Claims of her miraculous intervention began almost immediately upon her death and often involved the children of the convent school where she used to teach. On 2 December 1953, Cardinal
Eugène Tisserant inaugurated the diocesan process for her beatification and Alphonsa was declared a
Servant of God. In 1985,
Pope John Paul II formally approved a miracle attributed to her intercession and on 9 July she became "Venerable Sister Alphonsa".
Beatification Alphonsa was beatified along with
Kuriakose Elias Chavara at Kottayam, on 8 February 1986 by Pope John Paul II during his apostolic pilgrimage to India. During his speech at
Nehru Stadium, the Pope said: From early in her life, Sister Alphonsa experienced great suffering. With the passing of the years, the heavenly Father gave her an ever fuller share in the Passion of his beloved Son. We recall how she experienced not only physical pain of great intensity, but also the spiritual suffering of being misunderstood and misjudged by others. But she constantly accepted all her sufferings with serenity and trust in God. ... She wrote to her spiritual director: "Dear Father, as my good Lord Jesus loves me so very much, I sincerely desire to remain on this sick bed and suffer not only this, but anything else besides, even to the end of the world. I feel now that God has intended my life to be an oblation, a sacrifice of suffering" (20 November 1944). She came to love suffering because she loved the suffering Christ. She learned to love the Cross through her love of the crucified Lord.
Miracles Hundreds of miraculous cures are claimed from her intervention, many of which involve straightening of clubbed feet, possibly because she has lived with deformed feet herself. Two of these cases were submitted to the
Congregation for the Causes of Saints as proof of her miraculous intervention. The continuing cures are chronicled in the magazine
PassionFlower. Bishop Sebastian reported: About ten years ago, when I was in a small village in Wayanad outside Manatavady, I saw a boy walking with some difficulty, using a stick. As he approached me I noted that both of his feet were turned upside down. I had a stack of holy cards in my pocket with Alphonsa's picture on them, so I pulled one of them out and gave it to the boy. When I told the boy that he should pray to this woman for the cure of his feet, the boy – he was quite smart for a ten-year-old boy – replied: "But I'm a Muslim, and, besides, I was born this way." I replied that God is very powerful, so let's pray. A few months later, a boy and a gentleman appeared at the house here. I didn't recognize them at first but soon learned that it was the Muslim boy with his father, here to tell me that his feet had been cured through their prayers to Sister Alphonsa. They showed me the calluses on the tops of his feet, and you could see the marks which had been made from the years of his walking with his feet turned under. Before they left, the three of us had our pictures taken. Indians from across the world, especially people from Kerala, gathered at the ceremony in Rome. Among them was a 10-year-old Kerala boy Jinil Joseph whose clubfoot – a birth defect – was, in the judgment of Vatican officials, miraculously healed after prayers to Alphonsa in 1999. The grave at
St. Mary's Forane Church, Bharananganam where the Franciscan Clarist Sister was buried had a chapel built there, which houses her mortal remains. == Legacy ==