Joseph Vaz
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Blessed Joseph Vaz was a Catholic priest from Goa. He is known as Apostle of Ceylon.
[edit] Birth and early life
He was born on April 21, 1651 at Benaulim, his mother's village. His parents, Christopher Vaz and Maria de Miranda, were Christians of the Konkani Brahmin caste. He was the third of six children. He learned Portuguese in Sancoale, his father's village, and Latin in Benaulim. He studied rhetoric at the Jesuit college and philosophy and theology at the College of Saint Thomas Aquinas, Goa, was ordained in 1676, and became a favorite preacher and confessor. He opened a Latin school in Sancoale for perspective seminarians. In 1677 he consecrated himself as a "slave of Mary," sealing it with a document known as his "Letter of Enslavement".
Hearing of the oppressed state of the Catholics of Ceylon under the Dutch (they had had no priests for 50 years), Father Vaz desired to go to their rescue, but was for the time being appointed Superior of the Kanara Mission, a post which he occupied for three years. On his return to Goa in 1684 he spent his time preaching in the villages, and joined the Oratorians then recently established in Goa, at the Church of the Holy Cross of Miracles. He was soon named superior there. In 1686 he obtained permission to give up this office and to proceed to Ceylon. Disguised as an itinerant worker, he reached the port of Tuticorin on Easter 1687. On landing at Jaffna he found a strong Calvinistic propaganda going on in the island, and the Catholic religion proscribed and under persecution. He was therefore forced to wear disguise, and to do his work in secret. He traveled barefoot as an Indian sanyasi. He suffered from acute dysentery, contracted from the terrible traveling conditions, and upon recovery he began his mission by contacting Catholics and hiding from the Dutch. He was taken in by a courageous Catholic, and ministered to his secret flock by night. In 1689 taking up his residence in a village called Sillalai where the Catholics were numerous and resolute, he succeeded in reviving the spirit of the faithful. But this aroused afresh the vigilance of the Dutch, and in 1690 he was forced to change his quarters for Putlam, where he worked with great success for a whole year. In 1692 he settled in Kandy, the capital of a native independent state, as his centre of operations. Being on his arrival denounced as a Portuguese spy, he was imprisoned with two other Catholics. There he learned Sinhala, the local language, and since the prison guards left the prisoners alone as long as they didn't try to escape, he built a hut-church and later a proper church dedicated to Our Lady, and began converting other prisoners.
In 1696 the Kingdom of Kandy was suffering a serious drought, and the king asked the Buddhist monks to pray to their gods for rain; there was no rain. He then turned to Joseph who erected an altar and cross in the middle of the square and prayed; abundant rain began to fall, while Joseph and the altar stayed dry. The king granted Joseph license to preach throughout the kingdom.
Making the most of his new-found freedom, he made a mission visit to the Dutch zone and visited Catholics in Colombo. Three missionaries from the Oratory of Goa arrived in 1697 to help him with the news that Don Pedro Pacheco, Bishop of Cochin, had appointed him Vicar General in Ceylon. He was organizing the basic mission structure when smallpox broke out in Kandy. His work with the sick convinced the king to allow Father Joseph every possible freedom in his labors.
Joseph carried his mission to the main centers of the island. He returned to Kandy in 1699 with Father Joseph de Carvalho who had been expelled at the instigation of Buddhist monks. He completed the construction of his new church, and went into service for the king, translating Portuguese books into Sinhala. From this vantage point, he intensified his ministry, and converted some Sinhalese notables, which gave rise to slanders against him and persecution of converts.
New missionaries arrived in 1705, which enabled him to organize the mission into eight districts, each led by a priest. He worked on the creation of a Catholic literature comparable to that of the Buddhists, and to affirm the rights of Catholics with the Dutch Protestant Government.
King Vimaldharna Surya II, Father Joseph's mentor, died in 1707, but Narendrasimha, his successor, was an even greater supporter. New missionaries arrived in 1708, and in 1710, despite health problems, Joseph took another apostolic trip. On his return, he fell ill from his carriage, and reached Kandy in serious condition. Though he recovered from a series of infections and fevers over the next year, age, work, and disease had finally worn him out. He undertook nine days of spiritual exercises prescribed by the Rule, but before the seventh day, he died at Kandy on January 16, 1711.
The subject of his beatification was first urged upon the consideration of the Holy See about 1737 by Dom Francisco de Vasconcellos, S.J., Bishop of Cochin, who also claimed jurisdiction over Ceylon. The process was begun in Goa, and a number of miracles were registered. But the non-fulfillment of certain essential formalities led Benedict XIV to cancel the proceedings, with an order, however, that they should be re-instituted. In South Kanara, he is generally known as Venerable Father Joseph Vaz. Mgr Zaleski, Delegate Apostolic of the East Indies, wrote of him in 1894, that he has "unfortunately been almost entirely forgotten. In Europe and even in India, there are still some who remember his name, and in Ceylon, the theatre of his apostolic labors, his name is still mentioned by the older generation; but the rising generation hardly know what they owe to him. And yet, his is a name that ought to endure for ever".
On January 21, 1995, Joseph Vaz was beatified by Pope John Paul II in Colombo, Sri Lanka.
