LITTLE FLOWER EDUCATIONAL AND CHARITABLE TRUST

Little Flower Educational and Charitable Trust is a body registered in 1999 under the Literary, Scientific and Charitable Societies Registration Act with registration No.100/4/2000. This Trust is sponsored by Missionaries of Little Flower Congregation. It is a purely voluntary and non-profit making organization. It extends beneficial services to the poor and needy living in the remote rural areas with a view to improve the living conditions of the people and to train young people to lead a meaningful life.

MLF at a glance:

Missionaries of Little Flower is an Eparchial Congregation in the Archdiocese of Changanacherry. It was founded in the year 1991 at Parelpally in Changanacherry by Emeritus Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil. At present, MLF renders its apostolic services in eight Syro-Malabar dioceses in Kerala, Changanacherry, Palai, Kanjirappally, Thalassery, Mananthavady, Thamarassery and Idukki. Besides we have two mission areas; Adilabad in Andhra Pradesh and Agra in Uttar Pradesh. We render our services in Germany and Italy too. There are eight General Synaxis in its history and we have 24 convents, 164 professed sisters and 11 candidates.

MLF Charism (To be a witness and shareholder of the Merciful Love of God)

According to Renfro, “no one person, no one community could manifest all the attributes of the Lord. Each religious family reflects a particular aspect or a particular combination of the aspects of the Gospel”. God’s merciful love manifested in Christ holds infinite possibilities of existential response. The call of the MLF is to be understood within this radical call to be merciful with its own inspired emphasis. Our call is a unique call to be merciful, a call to experience and transmit the merciful love. Therefore, we are called to witness to Christ, the merciful, to everyone especially among the poor and the sick.

The present activities of the Congregation are nursing care to the poor, caring the old people specially who are orphans, caring the terminal cancer patients, pastoral activities in the parishes and rendering service to the bedridden patients of the families. We are conducting ‘home mission’ in the parishes and do counselling for the children and families. To impart message of Christ and Gospel values in children we run schools. We have 4 schools, 3 nurseries, one old age home and a cancer centre.

Our Founder: Emeritus Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil, Archdiocese of Changanacherry

Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil is a great visionary, who dedicated his life for the Church and the society. His fundamental vision and ideal, ‘to me, to live is Church’ have great influence in our life style. Our patron saint St. Little Flower and our founder’s vision on Church are the same. ‘At last I have discovered my vocation, at the heart of the Church, I will be love,’ (St. Therese of Lisieux) from her words we can understand that the Church had a Heart and that this Heart was flame with love and that love alone stirred the members of the Church to act. By his speeches and writings, our founder trained us to be in the heart of the Church. He has urged us not to be mere passive members of the Church, but to think with, act with and also feel with the Church. He desires that religioushave to be rooted in the spirituality of their Mother Church. The Syro-Malabar religious must be imbued with the spirituality of this Church. With this intention, we follow a life style as more, Liturgical and Oriental at the same time missionaries in spirit and action and Carmelites in prayer and contemplation.

A Short Life History of Our Founder

Archbishop Mar Joseph Powathil was born on 14th August 1930 in the quiet hamlet of Kurumbanadam near Changanacherry as the eldest of the three sons of shriUlahannan Joseph and Mariamma. He had his basic education in three different schools. His intermediate and graduate studies were at St. Berchamans College Changanacherry. After having his Master degree in Economics from Loyola College Madras, he joined the diocesan minor seminary Changanacherry in 1953. He was ordained priest on 3rdOctober 1962. He was appointed auxiliary bishop of Changanacherry on 29th January 1972 and was consecrated by Pope Paul VI on 13th February 1972. After five years, he was appointed Bishop of newborn diocese Kanjirappally. He served there for nine years. He rose to become Archbishop and returned to Changanacherry on 16th November 1985 succeeding Mar Antony Padiyara. He served as the President of Catholic Bishop Conference of India (CBCI 1994-1998), the Chairman of Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC 1993-1996) and the Chairman of Education Commission of the CBCI. In other fields of his service, he acted as the Founder and Chairman of Inter Church Council for Education, the Chairman of Indian Religious Fellowship, the member of the Pro Oriente Foundation at Vienna, Australia etc…. Though retired from his service, on 19th March 2007, now also he is active in all the fields of society as a powerful soldier of the Church.