No sooner the announcement was made that Goa’s Blessed Joseph Vaz would be canonized by Pope Francis in Colombo, Oscar de Noronha decided his extraordinary story deserved a book. Working on another book at the time, he set it aside and toiled for three weeks straight to write ‘Of Divine Bondage: The Epic Life of St Joseph Vaz’.
His book is a short, easy read, yet provides a comprehensive picture of Vaz’s life. He does some digging and tries to dispel certain myths and untruths about the saint to be. He meets the present owners of the house in Pulvaddo, Benaulim and finds that the existing house isn’t Vaz’s maternal grandparents’ (the Mirandas) home. The present home, he writes is a reconstruction either based on a new plan or with a different orientation. The four poster bed in the home he writes is not the bed on which Vaz slept as has been reported in the past.
He also prefers to explain the story of the doors of the Cortalim Church miraculously opening for Vaz in the dead of the night (for which no proof exists), in the following manner, “The angel made all things possible for the lover of the Holy Eucharist. Or, simply put, the sacristan or the door keeper must have been an angel of a person welcoming the saintly priest at all times.”
Another story is that Vaz’s father saw a bright star in the clear blue midday sky when he was born. Noronha tries verifying the existence of the star on skymaponline.net but finds that records prior to the 1900s aren’t available.
The book has some exclusives- the new prayer ‘Bhoktivont Juze Vazak Sant Mhonn Porgott Kel’lea Khatir’ composed by the Archdiocese being distributed to churches and to be recited once he is canonized, photographs of Churches in Canara, Mannar, Jaffna and Cortalim, and the former Convent and Church of the Oratorian Congregation inaugurated last month as St Joseph Vaz Spiritual Renewal Centre.
The book doesn’t stop at the 60 years of Vaz’s life but looks at the happenings 303 years after his death up to the fixing of the date for his canonization. Two detailed interviews towards the end of the book answer many questions about the process of sainthood for Vaz.
Fr Urbino Monteiro, former Vice-Postulator of the Cause for Beatification of Venerable Joseph Vaz talks of the process of collecting all available documentary evidence and the meticulous investigation that pushed for his beatification. It is not the Church or the Popes who simply make saints he says, but the faithful who lay the foundations for the process.
The Church also doesn’t try to ignore or hide statements or material that may negate the general perception of their saintly lives he says. “The alleged negative evidence is also gathered and carefully examined. This becomes especially important, for the life of a Blessed or a Saint must be bullet-proof.”
The Church doesn’t beatify someone based on stories or tales but looks at miracles. It looks at cases of extraordinary cures of organic diseases which can be verified empirically by doctors as being true yet inexplicable. Here the healing process should be thoroughly documented and the cure proved to be of a permanent nature, he says.
He also talks about the delay in beatification which took 283 years to come and the reasons for this. The Positio Historica (historical position) prepared by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints was completed only in 1985 and much credit goes to Fr Quintus Pereira of Sri Lanka who wrote the 1200-odd page book in Italian after studying Italian and 17th century Portuguese.
An interview with Fr Eremito Rebello, Vice Postulator of the Cause of Canonization of Blessed Joseph Vaz (since 2004), is also important to the book. He talks of how after Vaz’s beatification when the Church was waiting for another miracle, he decided to organise healing services. “With thousands of people beginning to pray, a miracle was bound to happen sooner or later.” The services today he says are attended by people from as far as Karwar, Sawantwadi and Vengurla.
When questioned about the Pope bypassing the requirement for a second miracle, Fr Rebello explains that a miracle is an absolute must for beatification but once sufficient documentation and miraculous signs exist, neither the Congregation nor the Pope insist on another miracle. He speaks of 21 miraculous signs including petitions from Goa, USA and Sri Lanka requesting the Pope to look into his canonization.
Goa’s two revered saints he says should not be compared but he puts things into perspective. “St Francis Xavier was great in his own way. It was not easy for a person to leave the comforts of Europe and come to India and suffer here. So he was no doubt a great saint. But allow me to draw a comparison. He had church and state support whereas Jopseh Vaz was not supported by the Church- because there was no church authority in Sri Lanka, and no church authority could enter the island, and the ruling government was inimical to the Church.”
The canonization on January 14, 2015 will turn Joseph Vaz into an international figure and Fr Rebello expects a larger number of faithful to gather at Sancoale. He hopes to have a larger space, a library, bigger museum, lodgings for pilgrims and a place for confessions. “As a Blessed he was only meant to be venerated in the local Church; now he belongs to the Universal Church,” he says.
The subject being very close to Noronha’s heart, the devotion to Jospeh Vaz goes back generations in his family. He dedicates the book to his father Fernando born on January 16 the death anniversary of Vaz who also passed away on his third centenary year. The book is also dedicated to his son Fernando Jr who miraculously survived after being born and was taken straight from the hospital to be baptised on January 16, 1995. He continues to receive blessings through his intercession. A report on his son being cured through Joseph’s intercession early this year, along with supporting documents went into the Positio super canonizatione submitted by Fr Rebello to Rome and is reprinted in the book.
