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On Sunday Pope Benedict XVI gave the Roman Catholic church four new saints, including Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, the first Indian woman to become a saint. Born Anna Muttathupadathu on August 2, 1910, in Kudamaloor, a village near Kottayam, to Muttathupadathu Ouseph and Mariam in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry, Kerala, she lost her mother in a month. She was brought up by her maternal aunt. As a child, Anna was inspired by St Therese of Lisieux; she wanted to follow the religious path and resisted her family's wish that she get married. To avoid getting married and focus on her chosen path she burnt and disfigured her feet. In 1925, she joined the convent and was ordained in 1927. She bacame a nun on the day of the feast of St. Alphonse Ligori. The name Anna was forgotten and she became Alphonsa and led a life of personal trauma and prayer as she suffered from various illness all through her life till 1946 when she died. At the beatification ceremony, the Pope noted her letter to her spiritual director : "Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves me so very much, I sincerely desire to remain on this sick bed and suffer not only this, but anything else besides, even to the end of the world. I feel now that God has intended my life to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering.' Sister Alphonsa (November 1944. Saint Alphonsa 's tomb at Palai in Southern Kerala is a famous Christian pilgrimage spot. The other three new saints are: Gaetano Errico, a Neapolitan priest the founder of a 19th century a missionary order i, Sister Maria Bernarda, a Swiss Nun who worked as a nun in Ecuador and Colombia; and Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, a 19th century laywoman from Ecuador who helped the sick and the poor.
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