Le jour suivant, les dépuiations de tous les- villages voisins accoururent pour nous offrir leurs présents et nous conjurer d'aller visiter leurs églises depuis longtemps privées de leurs pasteurs.
53
1838
A most touching explosion of joy
In 1838 the restored Society of Jesus came back into the southern mission with two French fathers, Martin and du Ranquet, and in June Fr Martin came south to Vadakkankulam — “a Christian community considerable in the number and the nobility of its inhabitants, who received us with a most touching explosion of joy.” The next day deputations came running in from all the villages round about with their gifts, begging him to visit their own churches, “long deprived of their pastors.” That afternoon forty-five children were baptised. After sixty-three years there was a Jesuit again in the brick church of 1752, and a congregation that had gone on growing.
DocumentedThis moment rests on 3 sources.
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In English
“We went to Vadakencoulam, a Christian community considerable in the number and the nobility of its inhabitants, who received us with a most touching explosion of joy. The next day the deputations of all the neighbouring villages came running to offer us their gifts and to beg us to go and visit their churches, long deprived of their pastors… In the afternoon we conferred baptism on forty-five children.”
What this source establishes
Fr Martin’s letter to Fr Bertrand, Punnaikayal, 14 July 1838 — a printed eyewitness document, and the real citation for the Jesuits’ return. He set out from Palamcottah on 15 June and was at Cape Comorin by the 19th, so the visit falls in the middle of that week. Windowed: the caste row that followed stands on the same printed page and is not published here.