Media Release
Mangaluru, Dec 3: On the occasion of 150 years of its existence, Apostolic Carmel is all set to host ‘Agno Ashray fete’ a unique programme to provide home for 150 homeless families.
‘Agno Ashray Fete’ will be held on December 5 and 6 from 10.30 am to 8.00 pm at St Agnes Campus.
The Apostolic Carmel Congregation was founded by Venerable Mother Veronica in 1868 at Bayonne, France and was transplanted at St Ann’s Convent, Mangaluru in 1870.
The Congregation will complete 150 years of its existence in 2018. Venerable Mother Veronica had a preferential love for the poor, the needy and the homeless.Following the example of the foundress, the Congregation has planned to commemorate the sesquicentennial years of its existence in a unique manner by constructing 150 houses for the poor and the less privileged people of the society.To realize this project, St Agnes Convent and all its institutions, Mangaluru, a unit of the Apostolic Carmel Congregation, have planned to organise this mega event which means ‘Home for the Homeless’.
This is a very significant event for all to collaborate in this fruitful mission. It is a collective effort of all the sisters, staff, students, parents, alumni, friends, benefactors and well-wishers.Lavina Aranha, associate convener and lecturer, Sam Mathew, associate convener, and Dr Sr Maria Roopa AC, organizer, St Agnes Institution will be present for the programme.
Venerable Mother Veronica of the Passion
Mother Veronica was an Anglican by birth, a catholic by conviction and a religious by choice. She was born in 1823 in a pious, educated, English Anglican family. She was gifted with a singular talent of mind and heart which were nurtured by sound education and wide experience.
At the age of seventeen, she experienced a direct communion with Christ who blessed her with his peace. Thus her search for the true faith led her to Catholicism and her resolve to live a life close to Christ made her break off her engagement to a naval officer whom she loved and then responded generously to the call to religious life. She entered the congregation of the Sisters of St Joseph of the Apparition in 1851, taking the name, Sister Mary Veronica of the Passion.
Mother Veronica was full of zeal to work for the mission in India. When she was sent to found a house of the congregation at Calicut in 1862, she hearkened to the inner voice of God “I want you in Carmel” to found a Carmel for the missions at the west coast of Malabar, India. After receiving the required permission from Rome, Mother Veronica painfully left her Congregation to enter the Carmel of Pau, France in 1867.
On completion of her novitiate and first profession, she left Pau and founded the Apostolic Carmel at Bayonne, France in 1868, after facing many hardships in her relentless search for God’s will.
In 1870 the Apostolic Carmel Congregation was transplanted in India and established at St Ann’s Convent, Mangaluru. Today the congregation is spread all over India, Sri Lanka and East Africa.
A hundred and forty seven years have passed. Today her work stands because it was built on rock. It lives in the 214 houses of the Congregation she founded, its schools, colleges, orphanages, health care centers and works of charity. It lives in the 1600 sisters who serve God and people all over the country and abroad. it lives in their prayer and their dedication.
Mother Veronica’s heroic obedience to the will of God, her life of profound faith and prayer, her wholehearted commitment to the Cross, her outstanding humility and zeal for the Missions remain an inspiration to all those who, following the footsteps of Christ, seek to offer their lives in loving service of humanity, specially the poor and the less privileged.