Founder
Who is the real founder of MST has always been a point of debate. One of the founding members was the Bishop of Pala Sebastian Vayalil. He was well aware of the great missionary mandate that the Syro Malabar Church had inherited. At a time when it was hard for the western missionaries to come to India and when there was a surge in the missionary interest among the St Thomas Christians, Mar Vayalil thought of an association of missionaries of the Church of St Thomas Christians.
Joseph Maliparampil writes, “St Thomas Missionary Society is the fruition of a long cherished vision of the ‘missionary Bishop’, Mar Sebastian Vayalil that the SyroMalabar Church should have an association of missionaries”. It was Bishop Vayalil who visualized it as an institute of the Church and gave concrete form to it with the help of his priests. In the words of Cardinal Lourdusamy, it was in 1962 “that the Missionary Society of St Thomas the Apostle began to take shape in the vision of late Mar Sebastian Vayalil, then Bishop of Palai”. The initiatives taken by him and the cooperation and support extended by other prelates of the Church really paved the way for the foundation of the Society. In the report of the Director General presented at the General Assembly of 19Th we read, “... it is the Bishop of Palai who took initiatives on his own accord and on behalf of the Hierarchy to give shape to this missionary project,’ encouraged as he was by the Pope himself and the Cardinal Prefects of the Sacred Congregations of the Oriental Churches and Propaganda Fide”.
Bishop Vayalil began to think about the possibility of the formation of a missionary institute of the Syro-Malabar Church while preparing for the Ad Limina visit of 1960. During the visit, he met Pope John XXIII and apprised him of the plan to begin an association to canalize the vocations of the Syro-Malabar Church. He then consulted the matter with the Cardinals of the Oriental Congregation and Propaganda Fide. Back home, he put forward his plan in the Syro Malabar Bishop’s Conference. The Conference extended its support and encouraged him to go forward with the idea. The Bishop was in Rome again in 1961 and 1962 and received expert advice from the Congregations about the nature of the Society. The next stage was the consultation with the priests of the diocese. He held different meetings with the 1ikeminded priests of the diocese and discussed with them the future of the Society that he had in mind. A pious union was formed with likeminded priests on 22 January 1965. The Bishop canonically erected the MST on 22 February at Melampara.
Read more about this topic: Missionary Society Of Saint Thomas
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