St John de Britto, who is also known as Arulanandar (filled with grace and joy), was a Jesuit missionary from Portugal who came to India, where he worked towards evangelisation and welfare of people of the present-day Tamil Nadu.
He was born to an aristocrat family in Lisbon in 1647. His father, Salvador, the Viceroy of Brazil (Portuguese colony at that time) and his mother, Beatrix came from a noble family. They had cordial relations with King Pedro of Portugal.
At the birth of John, his parents dedicated him to St Francis Xavier. When he was a child, he was very ill. His mother prayed through the intercession of St Francis Xavier. John recovered miraculously. His mother, in joy, vested John with a mini-Jesuit cassock, in honour of St Francis Xavier for a year. This led to John’s interest in becoming a Jesuit.
In 1662, John de Britto joined the Novitiate in Lisbon, thus making it clear that he wanted to become a Jesuit. However, there was opposition from his family and from the court, because of his desire to go to India as a missionary. His mother, Beatrix, tried all her influence to prevent her son going to India as a missionary. But John was very determined and said that it was God’s will for him to be missioned to India.
He spent his time in Goa for his theological studies at St Paul’s College, Old Goa. After completing his studies, he was missioned to Madura (now Madurai). It was there that John changed his name to Arulanandar.
He changed his lifestyle, adopting to the local customs and dress of the place. He became a vegetarian, abstaining from all kinds of meat and alcohol. He wore a yellow dress and went about preaching and evangelising the Good News.
He learnt Tamil and catered to people of all walks of life. He preferred to stay with the poor and help them in their day-to-day living. He faced hardships and persecutions, to the extent that he was forced to return to Portugal for some time. In 1691, he returned to India. He continued to live a life, like a sanyasi.
In 1693, when John de Britto met Teriadeven, the Maravese ruler of the place, Teriadeven wanted to become a Catholic. John told him that in order to do so, he has to be faithful to his first wife and send all the other wives away. This did not go well, because one of his wives was the niece of the Sethupathi, the King of Ramnad (Ramanathapuram). She complained to him.
On hearing this, the king had John and his followers arrested and brought to Ramnad. Seeing John as a threat, he beheaded him at Oriyur, close to the coast, on February 4, 1693.
However, something miraculous happened. The place he was beheaded, the sand turned red and to date, it is still red at Oriyur. Today, Oriyur is a pilgrimage centre in honour of John de Britto. It is believed that whoever consumes the sand experiences miracles. He was beatified by Pope Pius IX in 1853 and canonised by Pope Pius XII in 1947.
In Goa, the Jesuits run a school in Mapusa named after St John de Britto. Originally named as Sacred Heart School, the Jesuits took over the school in 1946 and named it after St John de Britto in 1948.
(The writer is the Director of Candidate House at Loyola Hall, Miramar)
