Our Founder
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Rajagiri
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Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara
Saint Kuriakose Elias Chavara was born on 10 February 1805 at Kainakary,Kerala. At the age of five he began his studies in a village school, called Kalari. When he was 13, he joined the seminary at Pallipuram for his priestly training. While he was in the seminary, his parents and his eldest brother died of an epidemic. On 29 November 1829 he became a priest.
Saint Chavara was instrumental in founding two Catholic Religious Congregations : one for men, Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI), and the other for women, Congregation of Mother of Carmel (CMC), for the spiritual renewal and all round development of society.
Starting seven ashrams and a convent in different parts of Kerala, Saint Chavara initiated a spiritual movement among the people of Kerala. He established the first Catholic Sanskrit School, a major seminary and a printing & publishing house at Mannanam. He directed that every church should start a school attached to it and encouraged children – even poorer sections – to attend the schools by supplying midday meal and dress for them. He founded a ‘Home of Charity’ to take care of the destitute, the beggars, the uncared sick and the old. He also organized the first voluntary charitable association in Kerala for self-help among the needy.
Even in the midst of such manifold activities, he found time to write several literary and spiritual books in prose as well as verse. Among them, ‘Anastasyayude Rakthasakshyam’ is the first narrative poem and ‘Nalagamangal’, the first chronicle of history in Malayalam. He knew seven languages – Malayalam, Tamil, Sanskrit, Syriac, Latin, Italian and Portuguese.
Saint Chavara was a man of prayer and great charity. He lived for 65 years and died on 3rd January 1871. His sanctity was officially recognised by the Church, when Pope John Paul II declared him ‘Blessed’ on 8th February 1986. On 23 November 2014, he was canonised at Saint Peter’s Square by Pope Francis along with Euphrasia Eluvathingal. Pope Francis stated that “Father Kuriakose Elias was a religious, both active and contemplative, who generously gave his life for the Syro-Malabar Church, putting into action the maxim “sanctification of oneself and the salvation of others.”
Saint Chavara is the heavenly patron of all CMI and CMC institutions. Let us pray to him to intercede before God for all our needs, especially for success in our studies.
Important Sayings of Saint Chavara
- Children, you are God’s gift in the hands of your parents.
- The children who have a love of God and fear of God will love and respect their parents.
- Trust your mother; God will hear the prayers of the mother as yours.
- Food is for the body, so is wisdom for the intellect.
- Go to school regularly and recall to mind what is taught during the week.
- Laziness fosters evil habits.
- Let your friends be those who love God.
- The day in which you have not done any good to your fellowmen will not be recorded in your book of life.
- Keeping bad books is like hiding fire in hay.
- Regular reading of good books and meditating on them will illumine the mind.
- Attain punctuality by means of a regular time table.
- You angels will be turned to devils, if you fall into evil situations.
- You ought to reach home before evening and take part in evening prayers.
- Desire that others love you, and not that they fear you.
- Take special care to keep modesty while you sit, walk or lie down.
- You are to forgive and forget the wrong doings of others.
- Tell me who your friends are and I will tell who you are.
- What you earn by deceit and theft will melt like snow.
- Idleness is the mother of all vices and would induce one to the habit of drinking.
- Both stinginess and extravagance are equally sinful.
- Had you not lighted the lamp during the day time, you could have lit it during the night.
- Do not insult or trouble the poor.
- God decides your vocation and it is for you to choose it.
- If your parents have left any obligation of restitution, fulfill it with diligence and devotion.
- Even if you are grown in age and maturity, you have to respect your parents and submit to them.
- Do not hate your own brethren.
- It is the duty of children to look after their parents.
- Do not cause for your parents to shed tears on account of you.
- The humble man is the greatest among men.
- Since you belong to God, you have to give yourself back to God.
History
The Rajagiri Public School was started in 1994 by the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate (CMI) of the Sacred Heart Province, Rajagiri, Kalamassery.
Since the establishment of the first Catholic Sanskrit School in Kerala in 1846, the CMI congregation has upheld foremost the ideals of its heavenly patron Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara (1805-1871) in establishing a wide network of educational institutions all over India. A distinguishing feature of these educational institutions is that they draw inspiration from the life of Jesus Christ as also from the sages and prophets of our land and are deeply rooted in its culture.
The CMI Vision of Education consists in ‘the formation of the human person for the fulfillment of his/her individual and responsibilities’. It aims at forming leaders” who will champion the cause of justice, love, truth and peace and who are ever open to further growth”. Education for complete living has been the watchword of all its educational projects and programmes.
The Rajagiri Public School stands as yet another landmark in the’ abode of learning’ that is the Rajagiri campus. It imparts quality education and enriches the learning environment in order to optimize each child’s overall development and help realize its full potential. The focus is on bringing up caring, confident youngsters who will uphold moral and spiritual values and eventually take their place as productive, responsible members of society.
CMI Education Policy
We, the Carmelites of Mary Immaculate, following the footsteps of our founder Blessed Kuriakose Elias Chavara, consider education as the integral formation of the human person for the fulfillment of his/ her individual and social responsibilities.
Our education endeavours at forming leaders who are intellectually competent, spiritually mature, morally upright, psychologically integrated, physically healthy and socially acceptable, who will champion the cause of justice, love, truth and peace, and who are ever open to further growth.
The secret of success of our educational institutions is a community of teachers who are committed to their vocation, professionally competent, morally upright, just and humane in dealings, culturally sensitive and who grow in the true vision of education.
We aspire towards creating a just and humane society, where dignity of an individual is respected, where unjust social structures are challenged, where our cultural heritage of ahimsa, religious harmony and national unity are upheld and where the poor and the marginalized are specially taken care of .
We reach out to the families, primarily of the students, to assist them in their needs, to share their joys and sorrows and to help them experience love and freedom so that the students realize that our educational institutions are an extension of their homes.
Our institutions are open to all students irrespective of caste and creed; they are accepted and cherished as they are and are helped to grow in their cultural, social and religious traditions. As they are privileged to be in our institutions, they will also have the right to get acquainted with the person of Jesus Christ and His Gospel. Being institutions established and administered by and for a minority community based on religion, we give preference to Christians in admissions and appointments and have a special concern for the faith formation of the Christian youth.
Our institutions are also open to society at large by making their resources available for the ongoing education and growth.
For the realization of the CMI goal of education, we invite the students, parents and teachers to share this vision and cooperate with us whole heartedly.