TESTIMONY 2

TESTIMONY 2

Name: Fr. Paul

Surname: Chazhoor   

Date & Place of Birth: 14 September 1905, Kerala

Profession / Occupation: Parish Priest

Address: Parish Church, Ampazhakad, Trichur District, Kerala - 680 562

Relationship: Direct Witness

Date of Interview: 20 August 1983

        I knew Brother Joseph Thamby from the year 1939. He came alone one day to me. He was acquainted with Fr. Joseph Chungath, who is my classmate, from whom he got the information of the Church of Ambarakhad where I was only an assistant vicar. He asked me some water to drink. Since there was no servant at that time, I myself went to bring the water, which was placed, outside my room. While coming back I saw him in a stigmatic situation. I thought he was having some rheumatic convulsion and I touched his feet to give him a massage. The feet were inseparably stuck together as if they were nailed and my touch gave him immense pain and he was whiling and swinging as if he was on the cross. The biting of his teeth was so tremendous and after a few minutes the fit vanished and he began to speak. He accepted the water from me. He showed me his palms and feet, which are wet with blood and asked for a towel to wipe the wounds. After wiping the blood, he gave back the towel to me and I kept it in my room. But unfortunately after few months the worms ate the towel. 

        I think Fr. Joseph Chungath and Brother Joseph Thamby might have started together to see me but Thamby reached my place two hours earlier than Fr. Chungath. We both priests spent the remaining time together in my room discussing various things. After the meals, I gave Brother Joseph Thamby a bed just near to mine so that I may study him further. He began to pray kneeling before the Sacred Heart picture enthroned in my room. After the prayer he asked about the place Kalloor, where I had gathered all the families who, everyday night join together for adoration in a serial adjustment of their homes according to the date of the month. Then I asked him to be in the bed just near to that of mine. Generally I will have no sleep at night. But that day I slept so well that I could not notice anything about him. When I woke up at 5:30 in the morning, I could not see Brother Joseph Thamby in my room. He had gone out and was praying somewhere. He left me before the Mass and hurried to some other place where he had to visit another person. He asked me for some money to go to Avutapally for which I gave him six rupees. The name Avutapally was not new to me. I had sent a statue of St. Francis of Assisi made by me to Avutapally by railway parcel. So much I remember. 

        During the period in which Brother Joseph Thamby visited me, he was at Ponnukara within the parish limits of Puthur near Trichur. He was there with the Brothers of a congregation, Little Flower of Brothers founded by Rt. Rev. Dr. Attipetty. Brother Joseph Thamby was commissioned by the Bishop to give a formation to the congregation. But the effect was on the contrary. The brothers disliked him and considered him a mad man, a liar etc. Very soon I got transferred to that place and I have seen the small Church built by Brother Joseph Thamby. It was built with clay and was dedicated to St. Antony. A light in Indian-Kerala style was also there. Before my arrival, Brother Joseph Thamby had already left the place. Rt. Rev. Dr. Joseph Attipetty visited this small chapel and I think he said Mass and baptized a Hindu family, which was already instructed for the baptism. I had been present for the function. The Church was located in a place where he had a vision of the Holy Cross on the 14th September 1939. Brother Joseph Thamby was called mad because he had his own way of living, eating grass, lying down under the shade of the trees, on the boundaries of the compound. His life in the midst of others was as if on the bush of thorns and criticism so much so his Stigmata was attributed to something other than divine. 

        Brother Joseph Thamby was not a close friend of mine. He spent only one night along with me. He had much regard towards me and sympathizing and praying for me. He wrote letters to me until 1945 and his last letter was ending like this: ‘Father you are to suffer too much and die but in the end you are to be saint’. I couldn’t understand the meaning of these words in the beginning. But in course of time, I could understand what he did say to me. 

        In the letter he wrote to me in 1940 he was mentioning that he was praying so that I may become a bishop. During that time our bishop died accidentally. I had requested our then bishop to join the Capuchin Order. He had allowed me to make the arrangements for that. I had already expressed my desire to join the order to Fr. Guido (now a bishop) who was then at Alwaye. The day when I had determined to ask the bishop permission to go to Alwaye to remain there a month to settle my vocation according to the direction of father Guido, I saw him unconscious and dying. It was during this time that Brother Joseph Thamby asked me to send any photo. Brother Joseph Thamby had some influence with the Nuncio. But I did not send the photo saying that I am not worthy to become a bishop. 

        During three years, I was experiencing some extraordinary spiritual powers in my words and actions. The very day previous of the retreat to be preached at my parish Wadakkanchery, my vicar asked me to preach a retreat and I spoke very well and powerfully. The people were astonished. The next week I was asked to preach a ten-day retreat for the sisters in Chilakara. It was also wonderful and sisters were melted into tears. It is a secret thing, which I have not disclosed to anybody. The Holy Spirit was hovering on my heart by perceptible force and I can’t explain it better than that. I say all these because those extraordinary experiences were come to me by the stigmatic prayers of Brother Joseph Thamby. 

        The new bishop was elected on 11 March in 1942. I was then at Chowannur where the Sisters of Charity Congregation was born. I was there the residing priest to help my Vicar to form the congregation. It was one of the desires of Brother Joseph Thamby as he had expressed to my classmate that a congregation for the uneducated girls was an object of Brother Joseph Thamby. Thus that was realized at Chowannur. 

Fr. Paul Chazoor 

Dated August 1983