By Filomena Saraswati Giese –
Berkeley, California: The official Feast Day of Indian-Sri Lankan St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz (1651-1711) on January 16, 2023 has just been celebrated in India and Sri Lanka and the Indian-Sri Lankan diaspora. Historians of the Sri Lankan Catholic Church like Sri Lankan Jesuit, S.G. Perera S.J., and Sri Lankan theologians Tissa Balasuriya. O.M.I. and Aloysius Pieris, S.J. have held him up as a prophetic model for the new post-Independence Church of our own times.
But since his Beatification in 1995 and his Canonization in 2015, we have entered a new phase of his integration into the life of the Church. He is now recognized as a Universal Saint of the Church and the first Native saint to be a founder of a church in Asia. As the non-European diaspora grows in western countries and more Asian Catholics are part of the parishes and dioceses of western countries, we hope that we will see more conscious inclusion of this great Asian Saint, described by our most recent Popes as one of the Church’s greatest missionary models.
His Missionary legacy in the words of the Popes
The clearest proof that his prophetic missionary role is recognized by the highest Church authority are the words of Pope St. John Paul II at his Beatification in 1995 and of H.H. Pope Francis at his Canonization in 2015. What did they say?
I. A great missionary model like St. Paul and St. Francis Xavier
Pope St. John Paul II and H.H. Pope Francis , like many historians, -praised St. Joseph Vaz as one of the greatest missionaries of the Church. Presiding at the Beatification of then Venerable Father Joseph Vaz, Apostle of Kanara and Sri Lanka, in 1995. Pope St. John Paul II said:
“Father Joseph Vaz was a great missionary priest, belonging to the unending line of ardent heralds of the Gospel, missionaries who, in every age, have left their own land to bring the light of the Faith to peoples not their own. Among those following in the footsteps of Saint Paul who became all things to all men for the sake of the Gospel (Cf. 1Cor. 9: 22-23), the figure of Saint Francis Xavier shines before us as the great apostle of Asia and the universal Patron of the Missions. Father Vaz was a worthy heir of Saint Francis Xavier; he was also a true son of his native Goa, outstanding for its deep Christian and missionary traditions.“
To recap: some unique characteristics of the missionary life of St. Joseph Vaz:
- Unlike St. Paul or St. Francis Xavier, Vaz was a native born Asian, not a Middle Easterner or European as they respectively were. He was prophetically the first Asian with a specific Christian missionary goal.
- Like St. Paul (1 Cor., 4:10-13), St. Joseph Vaz was arrested as a Portuguese spy, brought in chains into Kandy and thrown into the prison of maximum security, and kept without food and water for the first five days. He was imprisoned, confined in prison, and not allowed visitors for two years.
- Like St. Francis Xavier, St. Joseph Vaz preached the Gospel with zeal and success, and made many converts. But he confined himself to India, his birthplace, and he smuggled himself into Sri Lanka dressed as a beggar and coolie, while St. Francis Xavier traveled throughout the Spice Islands and on to Japan and the coast of China.
- Xavier traveled on Portuguese ships with the Portuguese representatives of the Portuguese crown in search of the spice trade routes and new territories. Vaz had no protection of the Portuguese and their armed forces like St. Francis Xavier did, nor their funds when he entered Sri Lanka.
- In the words of Pope St. John Paul II, St. Joseph Vaz smuggled himself and his servant and companion, a tribal boy called John Vaz, dressed as beggars in 1687.
Vaz came alone with a servant companion, John Vaz. As his biographers have noted, they had no money or resources, no luggage except his breviary and Mass kit hidden in their bundle of spices and clothes. They had food and water only for a few days.
II. Joseph Vaz as a Founder of an Asian Church and Forerunner and missionary model for Asians:
In St. Joseph Vaz, Asia now has a canonized missionary model, one who is recognized as the Founder of a Church in Asia.
At his Beatification Pope St. John Paul II said:“ Father Vaz was “a son of Asia who became a missionary in Asia. The Church today needs more such missionary men and women among the different continents…. Joseph Vaz is rightly considered the second founder of the Church in your country. “
Presiding at his Canonization in 2015, H.H. Pope Francis said: “Leaving behind his home, his family, the comfort of his familiar surroundings, he responded to the call to go forth, to speak of Christ wherever he was led.”
III. Unique Inter-religious Respect and Protection
It is reported that the Buddhist King of Kandy, observed and visited St. Joseph Vaz in prison. When King Vimaladharma Surya II saw that he was indeed a great Saint who matched Hindu-Buddhist criteria of sainthood and worked public and private miracles as a Catholic Saint at the same time, he released him and gave him protection from the Dutch. This Buddhist King, Vimaladharma Surya II and later his son, King Narendrasinha, gave him protection for the remaining twenty-three years of his arduous missionary life.
In contrast, not a single European missionary who entered Asian countries during the colonial period, including Xavier, was able to get protection from a native, independent, and non-Christian King and ruler, allowing him even to preach in his kingdom, as St. Joseph Vaz did.
Most uniquely, Pope St. John Paul II places him in the circle of Asian spirituality in his beautiful remarks of St. Joseph Vaz as a. priest-Sannyasi, and Asia’s respect for sannyasa, for holiness, and for renunciation:
“From his native India he came, a dedicated priest of Jesus Christ, to this land of ancient spiritual traditions, a land steeped in respect for the Sanyasi, the man of holiness, the man of God. During the last few months, as I prepared for today’s Beatification, my thoughts often turned to the respect for things spiritual which characterizes the peoples of Asia. This brought to mind the passage of the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Non-Christian Religions, which expresses the Church’s deep esteem for the ancient religions of Asia, and especially for Buddhism and Hinduism.”
IV. Persecution and hostility for preaching the Gospel in the time of St. Joseph Vaz and today:
When we read about insults and acts of hostility toward Christian missionaries today, we should not forget that St. Joseph Vaz endured insults, hostilities, burning of his chapels and outright persecution in his mission.
St. Joseph Vaz preached the Gospel in areas of India (Kanara) and of Sri Lanka that were under foreign rulers (the Dutch) as well as in areas that were under native independent, non-Christian rulers (Kandy). He faced much hostility toward his missionary activities both from the Dutch and their native allies and sometimes, of the local populace.
First, he overcame local hostilities from native rulers who allied themselves with the anti-Catholic Dutch in Kanara, the area around the important Indian seaport of Mangalore. The political dynamics changed when the Dutch took over control of that region and made alliances with native Hindu rulers. What they managed to do was to have Catholic missions and institutions destroyed and Catholic European missionaries banned in Kanara. In Sri Lanka where the Dutch had completely ousted the Portuguese and taken over their territories in 1658, his chapels were often destroyed, and his Catholics faced local opposition as well as Dutch persecution. These are prophetic situations that are faced today because of our mixed multiethnic and multi religious context.
Fast forward to the 20th and 21st centuries to the age of independent post-colonial countries and we can see that St. Joseph Vaz is a prophetic model for this new post-colonial world. Today’s missionaries in Asia work in post-colonial and independent countries under native run political systems of government. European missionaries are no longer allowed to come and live without the permission of these native rulers. And native Christian missionaries today face hostility from local opponents much as St. Joseph Vaz faced.
Another quite distinct factor from the experience of European missionaries who sometimes were indeed persecuted for preaching the Gospel, was that St. Joseph Vaz went voluntarily into a territory (Kanara in India) and a country (Sri Lanka) where there was a specific ban on Catholic missionaries. He worked there at the risk of his life under persecution of the Catholic faith. He revived and re-founded the Catholic Church there under Dutch persecution and made new converts at the same time.
Pope Francis adds a reference to the prophetic likeness in the conditions under which St. Joseph Vaz worked to our own modern conditions:
“Because of religious persecution, he dressed as a beggar, performing his priestly duties in secret meetings of the faithful, often at night. His efforts provided spiritual and moral strength to the beleaguered Catholic population. ….
“He is also an example of patient suffering in the cause of the Gospel, of obedience to our superiors, of loving care for the Church of God (cf. Acts 20:28). Like ourselves, Saint Joseph Vaz lived in a period of rapid and profound transformation; Catholics were a minority, and often divided within; there was occasional hostility, even persecution, from without. And yet, because he was constantly united with the crucified Lord in prayer, he could become for all people a living icon of God’s mercy and reconciling love.
”https://www.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/homilies/2015/documents/papa-francesco_20150114_srilanka-filippine-omelia-canonizzazione.html
Conclusion
Here then is the first Asian missionary of note to go out from his own Asian birthplace to preach the Gospel in another Asian country, came without colonial patronage, endured the whole gamut of persecution and local hostility that Asian missionaries today are experiencing, and who survived only because of the protection of native, non-Christian, independent rulers of an independent kingdom. It goes without saying, that St. Joseph (Naik) Vaz was a prophetic figure in mission history who acted with respect and in peace to preach the Gospel as a true follower of Christ would, and underwent persecution and hostility with humility and resignation to be a model of that Gospel..
His methodology and the spiritual life he fostered will be examined in Part II of this examination of his place in mission history.
To know more, visit: http://www.josephnaikvaz.org
Filomena Saraswati Giese was born in Goa, India and brought up in Singapore. She’s educated in Singapore, Australia, and the U.S. She’s currently based in Berkeley, California, US.
She founded the Joseph Naik Vaz Institute in 1980 to keep alive the memory of then Venerable Fr. Joseph Vaz and to work for his Beatification and Canonization. Her sister, Ligia, inspired her to work for the recognition of St. Joseph Naik Vaz as a Saint of the Catholic Church. She has a Master’s in Theology from the Jesuit School of Theology at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Her Master’s thesis was on the aspect of Indian “Sannyasa”(Renunciation and Yogic lifestyle) in the life and missionary work of St. Joseph Naik Vaz. The work of the Joseph Naik Vaz for the Cause of St.. Joseph Vaz has been recorded in the Positio Historicas for the Cause and accepted as evidence of international devotion to him by the Church.