Saint Devasahayam Pillai

St. Devasahayam Pillai was born into a high-caste Hindu family in 1712. He was married to Bhargavi Ammal and held a civil service job in the royal household of India's Travancore province. He learned about Catholicism from Captain Eustachius De Lannoy, the Dutch naval commander who trained the King of Travancore's forces. He was baptized on 14 May 1745, taking the name Lazarus which means Devasahayam in the Malayalam language. He fell into a confrontation with authorities because he mixed with lower castes, which was unacceptable for higher-caste people. Devasahayam's enemies convinced the royal court that he forced others to convert, leading to his imprisonment for his faith on 23 February 1749. He spent a long time in prayer and teaching those around him. As a method of torture, he was beaten every day with eighty stripes, pepper rubbed in his wounds and nostrils, exposed to the sun, and given only stagnant water to drink. They also tormented his face. He was locked in a prison cell with a few pots of boiling water kept around him with red hot chili powder in it so that he might suffocate and change his mind. He was paraded on buffalo with hands tied behind him and sitting backward. It was a shameful South Indian way of treatment meted out to persons to be punished. Though beaten and tortured, he imitated Christ, praying for his captors. Shot to death by soldiers in 1752, Devasahayam became a martyr, and his body was buried at the St. Xavier Church in Kottar.

St. Devasahayam Pillai, you willingly sacrificed your life for the true faith; help us to live as God's children and be always faithful to the Gospel's values.

Jonathan Fabian Ginunggil,
Most High Servant,
Jesus, Mary, Joseph Ministry of Love 
(Blessed  and Saints and the Nine Choirs of Angels)