First Indian Women Saint

Alphonsa Muttathupadathu

BORN : August 19, 1910, Kottayam District, Kerala, India
DIED : July 28, 1946, Bharananganam
VENERATED IN : Roman Catholic Church
BEATIFIED : February 8, 1986, Kottayam by Pope John Paul II
CANONIZED : October 12, 2008 by Pope Benedict XVI
FEAST : July 28

Alphonsa Muttathupadathu (August 19, 1910 – July 28, 1946) is the first Indian woman to be elevated to sainthood. She was beatified by Pope John Paul II in 1986 and decided as a saint by the pope Benedict XVI on March 1, 2008. It was officially declared on October 12, 2008.

She will be the first female saint from India and the second saint from India. In the 19th century, Saint Gonsalo Garcia, born in Vasai near Mumbai to an Indian mother and Portuguese father in 1556, was declared a saint.

Early life
Born as Annakkutty in Kudamaloor, a rural village in Kottayam district, Kerala, India, to Joseph and Mary Muttathupadathu. She was baptized on August 27, 1910 at Saint Mary's Church in Kudamaloor under the patronage of Saint Anna^. Anna's mother died when she was very young, so her maternal aunt raised her. Anna was educated by her great-uncle Father Joseph Muttathupadathu.

In 1916 she started school in Arpookara. She received First Communion on November 27, 1917. In 1918 she transferred to the school in Muttuchira.She arrived at the Poor Clares convent at Bharananganam on Pentecost 1927. She received the postulant's veil on August 2, 1928 and took the name Alphonsa.On May 19, 1930 she received her religious habit at Bharananganam.Three days later she resumed her studies at Changanacherry, while working as a temporary teacher at the school at Vakakkad. On August 11, 1931 she joined the novitiate. She took her permanent vows on August 12, 1936. Two days later she returned to Bharananganam from Changanacherry. She taught elementary school, but was often sick and unable to teach.

Death
She died on July 28, 1946, aged 35. She is buried at Bharananganam, South India in the Diocese of Palai.

Beatification
On December 2, 1953, Eugène-Gabriel-Gervais-Laurent Cardinal Tisserant inaugurated the diocesan process for her beatification. Pope John Paul II formally approved a miracle attributed to her intercession and Alphonsa was declared Servant of God on 9 July 1985 and she became known as Venerable Sister Alphonsa. She was beatified along with Kuriakose Elias Chavara at Kottayam.

Mother Teresa

baptized August 27, 1910, Skopje, Macedonia, Ottoman Empire
died September 5, 1997 , Calcutta, India; beatified October 19, 2003

Founder of the Order of the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic congregation of women dedicated to the poor, particularly to the destitute of India. She was the recipient of numerous honours, including the 1979 Nobel Prize for Peace.

The daughter of an ethnic Albanian grocer, she went to Ireland in 1928 to join the Sisters of Loretto at the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary and sailed only six weeks later to India as a teacher. She taught for 17 years at the order's school in Calcutta (Kolkata).

In 1946 Sister Teresa experienced her “call within a call,” which she considered divine inspiration to devote herself to caring for the sick and poor. She then moved into the slums she had observed while teaching. Municipal authorities, upon her petition, gave her a pilgrim hostel, near the sacred temple of Kali, where she founded her order in 1948. Sympathetic companions soon flocked to her aid. Dispensaries and outdoor schools were organized. Mother Teresa adopted Indian citizenship, and her Indian nuns all donned the sari as their habit. In 1950 her order received canonical sanction from Pope Pius XII, and in 1965 it became a pontifical congregation (subject only to the pope). In 1952 she established Nirmal Hriday (“Place for the Pure of Heart”), a hospice where the terminally ill could die with dignity. Her order also opened numerous centres serving the blind, the aged, and the disabled. Under Mother Teresa's guidance, the Missionaries of Charity built a leper colony, called Shanti Nagar (“Town of Peace”), near Asansol, India.

In 1963 the Indian government awarded Mother Teresa the title Padmashri (“Lord of the Lotus”) for her services to the people of India. In 1964, on his trip to India, Pope Paul VI gave her his ceremonial limousine, which she immediately raffled to help finance her leper colony. In 1968 she was summoned to Rome to found a home there, staffed primarily with Indian nuns. In recognition of her apostolate, she was honoured on January 6, 1971, by Pope Paul, who awarded her the first Pope John XXIII Peace Prize. In 1979 she received the Nobel Peace Prize for her humanitarian work.

In her later years Mother Teresa spoke out against divorce, contraception, and abortion. She also suffered ill health and had a heart attack in 1989.At the time of Mother Teresa's death, her order included hundreds of centres in more than 90 countries with some 4,000 nuns and hundreds of thousands of lay workers. Within two years of Mother Teresa's death, the process to declare her a saint was begun, and Pope John Paul II issued a special dispensation to expedite the process of canonization. She was beatified on October 19, 2003, reaching the ranks of the blessed in the shortest time in the history of the church.

Human Computer

Shakuntala Devi


Shakuntala Devi was born in Bangalore , India, in 1939. When she
was three years old she started learning about numbers. She loved
them. It was easy for her to understand them. She could find the answers
to difficult problems very fast. Shakuntala's mother and father were amazed
at how clever she was.

When she was six, Shakuntala went to a university. The people there were
also amazed. They had never seen such a clever child. Soon people all over
India started hearing about this clever young girl.

In 1950, When she was 11 years old she went to Europe.She went on television
in Britain, and showed people how she could do very difficult math. Shakuntala
has travelled all over the world. She has written many books.

In 1980 Shakuntala Devi was asked to find the answer of
"7,686,369,774,870 x 2,465,099,745,779?".
She did it in only 28 seconds!
The answer to Shakuntala's difficult problem?
18,947,668,177,995,426,773,730

Shakuntala is called "The Human Computer'' because she can find the answer to difficult math problems very fast.Today she wants to start a new university
for math in India.She still loves numbers.
"If you make friends with numbers, '' she says,''You don't need other friends."