The holiest event Lankan Catholics awaited for 303 years

Sri Lankan Catholics are looking forward to Pope Francis’ canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz Jan. 14, but the enthusiasm and eagerness of Father Cosme Jose Costa stands apart.

Jan 08, 2015

Blessed Joseph Vaz

PILAR, India: Sri Lankan Catholics are looking forward to Pope Francis’ canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz Jan. 14, but the enthusiasm and eagerness of Father Cosme Jose Costa stands apart.

“It is Blessed Joseph Vaz’s intercession that saved my life, and I look forward with deep gratitude (to) this great event,” said Fr Costa, a 76-year-old member of the Society of Pilar based in Goa, Blessed Vaz’s home state.

Fr Costa’s 1938 birth was accepted by the Vatican as the miracle needed to beatify Blessed Vaz in 1995. Blessed Vaz, an Oratorian priest, moved to Sri Lanka in 1687 and is known as the apostle of Sri Lanka — credited with reviving, almost single-handedly, the Catholic Church there during severe persecution by Dutch colonial authorities in the 17th century.

Fr Costa, who attended Blessed Vaz’s beatification in January 1995, will attend the canonization in Colombo, Sri Lanka.

“More than 1,000 Goans are also traveling to Sri Lanka for the same,” said Fr Costa.

Fr Costa's mother, Quiteria Noronha Costa, had miscarried three times due to acute hemorrhage. In the fourth month of her pregnancy with Fr Costa, she began bleeding, and a young priest in the family who was at the time working at a Father Vaz shrine encouraged the family to pray to him.

With the hemorrhage worsening in the seventh month, she was rushed to the hospital. Doctors wanted to conduct a Caesarian section but could not because of her precarious condition.

“My relatives placed a picture of Fr Vaz on my unconscious mother’s stomach and prayed. Soon she regained consciousness and had a normal delivery,” said Fr Costa, now a church historian. He weighed only two pounds, which earned him the nickname “Frog.”

His mother survived, and the family unanimously decided to name Fr Vaz as the “godfather” for her “miracle son”.

Seeing the precarious condition of the baby, the Catholic nurse at the hospital baptized him within hours of his birth. Father Costa was formally baptized three months later.

Fr Costa said his mother prayed constantly for Fr Vaz’s intercession, and her premature baby gained health steadily.

“I could have been deaf, dumb, blind or anything. ... Blessed Vaz’s intercession saved us,” reiterated Fr Costa.

“My mother accepted my vocation to priesthood as a reward for her sufferings, though everybody else in the family opposed it because I was the only son,” Fr Costa said. “My mother went on to live till the age of 94 and was alive when Vaz was beatified,” he added.

In September, Pope Francis moved Blessed Vaz’s sainthood process forward without formally recognizing a miracle needed for canonization.

Fr Vaz was born in Benaulim in 1651 and was a priest of the Oratory of St Philip Neri, where he founded the Oratory of the Holy Cross of Miracles in Goa. He chose to work in Sri Lanka due to persecution of Catholics by Dutch colonial rulers, when Calvinism was the official religion. He has been credited for having revived the Catholic faith in the country.

Vaz travelled throughout the island bringing the eucharist and the sacraments to clandestine groups of Catholics. Later in his mission, he found shelter in the Kingdom of Kandy where he was able to work freely. By the time of his death, Vaz had managed to rebuild the Catholic church on the island.

A shrine dedicated to Blessed Joseph Vaz was set up in Sancoale, where lakhs of devotees have been faithfully converging to seek the intercession of Goa’s saintly son of the soil.

Following his beatification, Blessed Joseph Vaz was declared the patron of the Archdiocese of Goa and Daman. --CNS

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