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Blessed Eliswa Vakayil (Credit : Friendswithsaints, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons)
CT News
Nov. 11, 2025 : India’s first indigenous Catholic nun has been declared Blessed, moving her a step closer to sainthood, during a ceremony attended by thousands at a Marian shrine in southern Kerala on Nov. 8.
Malaysian Cardinal Sebastian Francis of Penang, representing Pope Leo XIV, formally proclaimed Mother Eliswa Vakayil (1831–1913) as Blessed during a solemn Mass at the Basilica of Our Lady of Ransom on Vallarpadom Island, near Kochi.
Mother Eliswa, also known as Mother Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin Mary, founded the first indigenous Carmelite religious order for women in India, the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites, in 1866. The congregation was later renamed the Teresian Carmelite Sisters (CTC).
Married at 16, she became a widow and mother of a daughter by age 20, but she refused to remarry. In 1862, when her child was 12, she expressed her desire to live a life “consecrated to God,” leading to the creation of the first women’s religious congregation started by an Indian woman. She was joined by her daughter Anna and younger sister Thresia as the order’s first members.
Eliswa’s legacy includes founding Kerala’s first convent school, boarding house, and orphanage for girls. Her work opened the way for generations of Indian women to pursue religious vocations and education.
She was declared a Servant of God in 2008 and Venerable by Pope Francis in 2023 for her virtuous life. Pope Francis approved the miracle attributed to her intercession in April 2025, paving the way for her beatification.
Watch beatification ceremony :
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