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The final days of the outlaw Saradiel
By Lenard R. Mahaarachchi
Udena Attygalle in his article in The Sunday Times of February 26 has written of Saradiel. Readers may like to know that Saradiel is on record as having died a Catholic, after he was converted by the Oblate priests here.

This story is detailed in a book titled, “Gleanings from the Oblates Mission Field in Ceylon” edited by Fr. Emmanuel Jesuthasan OMI. Page 88 gives the story as follows:

Saradiel had hardly completed a day in prison, when he discovered that even a criminal like him could be loved and sympathised with. This consoling thought was given to him by Frs. Pulicani and Duffo, the duo who prayed for him giving him books to read.

Once when questioned as to what he had read, the priests were surprised with his power of intelligence. The fathers had been visiting him for days teaching him catechism, which he learnt very enthusiastically within the prison walls. When he was found to be qualified to receive baptism, the priests did not hesitate to do so at his own request.

Saradiel, the hard-hearted outlaw, is on record to have wept when told that his sins were forgiven in the Holy Sacrament of Baptism, saying, “How strange it is that I who have never shed a tear before, should now be moved to tears by your words.” When Fr. Duffo asked him if he wanted to retain his name, his reply was, “Oh no, it is a name so stained with evil that it cannot be washed clean.” The fathers have given him the name Joseph, the patron of a happy death.

The priests reported that consequent to baptism, Sardiel the criminal had become ‘Gentle and tractable as a lamb.’ Once being asked by the priests if he feared death, Sardiel has said, “No, the thought of Jesus’ sufferings strengthened me. He was treated the same way I was treated, the difference being that He was innocent and I am not.” At 6 a.m. on May 7, the day he was executed, Fr. Duffo had visited him and asked how he spent the last night of his life. His reply was, “ Father, I took great care not to stain my soul at the last moment.”

When his last breakfast was brought, he had asked Fr. Duffo to bless it. His last drink was a glass of brandy, which he refused, but later took, on the request of the priest. Fr. Duffo concludes that when Joseph was taken for his execution, he was meek like a lamb taken to the slaughter house.

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