KOORACHUNDU, India (UCAN) -- Annakutty Puthur says she cannot believe the friend she worked with more than five decades ago might be declared a saint.

File photo of Sister Maria Celine a few days before she died on July 25, 1957.

"She was quite an ordinary person, but we were great friends," Puthur, 76, told UCA News in early November. Her friend, Sister Maria Celine of the Ursulines of Mary Immaculate, has been proclaimed a "servant of God," the first formal step on the road to possibly being canonized a saint.

Puthur said she is overjoyed to hear her old friend is on that road. She and Sister Celine taught in the early 1950s in a school in Koorachund, a Christian settlement in Kerala's Kozhikode district, 2,400 kilometers south of New Delhi.

Bishop Varghese Chakkalakal of Kannur, who proclaimed the nun a servant of God in July 2007, appointed a historical commission to proceed with the canonization process this past June, according to Ursuline Sister Liza Sebastian. Sister Sebastian, who is promoting the canonization cause as its postulator, told UCA News several miracles have been reported through Sister Celine's intercession. "Sister Celine is considered a powerful helper of schoolchildren," she added.

Sister Celine was 26 when she died of fever on July 25, 1957, just 35 days after her first profession. She was buried near Kannur, 90 kilometers north of Koorachund.

Puthur, a native of Koorachund, is among the nun's few surviving associates. She said Sister Celine came to her village after completing a teachers' training course in 1951. While teaching there, she decided to become a nun, and the local parish priest recommended the Italy-based Ursuline congregation that was working in Kannur.

"She lived with other teachers in a lodge and they used to come to my house on Sundays and feast days," Puthur recalled. According to the retired schoolteacher, Sister Celine "was pious, simple and humble, but I could never imagine I was chatting with a future saint."

Puthur too had joined the congregation as a candidate, but left when her mother died 15 days later.

At the convent, Sister Celine was Puthur's "guardian angel," a senior person assigned to guide a newcomer. "She taught me the rules and regulations with fervor and love," Puthur reminisced. "One day, the mother superior scolded her for a mistake she had not committed. But she knelt down before the superior and asked for pardon although everyone else knew she was innocent," Puthur recalled.

Puthur also recalled that the nun's family had insisted she delay joining the convent until her younger brother found a job. When the brother joined the Jesuits, Sister Celine joined the convent.

File photo of Sister Maria Celine on her first profession day, June 20, 1957.

Jesuit Father Linus Maria Zucol, Sister Celine's spiritual director, said the nun had visions of the crucified Christ and saints. Her superiors doubted the visions and even delayed her first profession.

"Though she was favored with visions, her life was filled with pain and suffering," Father Zucol, 91, told UCA News. "She was really a saint."

According to Sister Sebastian, Sister Celine used to offer her suffering for souls and the sanctification of Religious. "The intensity of the pain made her unconscious at times" she added.

Sister Celine is the first woman candidate for sainthood from the Latin-rite Church in Kerala. The southern Indian state already has Saint Alphonsa, the first Indian woman declared a saint. Pope Benedict XVI canonized her on Oct. 12 at the Vatican, but she belongs to the Syro-Malabar Church.

The Latin, Syro-Malabar and Syro-Malankara ritual Churches make up the Indian Catholic Church.

The Latin rite follows the Roman liturgy introduced by European missioners in the 15th century, while the two Oriental rites, both based in Kerala, follow Syrian Church traditions and trace their origins to Saint Thomas the Apostle.

Meanwhile, Puthur trusts in her old friend to intercede for her, saying: "I am sure she will do it for me."

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