Biography of Father Jose Uppani
I was ordained a priest on December 19, 1981. I was very seriously sick all through my seminary days so much so that no body expected that I would be ordained. But, God in his rich mercy willed that I should become a priest.
I have worked 3 years as associate pastor and 12 years as pastor, all together in 8 parishes. Everywhere I was inspired to give more importance to the renewal of the young people and so I conducted retreats and prayer groups for them and there was an amazing co-operation from their part. I also organized big Bible Conventions in all my parishes, through which the Holy Spirit renewed the whole parish and neighboring parishes.
In 1990, I got very seriously sick as I was doing my pastoral visit to houses. I was taken to the hospital and eventually I reached the brim of death. All the doctors gave up their hope. To prepare for my death I expressed my desire to visit a retreat center in our city. One day I was taken to that holy place by my friends. That was the turning point. The director of that center, FR. George Panakal prayed over me and asked me to preach on their stage the very next day onwards. I began to sense a miraculous healing and an anointing to preach the word of God in a new way. The Holy Spirit taught me miraculously everything during that 4 weeks stay there. I understood clearly that, that terminal illness was to make me a retreat preacher and ever since I had that experience I began to preach retreats in various parishes along with my ministry as a pastor.
In 1996, my then Archbishop Cardinal Anthony Padiara, appointed me as director of a prayer center that belonged to our diocese. That center was about to close due to some communal riots and so on. I reached there with four young men as my prayer team and we began to pray together for the uplifting of the ministry there. We began to fast and pray and invited a few who showed interest in our prayer campaign. The Lord heard our prayer. He began to show his mercy. People began to flow to our fasting prayer. Lot of healing began to happen. Eventually our fasting prayer group became a powerful prayer community of 4000 people.
After a few months, I got the inspiration to start a camp retreat. And the response from the public was very great. Eventually we began camp retreat every week. And people began to come in great number every week for one full-weak retreat. Thus by 2003 every week we began to get about 600 people for the weekly retreat.
Along with this retreat, the Lord also gave me lot of opportunities to conduct retreats in colleges and other institutions of youth education. That was the most exciting experience. I could see thousands of teen-agers and youngsters were set free by the Lord through the power of the Holy Spirit . Inspired by this, we began to organize big spiritual festivals for young people by the name: “SHALOM MEET”. And it really made a lot of difference among the youth in our city and all over the state. I thank God with great-full heart for all His incredible work for the renewal of His people.
In 2003, my Archbishop Cardinal Varkey Vithayathil told me that I would be worn out if I continue that work without a break. Hence he told me that I need some rest from that ministry to equip me with good health and theological updating. That is why I am sent to the U.S.