Peter Reddy, also known as Paul Chinnappa Reddiar or Paradesi Peter (Pilgrim Peter), was born on 30 April 1895 in Periooru, a village in the Madurai region of Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India.
His parents were Hindus who converted to Lutheranism, and he, at the age of eighteen, first heard about Saint Francis from Anglican missionaries. His family’s prosperity enabled him to pursue higher education, and in 1927 he joined the faculty of St. Francis Xavier College in Palayamkottai — widely known as the “Oxford of South India”.
Drawn ever more deeply to the Franciscan ideal, Peter entered the Third Order of Saint Francis in 1944. After a three-day spiritual retreat with the Capuchins in Trichy, and at the direction of Fr. Urban, OFM Cap, he renounced everything and took to the road as a paradesi — a pilgrim. With only a Bible and a begging bowl, dressed in a plain brown habit without a hood, he travelled across the southern Indian states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka, sharing the message of God wherever he went.
Although he was an educated and respected university professor, Peter socialized with beggars, regardless of their caste, testifying to God’s love for the poorest. At first, he preached in English and his native Tamil. In the following years, he would learn Hindi, Sanskrit, Malayalam, Italian, German, French, Hebrew, and Aramaic for the sake of evangelization. (It should be remembered that at that time he was already over fifty years old!)
Peter also used the press to preach the gospel; he wrote nine books and more than 50 Tamil liturgical songs. He encouraged his countrymen to live a pious life with simple language and images from everyday life, close to the common man.
Peter Reddy’s spirituality is characterized by an apostolic spirit, primordial poverty and self-denial, obedience to the Church and God’s call, and love for the Eucharist and the Blessed Virgin Mary. He is credited with the saying: “I do not look at the man who insults me, but at Jesus who stands behind him. I will do as Jesus did when he was insulted.”
The most important teachers of spiritual life for him were Saint Francis and the first canonized Indian woman, Saint Alphonsa of the Immaculate Conception (1910 – 1946), a sister from the Franciscan Clarist Congregation (FCC), a congregation that emerged in Kerala from the Third Franciscan Order.
After 14 years of a difficult life as a beggar, Peter died with a reputation for holiness on 21 June 1958 and was buried in Palayamkottai. The cause for his beatification was initiated by the local diocese in 2008.
Feast Day – June 21.
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