Bl. Eliswa Vakayil

Eliswa Vakayil was born in 1831 in Ochanthuruth, Kerala, India, to a devout land-owning family. She was married at sixteen, had a daughter, Anna, in 1851, and was widowed the next year.

She lived a life of prayer in a simple hut and cared for the poor. In 1866, guided by an Italian Discalced Carmelite, Father Leopold Beccaro, she founded with her daughter and sister the first congregation of women religious in Kerala, today the Teresian Carmelite Sisters. They opened a school and a home for girls. Later the community was divided, and she had to leave the house she had founded. She accepted it calmly. She died in 1913 and was beatified at Vallarpadam in 2025.

Widowed at twenty and later forced to leave the community she founded, she faced repeated loss. Witnesses at her cause spoke of her serenity when she had to give everything up.

Eliswa Vakayil was beatified in 2025 by Leo XIV.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.