Vailankanni

Vailankanni, also spelled Velankanni, is a pilgrimage town on the Bay of Bengal coast of Tamil Nadu in southern India. It is home to the Basilica of Our Lady of Good Health, one of the most visited Catholic shrines in Asia. Catholics venerate Mary, the mother of Jesus, here under the title Our Lady of Good Health, and millions of pilgrims come to the town each year. The largest gathering takes place during the annual festival from August 29 to September 8. The shrine is often called the Lourdes of the East, after the French shrine, the Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

The Shrine and Its Story

The tradition of the shrine goes back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and rests on three accounts. According to the shrine's tradition, Mary appeared to a boy carrying milk to a customer and asked for milk for her child; the boy gave it, and his pot was found full again. In a second account, Mary appeared to a lame boy selling buttermilk, asked him to carry a message to a rich man in a nearby town, and the boy found himself healed and able to walk. The third account tells of Portuguese sailors caught in a violent storm at sea who vowed to build a church wherever they reached land safely; they came ashore at Vailankanni and kept their vow.

The small chapel of those beginnings grew with the pilgrimage. It became a parish church in 1771. In 1962 Pope John XXIII raised the church to the rank of a minor basilica. In 2024 the Vatican formally approved the devotion to Our Lady of Good Health. The basilica is built in a European Gothic style and is painted white, and its towers are visible far along the flat coastline.

The Annual Festival

The festival of Vailankanni is held every year from August 29 to September 8. It opens with the hoisting of the festival flag and closes on September 8, the day on which Catholics celebrate the birth of Mary. The days between are filled with a Novena, a nine-day cycle of prayers, along with daily masses in Tamil and other languages, and processions in which the statue of Our Lady of Good Health is carried through the town on decorated chariots. During the festival the town fills with hundreds of thousands of pilgrims at a time, many camping in the open along the shore.

The Pilgrims

Many pilgrims travel to Vailankanni on foot. Walking groups set out from towns and cities across Tamil Nadu and beyond, some covering more than three hundred kilometers from Chennai, carrying flags and singing hymns along the coastal roads. At the shrine, pilgrims offer candles, and many have their heads shaved as an offering, a practice shared with pilgrimage customs at South Indian temples. Offerings connected with healing are central to the shrine's devotion, and a museum at the basilica displays gifts left by pilgrims in thanksgiving.

The pilgrimage is not limited to Christians. Hindus and members of other religions come to Vailankanni in large numbers, drawn by the shrine's reputation for healing, and the crowds at the festival reflect the shared religious life of southern India.