Fr. Eusebio Gomes SFX
The seed of Christianity was laid on Goan soil in the 16th century with the arrival of Portuguese in 1510. Thereafter, a great missionary Francis Xavier set foot in Goa on May 6, 1542. The Goan missionaries in the footsteps of ‘Gõycho Saib’ went far and wide to proclaim the Good News. One of them was the son of the soil Joseph Vaz
Born in Benaulim on April 21, 1651, Joseph Vaz was a fervent devotee of Mother Mary. After he became a priest, he wrote a ‘Deed of Bondage’ offering himself perpetually as a slave to the Blessed Virgin Mary at the foot of the altar of Our Lady of Health Church in Sancoale on August 5, 1677.
However, he is most remembered for his missionary work in Sri Lanka (Ceylon). While the Portuguese missionaries had laboured to keep the Christian faith alive on the island since 1505, with the arrival of the Dutch Calvinists, the Catholics began to be persecuted.
The Dutch Calvinist began spreading the Reformed Church, expelled the Portuguese missionaries from the island, and forced the Catholics to refrain from their faith. When Joseph Vaz learned of this, he entered Sri Lanka in a garb of a coolie, began visiting Catholic families at night secretly and celebrating masses. While the Dutch soon became aware of this masquerading man who changed his appearances disguised as a hermit, a beggar, a washerman, a fisherman, a baker, a bangle-seller, etc., they failed to catch him. Unfortunately one day while celebrating Mass on Christmas night in 1689, he was arrested by Dutch soldiers, but with the divine intervention he escaped and went to Kandy.
However, a French Huguenot (Protestant), a naval officer Nanclars de la Nérolle raised the alarm and alerted the King Vimaladharma Surya II that a Portuguese spy had come in the guise of a Catholic priest and was being concealed in the house of Antonio Sottomayor. The king thus ordered his men to seize both the priest and his host. Joseph Vaz was placed under custody in the city where there was a disreputable prison called the Great Gaol or Maha Hiragé. When the king seeing the innocence and devotion of this harmless priest, decided to release him, de la Nérolle did not give up his crusade, and is believed to have incited the Buddhist monks to hostility against the Catholics.
It is worth mentioning that two remarkable events in the life of Joseph Vaz made a deep impact on the king and on the people of the island. In 1696, there was a long-continued drought in Kandy. Many of the customary ceremonies to appease the gods of rains were performed to call down rain, without avail. Thereupon the king conceived the idea of testing Joseph Vaz to pray for rain. The missionary thus set up an altar in the public square and falling on his knees prayed earnestly to God. Before he rose from his knees rain fell in abundance, and not a drop fell on him. The king was impressed by this deed.
Towards the middle of 1697, when Joseph Vaz returned to Kandy from an apostolic expedition to Colombo, he found that a violent outbreak of smallpox was raging in the city. It began to be attributed to the malignity evil spirits, and the victims were shunned, leaving the sufferers to their own resources. Some of the victims were left in the deserted spots and in the jungles. Dead bodies were found in the forests and also on the roadside. Joseph Vaz took it upon himself to help out. His first care was the abandoned sufferers in the woods. Thereafter he took care of those abandoned in the houses. He erected some rough huts for the victims found in the forests, consulted the physicians for help, washed the patients, cleansed their pustules, fed them, gave them medicine and clothing, covered them with clean linens, arranged cots, and cleaned up the place. The people of Kandy including the king greatly admired this heroic charity of Joseph Vaz and his companions, the Oratorians, and the missionary was given full freedom by the king to preach Christianity in his kingdom and also in the Dutch territory.
After spending 24 years revitalising the faith of the Catholics and re-building the Catholic Church, Joseph Vaz passed away on January 16, 1711. He was canonised a saint on January 14, 2015 by Pope Francis at Galle Front Green in Colombo which was attended by more than half million people including Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, and thousands of people from Goa.
