Teresa Ysseldijk was born on November 13, 1897, in Apeldoorn, the Netherlands, the daughter of a Catholic family full of faith. After a stay of 6 years in Ochtrup, Germany, where her father died, she lived with her family in Enschede until she entered the convent.

Teresa suffered a lot during her childhood and began very early in life to love her suffering. From her pious mother she learned to love the Mother of God and the Sacred Heart of Jesus. When her health improved, she asked to enter the Carmel of the Divine Heart of Jesus. She entered the convent in Tilburg on October 2, 1917, takin the name of Sr Mary Teresa of the Most Holy Trinity. She professed her vows on July 2, 1919. Driven by a great zeal for the missions, she travelled to the USA with seven other sisters in December 1919.

Shortly after her arrival in the new world, she was stricken with an illness, a serious kidney disease, discovered too late by doctors. She endured this further suffering for five years in the convent of St. Charles, Missouri, with indescribable patience and a smile on her lips. She wanted to serve God in the Order, working in silent union with Him.

When work was no longer possible, she bore her pain in silence, hidden from the world.

She died a holy death on March 10, 1926, in St. Mary's Hospital in St. Louis.

On November 12, 2015, the decree of validity was granted to the Inquiry on her «life, virtue and reputation of holiness».

1. The canonical norms concerning the procedure to be followed in the Causes of Saints are stated in the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister promulgated by John Paul II on 25 January 1983 (AAS LXXV, 1983, 349-355).

2. To initiate a Cause it is necessary that at least five years pass after the death of the candidate. This is to allow for greater balance and objectivity in the evaluation of the case and to allow the emotions of the moment to decant. There must be a clear conviction among people about his/her sanctity (fama sanctitas) and about the efficacy of his/her intercession with the Lord (fama signorum).

PLEASE NOTE

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2) If your request is accepted, we will then send you the conditions and directions for consulting the document.

ELISWA (ELIZABETH VAKAYIL)

Eliswa was born in October 1832.   She was the eldest of eight in a rich religious family from Vypussery (name of family residence) in Ochanthuruth.

At the age of 16, Eliswa (the Malayalam version of Elizabeth), married Vareed Vakayil, an elderly business man from Koonammavu, near Varapuzha.  The Vakayil family was traditionally involved in chukku and other business matters but had also administration control over huge territorial lands in Koonammava.

On the death of her husband, according to custom at the time, the rich widow Eliswa should have remarried.  She refused all such proposals and spent her time in prayer and care of the poor.  She lived in a simple hut with a straw roof, built near the Vakayil home in Koonammavu.

In 1862, Eliswa shared  her desire to serve God with her Parish priest, a young Italian called Fr. Leopoldo.  In 1866, the first nuns in Kerala founded the Congregation of Carmelite Teresians (CTC) under the TOCD.  The first convent was a simple bamboo dwelling in Koonammavi, on land once administered by Vareed Vakayil.  The new Congregation, under Mother Eliswa, had the mission of teaching girls who were without any means of having a proper education. St. Joseph’s LP school in Koonammavu was the first Catholic school for girls in Malabar and Mother Eliswa’s new mission in life became that of teaching young girls.

Following on the separation of the Latin and Syrian Rites in the Church, the school transferred to Varapuzha and St. Joseph’s School  for the girls of Varapuzha was  established.

Mother Eliswa died on 18 July 1913.

The Diocesan tribunal of investigation on the “life, virtues and apparent sanctity” of Eliswa closed on 5 November 2014 and the Decree of Validity was issued on 7 April 2017.

PLEASE NOTE

1) In order to be able to consult the Positio please fill in the request form on this page.

2) If your request is accepted, we will then send you the conditions and directions for consulting the document.

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1. The canonical norms concerning the procedure to be followed in the Causes of Saints are stated in the Apostolic Constitution Divinus Perfectionis Magister promulgated by John Paul II on 25 January 1983 (AAS LXXV, 1983, 349-355).

2. To initiate a Cause it is necessary that at least five years pass after the death of the candidate. This is to allow for greater balance and objectivity in the evaluation of the case and to allow the emotions of the moment to decant. There must be a clear conviction among people about his/her sanctity (fama sanctitas) and about the efficacy of his/her intercession with the Lord (fama signorum).

Teresa of St. Rose of Lima was born on 29^th of January 1858 in George Town, Madras, India, to Peter D'Lima and Mary D'Lima. She received the name Mary Grace on baptism in St. Mary's Co-Cathedral, two days after her birth. Her mother died when she was little, so her father took care of her education.

She attended the school of the Presentation Sisters, where she distinguished herself for intelligence, musical talent, modesty, earning the esteem of the teachers. Her first contact with Carmel came in 1879, when she assumed the position of principal of the parish school, founded in Alleppey by the Carmelite priest Fr. Alphonsus, whose zeal aroused in Grace the desire to embrace religious life in the Carmelite Order, which happened in 1883, when she received the habit of a Carmelite tertiary from the hands of Fr. Candidus taking the name of Sr. Teresa of St. Rose of Lima.

When her father died in 1884, she took her two younger sisters under her care. On May 25 of the following year she made her solemn profession. In addition to the task of principal, she also took on her shoulders the care of the convent and the responsibility of hospitality.

When, in 1887, she suddenly had to leave for Ernakulan, Kerala,  she recognized a call from the Lord. A period of great activity began: She founded the Third Order Sisters of Our Lady of Mt Carmel, known today as the Institute of the Carmelite Sisters of St. Teresa (CSST) on 24^th of April, and also founded St. Teresa's English Medium School for Girls on 9^th of May and a convent on August 16; in 1889 she opened an orphanage, in 1892 an infirmary for sick orphans and a school for children; in 1893 an industrial school with a small rope production unit; in 1884 a home for the elderly. Her many social activities, undertaken in conditions of extreme material poverty to give a practical follow-up to the invocation «Thy Kingdom come», were aimed at forming and educating the least to restore to them the dignity of children of God which had been trampled upon. All of this earned her the esteem of the authorities and various awards. To carry out the apostolate in the best possible way, her great concern was to form the young sisters adequately, both from a practical and a spiritual point of view.

In 1897 she and her sisters did their utmost to support the program with which the government of Cochin, which had often previously hindered her, tried to cope with the famine. Evangelization always remained the soul of her various activities, as also shown by the initiative of 1898 to organize for the first time a Eucharistic celebration in the local prison. In 1900 Sr. Teresa opened a shelter for single mothers; in 1901 she made a trip to Europe and visited Lourdes.

The following year, on September 13, 1902, during her second trip to Europe, she died tragically in a train accident.

The Diocesan Inquiry into her «life, virtue and reputation of holiness» was opened on 22^nd of August 2015 in the Bangalore Diocese. On 9^th of December 2020, the decree of validity was granted.

PLEASE NOTE

1) In order to be able to consult the Positio please fill in the request form on this page.

2) If your request is accepted, we will then send you the conditions and directions for consulting the document.

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