BLESSED JOSEPH VAZ

Apostle of Canara and Ceylon
and Patron of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman

Blessed Joseph Vaz was born in Goa on April 21, 1651, in the house of his maternal grandparents at Benaulim and was raised in his father's house at Sancoale. From a very young age, Joseph revealed an extraordinary inclination to a life of communion with God, which led him to seek admission in the seminary at what is now Old Goa.

He was ordained priest in 1674. Very soon he was hailed as a compelling preacher and retreat master, besides being confessor and spiritual guide to many a prominent Portuguese citizen in the city of Goa, including two Governors. This was, indeed, a rare honour accorded to a native priest! Taking into account his rare qualities of mind and heart, the Diocesan Authority of Goa appointed him Vicar Forane of Canara (Karnataka) in 1681. Here he evolved such a gigantic pastoral and social action, that it earned him, many years after his death, the title of Apostle of Canara.

In the meantime, the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka was going through a great struggle for survival. It had been a flourishing Church, tended by Portuguese missionaries for over a century and a half, till 1658, when Sri Lanka was conquered by Dutch Calvinists. The new invaders set out to systematically suppress Catholicism in the land. Catholics in their thousands succumbed to the fierce persecution, while others, left without priest and sacraments, heroically remained faithful to the Church, amidst all the hardships. Having heard about the plight of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka, Joseph Vaz is fired by an apostolic zeal to go to its rescue.

Before that, however, he joins a group of Goan priests who were trying to form a Religious Congregation. Very soon, recognizing his sanctity and seasoned missionary experience, these priests elect him their Superior. He becomes thus, in 1685, the Founder of India's first fully native Religious Congregation: the Oratory of St. Phillip Nery, of Goa. The Congregation died a natural death when religious orders were suppressed in 1835.

In 1687 Joseph Vaz, disguised as a porter and accompanied by his faithful domestic servant John, landed in Sri Lanka. In nine months' time, he visited the entire island, contacted all the Catholic settlements and strengthened the faithful in their religious practice. Day after day, month after harrowing month, year after persecution-ridden year, Joseph Vaz re-built the crumbling edifice of the Catholic Church in Sri Lanka. Only nine years later was he joined by two Oratorian priests sent from Goa. Through the next fifteen years, their number rose to ten. When Joseph Vaz died, after 24 years of indefatigable missionary activity in Sri Lanka, fifteen big churches, two hundred chapels and another two hundred schools and hospitals had been built across the great island. The Catholic Church became seventy thousand strong, some 40% being converts from other faiths. It was the story of a Church which rose from ashes to glory. The great Apostle of Ceylon built a Church deeply rooted in the local culture, made use of vernacular language and music in the liturgy, dressed himself like a true sanyasi that he was -- steeped in prayer, penance and poverty -- founded small Christian communities and entrusted them to well formed, mature lay leaders. He was thus a pioneer in the modern methods of evangelization.

Joseph Vaz was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Sri Lanka, on 21st January, 1995. He was proclaimed Patron of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman by Archbishop-PatriarchRaul Gonsalves on 16th January, 2000: the 289th anniversary of his death.