Media Release

Jaffna (Sri Lanka), Feb 11: The Apostolic Carmel(AC) which has a history of a hundred and fifty three years of service to the Church and its people in India and in nine other countries across the globe with over two hundred convents. The AC Sisters proudly celebrated a hundred years of its existence in Sri Lanka, the pearl of India, on February 5.

Sri Lanka Province of the Apostolic Carmel, where the AC presence started from the southern part in Jaffna, has now spread to the entire country, with 250 and more Sisters working in 36 convents in both the Tamil and the Sinhala regions, and 4 convents in Pakistan. The mission of the Apostolic Carmel sisters has faithfully touched thousands of Sri Lankans, especially the young female students, orphans, poor tea estate workers, prisoners, the aged and the parishes.

Even when the tide turned against their mission of Education with the nationalization of all the schools by the Government in Sri Lanka in the nineteen seventies, the sisters remained unfazed with the turn of events and embraced the mission of reaching out to the poorest people through other apostolates for the Church, with undaunted courage and sacrifice. Eventually, they also went ahead with a bold step and very many sisters cleared the eligibility examination of the government to be recruited as Teachers/Principal in schools through its College of Education. At present even though we have lost the management of our schools, our sisters have re-gained the Principalship of seven and more of the former Apostolic Carmel Secondary Schools and Colleges (Junior Colleges). Several others have secured the post as teachers in many schools across the country. Their influence has been significant in that the government had not only approved of the innovative practices taken up by our Sisters but have also implemented them nationwide in all the schools. For instance, the Joyful Living Series books on Value Education in schools prepared by the AC Generalate, India and translated into Tamil by our Sri Lankan Sisters have been implemented in all the Tamil medium schools by the Sri Lankan government. This is the fruit of our sisters following the exemplary obedience, faith and courage of our Founder, Venerable Mother Veronica whose cause for sainthood is at the Vatican.

God’s divine will for the Apostolic Carmel sisters in Sri Lanka took shape on February 2, 1922 as the pioneer band of the Apostolic Carmel Sisters Mary Lourdes, Cresence, Clare and Justin left the shores of India and arrived in Trincomalee, Jaffna on February 5, 1922.  The history of the Apostolic Carmel in Sri Lanka originates with the appointment of Fr L Dupont, SJ of Trincomalee as a Visitor of the Jesuit Houses in Kanara and Malabar. When Fr Dupont got to Mangalore he approached Mother Aloysia, the Superior General of the Apostolic Carmel with a message from the Jesuit Bishop of Trincomalee, Fr Dr Gaston Robichez, requesting her to take over the schools, English and vernacular, as well as work-houses and orphanages, from the Sisters of Cluny who were unable to continue their work for lack of new hands and were awaiting final orders from Paris to leave Trincomalee. The second convent taken over three months later, from the Sisters of Cluny was, St. Joseph’s Convent, Batticaloa. Interestingly the Sisters of Cluny have come to Sri Lanka once again and set up a small mission in Velanai, Jaffna.

It is very significant that the Divine Providence had chosen Ceylon to be one of its earliest destinations. When Sister Veronica, as a sister of St Joseph of the Apparition undertook the long and arduous voyage from France to India, in 1872, to begin a Convent at Calicut on the Malabar Coast, stayed at Point de Galle, Sri Lanka for eight days, while waiting for a ship that would take her to Cannanore. She had said “At the next departure I shall get ready a little parcel of Church articles for this Church (Point de Galle), I have a great desire to do this since I love Ceylon and its Missionaries”. It was indeed in God’s providence that the first destination of the Apostolic Carmel after Mangalore and Malabar, her missionary zeal extended to Sri Lanka. The same Sr. Veronica, nee Sophie Leeves, the stately, tall, English lady hailing from the high society of the Anglican Church, converted to Catholicism came to India as a Sister of St. Joseph of the Apparition. The interior call, ‘I want you in Carmel’ resulted in her joining the Cloistered Carmel in Pau, France and then founding the Apostolic Carmel at Bayonne, France on July 16, 1868. The pioneer sisters from France established the first convent in Mangalore, India and St. Ann’s Convent became the cradle of the Apostolic Carmel.

While it was through the zeal and extraordinary courage of the Indian sisters that the Sri Lankan mission thrived, the Sri Lankan Apostolic Carmel sisters reached out to Pakistan in 1981 and manage eight schools mainly for the least and the lost Catholic Children in the four mission convents in the districts of Lahore, Faiselabad and Issanagri, set up by the Belgian Capuchin Fathers when it was the undivided Punjab of India.

This historic event of 100 years of the presence of AC sisters in Sri Lanka was celebrated in the various convents and institutions of Sri Lanka and Pakistan with a number of outreach programmes, competitions and a cultural programme. The Apostolic Carmel sisters carry on their mission with the motto ‘God Alone Suffices’.