FR JOSEPH VAZ, APOSTLE OF SRI LANKA
For over a century the Catholic faith was preached in Sri Lanka (Ceylon) by the European missionaries of the Portuguese period. Many churches were built by them, schools opened, and charitable institutions founded. As in other Portuguese colonies, missionary work in Ceylon was encouraged, patronized and subsidized by the Kings of Portugal.
When the visions of a Catholic Lanka were looming large, they were dispelled by an unexpected and destructive storm which left the Church a wreck. By the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch had seized all the Portuguese possessions in Lanka and were taking steps to stamp out Catholicism from the land, for reasons both political and sectarian.
All churches and institutions of Catholics were confiscated, Priests were expelled, Catholic worship proscribed, and Catholics were compelled under severe penalties to attend Protestant services and send their children to Protestant schools.
The Faith lived on in the hearts of many, but without priests, without sacraments and without community worship, how long was it going to endure! Thirty years had passed and the Church in Lanka was in ruins.
Then the word of the Lord came to Fr Vaz to go to the rescue of Lanka. He was a Goan, a Konkani Brahmin, a subject of Portugal, without any knowledge of Lanka and her people. But the voice of the Lord was imperative.
Joseph Vaz was the son of Christopher Vaz and Maria de Miranda, pious and devout Brahmins of High Caste living at Sancoale, a village in the district of Salsette, in the Archdiocese of Goa. He was born on the 21st of April 1651. Ordained at the age of 25, he became so well known for his zeal and for his success as preacher and confessor.
After his ordination he worked successfully in several areas of South India, Mangalore and other areas. In 1684, Fr Vaz returned to Goa. There he joined a religious community of clerics which afterwards became the Congregation of the Oratory of Goa. He was received by those Fathers with much joy and pleasure, for they understood that the Lord had sent them a man to increase the fervour in the life which they had embraced.
It was in 1686, when he was 35 years of age, that Fr Vaz put into the effect his ardent longing to do apostolic work in Lanka. Accordingly he obtained permission and made his journey Lankawards, without provisions or money, with only a box containing the sacred vestments and other necessaries for Mass, and with a single shabby patched-up cassock.
In 1687, in the disguise of a beggar he reached. Jaffna in the north: he contacted the Catholics, revived their faith, reclaimed the fallen, administered the sacraments and celebrated Holy Mass. All this he had to do secretly and at night.
Then evading the Dutch soldiers, he slipped away to Puttalam and the seven Korales in the north-west, and from there to Kandy in the hill country, the royal capital, where he was imprisoned as a spy. After two years he was released but forbidden to leave the city. There he built a small church, dedicated to Our Lady for Conversion of Pagans, gathered the Catholics and was in his stride, openly exercising his ministry day and night.
At that time there took place an event which brought him greater liberty: the marvelous downpour of rain in answer to his prayers, which saved Kandy from the disastrous effects of a prolonged drought. He got a little altar put in the public square of the town, placed a cross thereon, and in the presence of a numerous throng he fell on his knees and poured forth his soul to God in prayer.
At that very moment the sky became overcast with thick clouds, which shortly after fell in and around the town in a mighty deluge of rain. Yet more wonderful still, not a drop fell within that tiny space where the priest of God was on his knees, while all around him the country was inundated with rain as if the cataracts of Heaven had been let loose on the land. After that he started a unique missionary tour which lasted from 1693 to 1696.
He visited the Catholics from Sitavaka to Colombo and Negombo: then moved north up to Jaffna and coming along the eastern coast of Trincomalee and Batticaloa.
During this period of travel, this Priest of God always eluded the efforts of the sentinels and soldiers in the Dutch Forts to capture him, always successful in effecting miraculous escapes from the persistent hunt after him. He used various disguises to elude them, often dressed as a fisherman, disguised as a cooly on other occasions or arrogantly disguised as a sailor, and in beggars rags when he visited the town of Colombo, the Dutch stronghold.
He would keep awake whole nights for two to four months at a stretch, in order to convert people and administer the sacraments to them because he was unable to do so during the day. The day being spent in hiding or stealthy visits to houses.
Against food and sleep he waged a life-long warfare, a warfare that was to end only with his death. His usual food was rice boiled in water, with salt only and without any other seasoning: or rice with boiled vegetables. He rarely ate meat or other nourishing food. He took this refection only twice a day and very little each time, once at noon and again at night. When he was busy with souls or on a journey, he would forget entirely about the need for rest or refreshment.
His bed was a poor mat spread on the floor; and on it he stretched himself for sleep for a short time only, for he generally lay resting on his arm rather than sleeping, or he would keep praying on his knees until sleep came to him in that posture.
He preached twice daily to the people - once in the morning after Mass, and again in the evening when the Catholics assembled for the Rosary and Litany of Our Lady, as was the custom in Kandy.
When in Dutch territory he would only have a coarse cloth from waist downwards, the upper part being bare. He wore a Rosary around his neck and carried a beggars bowl in his hand. To exhibit any sign of being a Catholic was courting death. He knew that Catholics would react to the Rosary, while others would think of him as a crazy beggar and leave it at that. The Rosary - Our Lady's weapon of a thousand victories - led the pastor to the fold. In the land of the King of Kandy he went about wearing a cassock.
Fr Vaz had been for nine years in Lanka when he began to receive fellow-labourers who were to work under his direction. The first to arrive was Fr de Menezes in 1696, he was closely followed by Fr Carvallho and Fr Ferrao.
About the middle of 1697 there broke out a pestilence of small- pox which lasted for a whole year. It raged with great virulence in Kandy and for a longer time than it did elsewhere. There was no one to minister to those ill, thus abandoned to die in misery, with no thought of burying the dead. Even the King fled from his palace.
Fr Vaz and his able assistants gave full play to their zeal and charity. They took charge of the sick and later had to take charge upon themselves the care of the whole town. They spent their days tending the sick, dressing ulcers, cooking food and feeding those able to eat, digging graves and burying the dead, some times as many as ten or twelve bodies a day, and this for a whole year without intermission, a most laborious and charitable task.
These proofs of disinterested charity bound the King to him with a such a feeling of respect and veneration that no effort of enemies of the faith was powerful enough to influence the King's mind against Fr Vaz. King Wimala Dharma openly declared that if it were not for Fr Vaz's charity, "the streets would have been full of corpses and their corruption would have so infected the town itself."
The fury of the epidemic having subsided Fr Vaz resolved to leave Fr Carvalho in charge and visited other parts of the island, particularly those places which were badly in need of the ministrations of a priest. Most of these places though were under the Dutch and the Governor receiving information of his movements vowed to arrest him.
It would seem the power of God was always manifest in his escapes from the clutches from those who would seem to want to catch him. Once while saying Mass, the house was completely surrounded and no possibility of escape existed, but Fr Vaz with equally sudden quick discard of superfluous apparel, dumped all the mass apparatus into a water-bucket, with the precious bucket on his head strode out unconcernedly out of the house, right through the band of soldiers and melted away into the night.
On several occasions he was called to the bedside of the sick and the dying. This gave the Dutch soldiers a chance to arrest him. In fact, several houses he was visiting were surrounded by them. However Fr Vaz came out of them as quietly as he had entered. None could detect him. As this occurred again and again, the soldiers despaired of ever being able to lay hands on him.
With the passing of the years more and more priests came out to join Fr Vaz. Those priests made no secret of their veneration for him. His fame for sanctity and miracles had reached them even before they set foot on the island. He never ceased labouring as long as he could: never took a step that was not for the welfare of souls.
He would undertake a trip to any place on the slightest provocation - if there was a human soul at the end of it! Although so thin and feeble, he walked great distances barefoot. When he reached his destination, there was no rest for he would straightaway begin reciting the Rosary and the Stations.
And it was the kind of missionary life that this dear zealous priest whom God had vouchsafed to send to Lanka was occupied with, all through twenty-four years of his Apostolate in Sri Lanka.
Fr Vaz spent most of the day and night in prayer, penance and mortification, praising and thanking God. One would need pages to describe all his acts of faith and penance. The best summary of his daily routine is the passage from the diary of his fellow missionary, Fr Jacome Gonsalvez - "Through the whole day and during the part of the night he has no rest .... For I never saw him except busy with God or with his neighbour, either praying or teaching or preaching, except when they call him away from these occupations to force him to take some rest".
Equally striking and enthusiastic is the testimony of Fr Menzes who was Fr Vaz's first associate - "What I can state with all truth about him is that his life is a living illustration of the 'Spiritual Combat' - with this difference: that the 'Spiritual' Combat allows at times a moderate measure of relaxation to the body, whereas in this Father's life his body never had rest, either by day or night".
All the missionaries who came to Lanka confessed that in all places they had passed through they had heard of many miracles that took place through the mediation of Fr Vaz, they are too many to recount, these miracles always brought souls back to God. The other miracles are connected with travel through forest paths teeming with wild animals - elephants, bear, cheetah, leopard and snakes.
In one instance, Fr vaz and his group of travelers were confronted by a notorious rogue elephant, enough to strike terror into the boldest hearts. Fr Vaz lit a blessed wax candle and went straight at the brute. His companions relate that as soon as it saw the Servant of God, all sign of ferocity dropped from it like a mask, "and its trunk played up and down as trained elephants show in token of good manners". Fr Vaz rebuked the brute, and bade it quit that part of the forest without further molestation of human beings. And as if it had understood him, the huge beast proceeded to put into effect as if it were only a puppy that had received a chiding.
At the beginning of the year 1701 he fell into a serious illness when he was engaged in mission work at Kottiyar, on the northeastern seaboard, and it was found necessary to remove him to Kandy, a distance of eight days travelling. He recovered somewhat, though he was never more able to use his legs as he did before, and he had to support himself with a stout walking stick. But he carried on with his ministering nevertheless as he had been accustomed to.
On another occasion he fell from a moving cart he was travelling in, in negotiating a hill, and was picked up more dead than alive. From this, too, he rallied. A severe test of patience was to come, for on Easter Sunday he caught a cold, which was followed by severe pains in the head. He was forced to remain with his mouth open, unable to close his jaws or to open them further. It would seem an abscess had formed in his ear, but with all this he kept up his spiritual exercises to the best of his ability.
After four months of these trials he began to suffer from fainting fits and the pain began to get worse. On the 7th of January 1711 he wrote to Fr Menezes, giving over to him the double post of Religious Superior and Vicar General of the whole Mission Vicario da Vara, as he did not receive a reply, he wrote another letter to Fr Menezes on the 15th Janaury: that was to be his last letter written on the eve of his death.
On the next day, the 16th of January, when he was about to make his confession, he said that he was going to do it in preparation for his death. He also asked that Holy Oils should be ready for Extreme Unction. At about 5 in the afternoon Fr de Almeida called there from a distant mission; and in spite of his condition Fr Vaz went up to the church with him and Fr Gonsalvez to recite a Te Deum in thanksgiving as he was accustomed to do when any Father returned from a mission.
Then he joined them in reciting a third part of the rosary and the community prayers, and even in taking his usual discipline as it was a Friday, and all this, by a man who was to die a few hours later. Then he called the Fathers and begged to be anointed with the Holy Oils. After receiving the Sacred Unction, he made his confession twice, in addition to that of the morning.
His last moments were occupied in making fervent colloquies with God. He begged the Fathers to put him on the floor, as he was not worthy to die on a bed! This the priests would not consent to. The priests asked him to say something, that they might treasure it and keep in remembrance. But his humble reply given in Sinhalese was: "No one can do at the hour of death what he has not done during his life".
Shortly afterwards he asked for a lighted candle declaring that he was dying in the Catholic Faith in which he had always lived, and as an obedient child of Our Holy Mother the Catholic Church, and recited Acts of Faith, Hope and Charity. He asked the Fathers to remain in silence and spent his last moments in sweet contemplation of God.
Holding the lighted candle in his hand, then invoking the Most Holy Name of Jesus, which he pronounced audibly, without a tremor, without any writhing of limbs, with peaceful pose, face serene and eyes gazing to heaven, he gave up his soul into the hands of his Creator, whom he had always been so eager to serve - and whom he served so well.
Fr Vaz's death took place on the 16th January 1711, at the stroke of midnight of Friday. The news of his death soon spread and there gathered a huge concourse of people, the body was exposed for three days. On the third day the coffin was laid in its resting place at the chapel of the Church of Our Lady for Conversion of Pagans .... and there lay the first Saint of Sri Lanka!
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Page created on 19 March 2000