Blessed Eliswa of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Eliswa Vakayil was born on 15 October 1831 at Ochanthuruth in Kerala, into a well-off and devout family of landowners. After a basic education from a tutor she was given in marriage at sixteen to Vatharu Vakayil, a wealthy businessman of Koonammavu, and in 1851 bore a daughter. Widowed the following year, she chose a life of prayer and solitude in a simple hut, marked by frequent reception of the sacraments and care of the poor. In 1862 she met the Italian Discalced Carmelite Father Leopoldo Beccaro, and under his direction founded the first local congregation of Kerala, the Third Order of Discalced Carmelites, later the Teresian Carmelite Sisters, which joined contemplation to the education of poor and orphaned girls and the care of the abandoned.

Followed by her daughter and her younger sister, she lived first in a bamboo house on her daughter's property at Koonammavu, where the convent of Saint Teresa was later built, and women of the Syro-Malabar rite joined the three of Latin rite. When Leo XIII erected the first Syro-Malabar vicariates the community divided by rite, and Mother Eliswa founded the convent of Saint Joseph at Varapuzha, where she spent her last twenty-three years.