
As in human language. From a young age in his village school, Kuriakose loved to study language and dialects. Perhaps he was first intrigued by the twists and turns of history that led that Greek name Kyriakos (“of the Lord”) to find its way into Syriac Aramaic, which had become the language of his Christian community in Kerala, India. Probably the Persian missionaries who brought the Eastern Syriac Rite (and Syriac language, descended from the Aramaic spoken by Jesus!) to India in the 400s and 500s brought the story of the early martyr Quriaqos, a boy killed with his mother in Turkey around AD 304 for being Christian who was now little Kuriakose’s patron.
In any case, as his life unfolds, we see this linguistic interest come back again and again. When a priest for well over a decade, in 1846, Fr. Kuriakose founded an institute for the study of Sanskrit. Now it seems clear enough that his early studies under the Hindu teacher, Asan, may have introduced him to this venerable and sacred language of the Hindu religion, the language of its religious vedas, epics, and hymns. But the priest’s interest in studying this old language was not merely historic or linguistic, rather his goal was to teach it to children, to every child in Kerala. He ordered every church under his leadership (as superior of the third order Carmelites) to build a school alongside their church (even just a simple lean-to, a “pallikoodam”) and convinced the bishop to require all churches to do the same. Thus, and on a massive scale, he was the first person in India to dare to educate the so called untouchables, and he was teaching them the highest and holiest language of India.
This not being enough, he snuck into a government facility to see their printing press, memorized its mechanism, then used a banana stem to make a model of it for a carpenter to replicate (!), and spent 6000 Rupees (probably tens of thousands of dollars today) to build it. And so was able to publish books, prayers, poems, and other tracts of his own composition and also provide free books to the children in his schools. He was the first to print prayer books in East Syrian as well as Malayalam, also being one of the first to write significant works in Malayalam. Later, that same press would publish of the first newspapers in India, a Christian publication to teach and unite the various Christian communities.
2. The Mass
Now, he wouldn’t have referred to the Mass as “the Mass”. Our English word “Mass” comes from the Latin phrase said at the conclusion of Mass, “ite missa est.” Originally, this simply, and literally, just means “go, it is the dismissal.” But notice the similarity between “dismissal” and “mission” or “commission.” This is the Church’s way to remind everyone that goes to Mass, that we are – every time – sent by Christ to carry His Love to the world. Only later in the Church’s history did the liturgy come to be called “the Mass”, and the book that contains its prayers “the Missal.”) Fr. Chavara though would have called the Mass “Qurbānā Qandišā”, “Holy Sacrifice” in his Eastern Syriac language.
We actually know the details of his very first Mass, celebrated at St. Andrew’s Basilica in Arthunkal, during which his intention for that Holy Sacrifice was the realization of a religious institute that he and a few other priests were contemplating establishing. That prayer would grow into his founding a branch of the Carmelite order with a few other priests which he would lead for many years of his later life (and also a female branch as well). His love for the liturgy was also evident in his publishing liturgical texts for families, for priests and religious (the divine office, various blessings, the first liturgical calendar, and orders for the Holy Sacrifice itself), and also in establishing the forty-hours Adoration around his area, retreats for priests, seminaries and formation houses… The common denominator to all these efforts: bring everyone to Christ in the Eucharist.
3. Mangoes
Once again, something that St. Chavara must have loved as a child became a means for him to spread the Gospel. In this case, while he was prior of the Carmelites, he took time to cultivate a certain mango tree and went on to send seedlings to his various monasteries and convents. “Please plant the sapling of this sweet mango, which I name it as ‘Dukran’ (orma = memory) … this is to make you realize that myself and all men are weak and faltering and don’t have long life even as these mango trees which give sweet fruits.” His flock didn’t keep the name he gave it. As these trees popped up all over Kerala, they just called it “priormavu”, “Prior-Mango”, named after their beloved first prior who gave it to them. Probably his schoolkids learned to love it too because among many other firsts, Fr. Chavara was also the first one to provide lunches to the children in his schools.
– Fr. Dominic, if pressed to think of three childhood loves, would match Fr. Chavara in delighting in the Mass, but would have to probably choose sports and construction-toys as two other lifelong interests, now to just find ways to use that to manifests Christ’s love!