Mariam Thresia was a contemplative from her teenage, however the noisy atmosphere of her house was not suitable for prayer and contemplation. So she wished to go to a forestat the age of fifteen, there to be in perfect communion with Jesus, like the Indian ‘Sanyasis’ do.Thresiahad taken to a single hearted pursuit after Jesus since she was five,and made her lifetime choice at the age of nine, now at fifteen she cannot hold her heart back and longed for solitude.
Blankly she had planned out a secret idea.She mentions in the ‘Autobiography’ about the long term attempts she made to go to the forest. One day at midnight, she tried to get up from her bed. Shockingly, she found that she was fixed to the bed. Her body was paralyzed, immovable! Instantly, she prayed ‘My Lord if my thoughts do not confirm your Holy will, I give it up immediately, help me stand-up”. All of a sudden, her hands and feet were free. She spoke saying ‘Yes Lord, have your way!Despite the fact that it was out of her insatiable desire to contemplate on God, she chose the solitude of the forest, but she gave up her idea of running into the forest for Gods will.
Next, she wanted to enter a Convent for a devout religious life but she was denied entry over and again for incidental reasons like lack of money.Then she sought to be permitted as a maid but again it was denied due to the high standing of her traditional family. Her maternal uncle, a very rich man, offered her to build a prayer house in her own place but he disagreed to give her money to join the religious orders. She consulted the parish priest, to collect the necessary patrimony Rs.150 by begging, but he asked her to remain at home. She took it as the will of God, she remained home taking care of the routine tasks of the church and her family. And continued with the charitable works with her three companions.
The childhood of St. Teresa of Avila narrates a similar event of her running away from home at the age of seven with her younger brother craving for martyrdom. Again it says that St. Antony of Padua sought to go to Morocco, to be a witness for Christ, and a martyr as well. These were few such plans that God had spoiled for a higher call.Theresa of Avila and Mariam Thresia of Puthenchira resolved that ‘Even to love God one should not bypass the will of God’. In fact both Thresia’s grew to be great mystics well along their life. St. Antony, a powerful Franciscan preacher and teacher is one of the Catholic Church’s most popular saints.
Since Mariam Thresia took Bl. Virgin as her Mother it would have been a resolute action to say “Amen” and wait for the Spirit of God to manifest it. She waited eagerly for the manifestation of a ‘great task’ known to God alone for more than 37 years. All the while she prayed fervently that God’s will and hers be one and the same.
She carried out many charitable works as directed by Holy Mother of God; to go to the dying and sick, nurse them in their home, prepare the dying, enlighten the obstinate, turn back the sinners, help the destitute and orphan, reconcile families, teach catechism to young and old, help people with the reception of Sacraments etc…Bl. Virgin and the Holy Family also trained Thresia very intensely to her unique future Mission for Families. It was the will of God that she remained in her family experiencing the confines and strains of the families around her.
Though from the age of 15 she longed for a prayer house it was realized only at the age of 37, with the construction of ‘Ekantabhavan’- the House of Solitude. Thresia With her three companions lived an ascetic life of the monastery combining the active ministry to families. As a young Prophetess, she worked miracles, hard to believe in the typecast social order of Kerala back in 18th century. She pioneered a new mission and apostate for the church; the Christianization of families after the model of Holy Family.
