Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, born Anna Muttathupadathu on 19 August 1910 at Kudamaloor, Kerala, and deceased on 28 July 1946 at Bharananganam, was an Indian religious sister of the Franciscan Clarist Congregation. The first person of Indian origin to be canonized a saint by the Catholic Church and the first saint of the Syro-Malabar Church, she was canonized on 12 October 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI in Saint Peter's Square, sixty-two years after her death, at the end of a life almost entirely consumed by illness — she was only 35.[2][3]
Orphaned of her mother in early childhood and marked by a self-inflicted injury that left her lame for life, Saint Alphonsa spent nearly ten years of her short existence nailed to a bed of suffering — haemorrhages, pneumonia, nervous shock, amnesia, tumour, repeated convulsions — without ever giving up teaching or joy. Her spiritual doctrine, close to the "little way" of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, makes suffering offered in union with Christ the very path to holiness: "I consider a day without suffering as a day lost."[4][5]
This article deals with the person and the saint: her bereaved childhood, the episode of the deliberate burns of 1923, her entry among the Franciscan Clarists of Bharananganam, her teaching years interrupted by illness, her lived theology of the victim soul, her death in 1946 and her canonization process, completed in 2008. For the history of the religious congregation she joined and for the shrine that bears her name today, readers are referred to dedicated articles as they are published; here, she is the focus.
A bereaved childhood at Kudamaloor (1910-1923)
Birth into a Saint Thomas Christian family
Anna Muttathupadathu was born on 19 August 1910 at Kudamaloor, a small village in the Kottayam district, in the heart of Kerala, then part of the princely state of Travancore. Her family belonged to the community of the Saint Thomas Christians (Syro-Malabar Christians), who claim an evangelization going back, according to tradition, to the Apostle Thomas himself on the Malabar Coast.[6][7] She was baptized nine days later, on 28 August 1910, under the patronage of Saint Anne — hence her family nickname Annakutty, "little Anna".[8]
Sources agree on her father's first name — Joseph, sometimes transcribed Cherian Ouseph in Malayalam-English spelling — and differ slightly on her mother's, given variously as Mary (or Maria) Puthukari or Puthukaparambil, common spelling variants for a house name (tharavad) transcribed from Malayalam.[9][10][11] What all sources confirm without divergence, however, is the tragedy that struck the family in the very first months of Anna's life: her mother died when the child was only three months old, following a premature childbirth brought on, according to the official biography published by the Holy See, by the fright of an encounter with a snake.[12]
An upbringing entrusted to the extended family
Orphaned of her mother before she was even one year old, little Anna was entrusted to her maternal aunt, who raised her at Muttuchira, while her great-uncle, the priest Joseph Muttathupadathu, watched over her religious instruction.[13] The biographies agree in describing a disciplined, sometimes harsh childhood, in which the little girl endured her schoolmates' mockery of her precocious piety and reserve.[14][15]
Her schooling began in 1916 at Arpookara.[16] The following year, on 11 November 1917 according to the Holy See's official biography — other notices give 27 November — she made her First Communion — a day she would later recount as the summit of her childhood, exclaiming, according to the official Vatican biography: "I have Jesus in my heart!"[17] From the age of seven, her biographers report, she felt herself given over entirely to God.[18]
Illness and an early longing for God
Already at about the age of three, Anna had been afflicted with an eczema that made her suffer for more than a year — the first of a long series of bodily trials that would mark her whole life.[19] Nourished by devotion to Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, whose "little way" of love hidden in ordinary things then permeated Catholic spirituality throughout the world, and by the memory of Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara — founder in India of one of the great Syro-Malabar religious congregations — the little girl very early formed the desire to consecrate herself entirely to God.[20][21]
Fire to escape marriage: the injury of 1923
An arranged marriage threatening her vocation
In 1920s Kerala, a teenage girl from a well-off Christian family was, by custom, promised in marriage from the end of childhood. At about the age of thirteen, Anna found herself confronted with marriage plans arranged by her family — plans that clashed head-on with her already mature desire to become a religious sister.[22][23] The biographers report the pressure exerted on her without euphemism: it was a determined teenager, with no power over her destiny other than that over her own body, who faced this situation.
The deliberate burns
In 1923, Anna committed an act that would lastingly mark her body and her story: she placed her feet in a pit of smouldering rice husks (or burning plant refuse), intending to make herself infirm enough to discourage suitors for her hand.[24][25] The burn was severe; it required prolonged care and left Anna with permanently damaged feet and a lifelong limp.[26][27]
"Oh! How I suffered! I offered everything for my great intention [to belong completely to God]!" — Sister Alphonsa, on the injury of 1923[28]
Two errors of interpretation must be avoided here. The first would be to ignore the gravity and desperation of the act of a thirteen-year-old girl, a gesture of distress that no Catholic theology presents as a model to imitate: the Church never canonizes self-harm as such, and the canonization processes neither retained nor praised this isolated act as a virtue. The second error, conversely, would be to reduce her entire later life to this episode: what Rome examined and recognized as heroic virtue were the twenty-three following years of unsought sufferings — illnesses, infirmities, involuntary trials — borne with a patience and charity that nothing in the 1923 episode suffices to explain. It is this fidelity held to the very end, not the teenager's gesture, that constitutes the heart of her holiness as recognized by the Church.
Among the Franciscan Clarists of Bharananganam (1927-1936)
Entering the convent
On 24 May 1927, Anna Muttathupadathu entered the convent of the Franciscan Clarists (Franciscan Clarist Congregation) at Bharananganam, in the Kottayam district.[29][30] This congregation of Indian origin, born in 1888 from a secular Franciscan movement founded a few years earlier at Pala by the layman Puthenparampil Thommachan, then canonically erected on 14 December 1888 at Changanassery under the impetus of Bishop Charles Lavigne, a Jesuit, would remain Alphonsa's religious family until her death.[31] For the history of this congregation itself, readers are referred to the article that will be devoted to it.
On 2 August 1928 — the traditional feast day of Saint Alphonsus Liguori — Anna received the postulant's veil and adopted the religious name under which the Church venerates her today: Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.[32][33] She was clothed in the habit on 19 May 1930 and completed her novitiate on 11 August 1931.[34][35]
Perpetual vows
On 12 August 1936, Sister Alphonsa pronounced her perpetual vows.[36][37] She left of this decisive step a saying that already sums up the whole orientation of her spiritual life:
"The Lord has given me the special grace of suffering with Jesus. That is the most precious gift." — Sister Alphonsa, on the occasion of her perpetual profession, 1936[38]
A teacher despite illness
Teaching at Vazhappally, then at Bharananganam
From May 1929 onwards, Alphonsa taught at the Malayalam-language secondary school of Vazhappally, before joining the girls' school of Bharananganam, today named in her honour.[39][40] Her teaching career, however, was constantly interrupted by recurring health crises: the biographers agree that she taught less in continuous periods than intermittently, between bouts of confinement to bed.[41][42]
A pedagogy of the "little way"
Formed in the spirituality of Saint Thérèse of Lisieux, Sister Alphonsa sought, in her classrooms as in her cell, the holiness of ordinary gestures rather than the extraordinary. The Catholic World Report relates that she imposed small penances on herself whenever she perceived in herself the slightest lack of charity towards her pupils or her sisters — a meticulous interior discipline, typical of the "little way" applied to the daily life of a classroom.[43]
Ten years of the cross: the theology of the victim (1936-1946)
December 1936: haemorrhages and a novena to Saint Chavara
From 1935 onwards — and more gravely in December 1936, a few months after her perpetual vows — Sister Alphonsa was struck by severe haemorrhages and sores on her legs. A novena addressed to the intercession of Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara — a Syro-Malabar founder whose cause already enjoyed, in India, great popular renown — was followed, according to convent tradition, by a temporary improvement.[44][45]
1939-1941: pneumonia, nocturnal shock, amnesia
On 14 June 1939, a severe pneumonia lastingly weakened her.[46][47] On 18 October 1940, an intruder entered her room at night: the nervous shock caused by this intrusion brought on amnesia.[48][49] Sister Alphonsa received the sacrament of the sick on 29 September 1941; she recovered her memory the next day, but remained physically very weak.[50][51]
1945-1946: the tumour and the convulsions
In July 1945, a progressing tumour caused severe gastro-intestinal disorders: the official biography published by the Holy See for her canonization speaks of "violent convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day".[52] It was in this state, at the very limit of the bearable, that Sister Alphonsa spent the last year of her life.
The table below summarizes the principal health crises Sister Alphonsa went through between her entry into religion and her death, as reported by her biographers.
| Date | Episode | Consequence |
|---|---|---|
| 1935 – December 1936 | Haemorrhages and sores on the legs | Novena to Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara |
| 14 June 1939 | Severe pneumonia | Lasting weakness |
| 18 October 1940 | Nocturnal intrusion, nervous shock | Amnesia |
| 29 September 1941 | General worsening | Sacrament of the sick; memory recovered the next day |
| July 1945 | Progressing tumour, gastro-intestinal disorders | Convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day |
| 28 July 1946 | Death at Bharananganam | Aged 35, after ten years of almost continuous illness |
A victim soul: the lived doctrine of redemptive suffering
Sister Alphonsa's spirituality belongs to the Catholic tradition of the "victim soul": a person who, after the likeness of Saint Paul writing that he completes "in his flesh what is lacking in the sufferings of Christ" for the Church (Col 1:24), accepts to carry, united to the suffering Christ, a heavier share of the cross than the average of the faithful, without this taking anything away from the infinitely sufficient satisfaction of the Saviour's Passion. Sister Alphonsa never sought suffering for its own sake; she received it, unsought at first, then freely offered it. It is this distinction — enduring without revolt, then turning constraint into offering — that constitutes the heart of her spiritual doctrine:
"I consider a day without suffering as a day lost." — Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception[53][54]
She herself developed the image of the crushed grain:
"Grains of wheat crushed in the mill become flour [...] In the same way, suffering crushes us, and so we become better." — Sister Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception[55]
The letter of 20 November 1944
The densest testimony of this offered spirituality is found in a letter dated 20 November 1944, addressed to her spiritual director:
"Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves me so much, I sincerely desire to remain on this bed of suffering, and to suffer not only this, but everything else besides, until the end of the world." — Sister Alphonsa, letter to her spiritual director, 20 November 1944[56]
Another confidence, reported by her biographers, shows how discreet and unostentatious this offering remained in her: when pain became too visible by day, she asked to bear more of it by night, "to remain alone and bother no one".[57]
"Tomorrow there will be a great battle"
On 27 July 1946, the eve of her death, Sister Alphonsa is said to have announced to her sisters: "Tomorrow there will be a great battle."[58] She died the next day, 28 July 1946, at the Bharananganam convent, at the age of 35, after ten years of almost continuous illness.[59][60] A religious sister who carried her coffin and herself suffered from a persistent back ailment is said to have been instantly healed during the ceremony — the first of a long series of facts popular piety would attribute, from the following months onwards, to her intercession.[61][62]
From Servant of God to saint: the canonization process
The opening of the diocesan process (1953)
On 2 December 1953, Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, then Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, opened the diocesan beatification process in the Syro-Malabar diocese on which Bharananganam then depended. Sister Alphonsa received the title of Servant of God.[63][64]
- 2 December 1953Opening of the diocesan process
Cardinal Eugène Tisserant, Prefect of the Congregation for the Oriental Churches, opens the beatification cause. Alphonsa receives the title of Servant of God.
- 9 July 1985Venerable
John Paul II recognizes the heroicity of her virtues; she becomes Venerable Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.
- 8 February 1986Beatification
John Paul II beatifies her at Kottayam (India), during his apostolic pilgrimage, together with Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara.
- 1999The canonization miracle
A child of Kerala, born with a congenital clubfoot judged incurable by doctors, is healed after prayer at Alphonsa's tomb in Bharananganam.
- 1 June 2007Recognition of the miracle
Benedict XVI approves the decree recognizing the miracle required for canonization.
- 12 October 2008Canonization
Benedict XVI canonizes Alphonsa in Saint Peter's Square, with three other blesseds. She becomes the first saint of Indian origin and the first saint of the Syro-Malabar Church.
1985: Venerable, then the 1986 beatification
On 9 July 1985, John Paul II recognized the heroicity of her virtues: Sister Alphonsa became Venerable.[65] A first miracle — the healing of a clubfoot in an infant — was approved, opening the way to beatification.[66][67] On 8 February 1986, on the occasion of his apostolic pilgrimage to India, John Paul II beatified her at Kottayam, together with Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara. In his homily, the Pope presented her in these terms reported by the biographers: "Sister Alphonsa knew great suffering [...] she constantly accepted all her sufferings with serenity."[68]
The canonization miracle: a clubfoot healed in 1999
The miracle retained for the canonization concerns a child of Kerala, born with a bilateral clubfoot which doctors judged incurable by ordinary means. The Indian media report his first name in different spellings according to the source (Jinil Joseph in some, Jinil Merin Shaji in others) — a sign of the frequent transcription variations for Indian proper names in the English-language press — but the reported facts converge: in 1999, his parents laid him on Sister Alphonsa's marble tomb at Bharananganam and prayed; the child, then four years old, began to walk normally within hours.[69][70] The boy himself, questioned at the age of ten, would testify: "By evening prayer time, I was almost back on my feet."[71]
"I do not even remember I had a club foot once." — testimony of the healed child, at the age of ten[72]
After examination by orthopaedic surgeons and instruction of the medical file by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Benedict XVI approved the decree recognizing this miracle on 1 June 2007, opening the final way to canonization.[73][74]
12 October 2008: the canonization in Rome
On 12 October 2008, in Saint Peter's Square, Pope Benedict XVI canonized Sister Alphonsa together with three other blesseds: Gaetano Errico, Maria Bernarda Bütler and Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán.[75][76] The official Indian delegation, led by Labour Minister Oscar Fernandes, and some 25,000 pilgrims of Indian origin attended the ceremony; the relics were presented by the Superior General of the congregation, Sister Celia, accompanied by the postulator of the cause, Father Francis Vadakkel.[77]
In his homily, Benedict XVI opened his evocation of the new saint with a word of the prophet Isaiah, which he presented as the promise that had sustained Alphonsa through a life of extreme physical and spiritual suffering:
"He will swallow up death for ever, and the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces." (Is 25:8) — quoted by Benedict XVI in opening his evocation of Saint Alphonsa[78]
Then the Pope described her directly:
"This exceptional woman, who is today offered to the people of India as their first canonized saint, was convinced that her cross was the very means of reaching the heavenly banquet prepared for her by the Father." — Benedict XVI, canonization homily, 12 October 2008[79]
Posterity and influence
The shrine of Bharananganam
The tomb of Saint Alphonsa, at Saint Mary's Church in Bharananganam, has become one of the greatest Catholic pilgrimage sites in India. Each year, from 19 to 28 July, thousands of faithful gather there for a novena culminating in the liturgical feast of 28 July.[80][81] For the architectural history and present organization of this shrine, readers are referred to the article that may be specifically devoted to it.
Civil and popular recognition
Beyond the Church, Alphonsa's figure has marked Indian public life: India issued a commemorative stamp bearing her likeness, making her the first woman of Kerala to appear on a national stamp, and the Reserve Bank of India struck in 2009, as the centenary of her birth (1910) approached, a commemorative five-rupee coin.[82] A school bearing her name was founded as early as 1948 at Chennamattom, followed in 1964 by Alphonsa College at Pala; many parishes of the Syro-Malabar diaspora, as far as Canada, bear her name today.[83]
A discreet holiness for the Church in India
Saint Alphonsa founded no work, never left her native district, left behind neither a spectacular miracle in her lifetime nor a systematic theological writing. Her holiness, recognized by the universal Church, lies entirely in the silent fidelity of a teaching religious sister whom illness deprived, almost continuously, of the active life to which she aspired — and who made of that very deprivation an offering. For the Church in India, a subcontinent where Catholic Christians remain a minority, her canonization in 2008 represented a strong sign: ordinary holiness, lived in suffering and in the obscurity of a rural Kerala convent, can be recognized by Rome on the same footing as the great missionary or founding figures.
Sources and rights of the photographs: exterior view of 2009[84]; tomb in 2007[85].To go further
- Saint Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897) — the "little way" that directly inspired Sister Alphonsa's spirituality.
- Saint John Paul II (1920-2005) — the pope who declared her Venerable and beatified her at Kottayam in 1986.
- Benedict XVI (1927-2022) — the pope who canonized her in Rome on 12 October 2008.
- Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871) — the Syro-Malabar founder whose intercession Sister Alphonsa invoked as early as 1936, and who was beatified on the same day as her in 1986.
- Saint Gemma Galgani (1878-1903) — another young 20th-century saint whose life was entirely crossed by illness and offered suffering.
Notes and References
India Post, Government of India, likeness from the stamp devoted to Alphonsa, 19 July 1996; crop and retouching by CzarJobKhaya, 14 October 2021. Wikimedia Commons file, GODL-India licence. Copy used without further modification; no endorsement of this use by India Post is claimed.
1Wikipedia (EN), "Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception": en.wikipedia.org. Cross-checked biographical data: family (father Joseph Muttathupadathil, mother Mary Puthukari), death of the mother during childhood, upbringing entrusted to the maternal aunt Anna Murickan and to the great-uncle priest Joseph Muttathupadathu, schooling from 1916, First Communion on 27 November 1917, episode of the deliberate burns of 1923 (foot placed in a pit of burning husks to escape an arranged marriage), entry to the convent on Pentecost 1927, postulancy on 2 August 1928, clothing with the religious habit on 19 May 1930, end of the novitiate on 11 August 1931, perpetual vows on 12 August 1936, teaching at Vazhappally then Bharananganam, pneumonia of 14 June 1939, nocturnal intrusion and amnesia of 18 October 1940, anointing of the sick of 29 September 1941, gastro-enteritis and convulsions of July 1945, death on 28 July 1946, opening of the process (2 December 1953, Cardinal Tisserant), declaration as Venerable (1985), beatification at Kottayam (8 February 1986) by John Paul II, miracle of the clubfoot of the child Ginil/Jinil Joseph (1999), recognition of the miracle (2007), canonization on 12 October 2008, commemorative Indian stamp, commemorative 5-rupee coin (2009), schools and institutions bearing her name. Collaborative encyclopaedia article, to be systematically cross-checked with the primary (Holy See) and institutional (FCC congregation) sources.
2 6 9 13 14 20 22 24 26 33 34 39 42 44 46 48 50 60 62 64 67 68 70 74 80 82 83Holy See, Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception (1910-1946) — Biography, official notice published for the canonization of 12 October 2008: vatican.va. Birth on 19 August 1910 at Kudamalur (diocese of Changanacherry), death of the mother three months later after a premature childbirth brought on by the fright of a snake, baptism on 28 August 1910 under the name Annakutty, First Communion on 11 November 1917 ("I have Jesus in my heart!"), entry to the Franciscan Clarist college of Bharananganam on 24 May 1927, postulancy on 2 August 1928 under the name Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception, perpetual vows on 12 August 1936, haemorrhages and sores on the legs from 1935, typhoid, pneumonia, nervous shock, tumour with "violent convulsions and vomiting up to forty times a day", death on 28 July 1946 at Bharananganam, beatification by John Paul II on 8 February 1986. Quoted in English in the body; original text in English.
3 8 11 12 17 18 29 32 36 41 52 59Catholic World Report, "Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception: A different kind of victim", 28 July 2023: catholicworldreport.com. Analysis of the spirituality of the "victim soul" in Alphonsa; quotation "I consider a day without suffering as a day lost"; reference to her spiritual journal and her small penances for lack of charity; explicit comparison with Saint Thérèse of Lisieux; context of the arranged marriage and the injury of 1923. Quoted in English in the body; original in English.
4 15 21 23 25 38 43 53Benedict XVI, homily of the canonization Mass of Gaetano Errico, Maria Bernarda Bütler, Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception and Narcisa de Jesús Martillo Morán, Saint Peter's Square, 12 October 2008: vatican.va. Quotation of Isaiah 25:8 opening the evocation of Alphonsa; description as an "exceptional woman" and "first canonized saint" offered to the Indian people; "convinced that her cross was the very means of reaching the heavenly banquet prepared for her by the Father"; Alphonsa's own saying quoted: "I consider a day without suffering as a day lost." Quoted in English in the body; original text in English.
5 54 75 78 79New World Encyclopedia, "Saint Alphonsa Muttathupadathu": newworldencyclopedia.org. Additional details: baptism at Saint Mary's Church, Kudamaloor, under the patronage of Saint Anne, eczema from the age of three, schooling at Arpookara (1916) then Muttuchira (1918), First Communion on 27 November 1917, alleged healing through the intercession of Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara (December 1936), letter to the spiritual director of 20 November 1944, opening of the diocesan process on 2 December 1953 by Cardinal Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Tisserant, declaration as Venerable on 9 July 1985, beatification miracle (healing of a clubfoot in an infant), canonization miracle approved on 1 June 2007, canonization ceremony of 12 October 2008 with the Superior General Sister Celia, the postulator Fr Francis Vadakkel and the Indian minister Oscar Fernandes, about 25,000 pilgrims present, commemorative stamp and 5-rupee coin (2009), Alphonsa College at Pala (1964).
7 10 16 19 35 37 40 45 47 49 51 56 63 65 66 73 76 77 81Wikipedia (FR), "Alphonsine de l'Immaculée": fr.wikipedia.org. Biography in French using the traditional French form "Alphonsine"; confirms the birth on 19 August 1910 at Kudamaloor, the episode of the deliberate burns to escape an arranged marriage, entry among the Franciscan Clarists of Bharananganam, the pneumonia of 1939, death on 28 July 1946 at 35, beatification on 8 February 1986 and canonization on 12 October 2008.
27Bulletin of the Friends of the Clairval Monastery, "St Alphonsa Muttathupadathu": clairval.com. Hagiographical notice with direct quotations: "Oh! How I suffered! I offered everything for my great intention (to belong completely to God)!" (on the injury of 1923); "The Lord has given me the special grace of suffering with Jesus. That is the most precious gift." (profession of 1936); image of the crushed grain of wheat; "If I suffer at night, I remain alone and don't bother anyone"; announcement on the eve of her death: "Tomorrow there will be a great battle"; instantaneous healing of a religious sister carrying the coffin. Quoted in English in the body; original quotations in English.
28 55 57 58 61Franciscan Clarist Congregation, Alphonsa Province of Pala, congregation history page: fccpala.org. Origin of the FCC in 1888 through the gathering of the secular Franciscan movement launched in 1875 at Pala by the layman Puthenparampil Thommachan; canonical erection on 14 December 1888 at Changanassery under Bishop Charles Lavigne SJ; creation of the diocese of Palai in 1950; election of Mother Ursula as first Superior General of the diocese of Palai in 1952; unification of the FCC in Kerala in 1970 under Mother Maurus; Alphonsa's beatification mentioned in 1986.
30 31Dawn (Pakistan), "Will Alphonsa the miracle-saint bring justice to her Indian devotees?": dawn.com. Report on the child healed of a congenital clubfoot judged incurable by doctors, laid on Alphonsa's tomb at Bharananganam on the first Friday of 1999; testimony of the boy, aged ten at the time of the report: "small changes were noticed in my feet within no time", "By evening prayer time, I was almost back on my feet", "I do not even remember I had a club foot once". The child's first name is transcribed differently from other English-language sources (common transcription variants for Indian names in the press). Quoted in English in the body; original quotations in English.
69 71 72Jovianeye, Saint Alphonsa Tomb, 14 April 2009, personal photograph of the building housing the tomb, at Bharananganam. Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. File reproduced without modification; it documents the state of 2009, not that of the convent in Alphonsa's lifetime.
84Sunish Thomas, photograph of Alphonsa's tomb, released by Simynazareth, 2007. Wikimedia Commons, Bhm B8.jpg, CC BY-SA 2.5. The page retains the rights-holder's permission, verified by Wikimedia VRT under number 2010120710018801. File reproduced unretouched; photograph predating the canonization.
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