All Saints Week - Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception

During All Saints Week, we are highlighting a different new-to-me Saint each day here on Musings of a Discerning Woman.  Today's Saint ... Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception.

Born Anna Muttahupadathu in Kudamaloor in 1910, she is the first person of Indian origin to be canonized.  Anna first received the Eucharist when she was 11.  She was noted to have said often to her friends: "Do you know why I am so particularly happy today? It is because I have Jesus in my heart!"

Her mother died when she was young and she was raised by her aunt.  When she was 13, a marriage was arranged for her, a marriage she did not want.  She is reported to have caused her foot to be burned in order to avoid the marriage. 

After her foster mother died, she entered the novitiate of the Franciscan Clarist Sisters where she had been attending school. As a professed Sister she taught high school but was often sick. She suffered typhoid fever, pneumonia, nervous shock and finally a stomach tumor. She died in 1946 at the age of 35. She was canonized by Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.

Read more about her here and here.