St Euphrasia Eluvathingal

She was born Rosa Eluvathingal at Kattoor near Thrissur in 1877, the daughter of a well-established Syro-Malabar family. A serious illness in childhood and a vision she described afterwards settled her intention to enter religious life, against her father’s first wishes.

She joined the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, the congregation Chavara had founded, and made her profession in 1900 taking the name Euphrasia of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. She served as novice mistress and later as superior at the convent in Ollur.

Her life was, by design, uneventful. She held no public office, founded nothing and travelled almost nowhere. What grew instead was a reputation for prayer. People came to the convent parlour with sickness, debts, examinations and family disputes, and asked her to pray, and they kept coming for decades. The title that stuck, Prarthikkunna Amma, the praying mother, was given by them rather than by the Church.

She died on 29 August 1952 at Ollur, where her tomb is now a shrine. She was beatified at Thrissur in 2006 and canonised by Pope Francis on 23 November 2014, on the same day as Kuriakose Elias Chavara.