New Delhi - India is to have its first female saint when Pope Benedict XVI canonizes Sister Alphonsa October 12 at the Vatican, media reports said Friday.

As preparations were under way to elevate the nun 62 years after her death, hundreds of Christian devotees from her home state of Kerala in southern India were on their way to the Vatican to attend the ceremony, the NDTV network reported.

"It is a matter of great joy for the Indian Christian community that one of its believers is being canonized," Father Dominic Emmanuel, spokesman for the New Delhi archdiocese, told the Times of India.

"The Christian community here is excited," he said. "... We believe there is one more saint in heaven for India to pray to."

Born Anna Muttathupandathu on August 19, 1910, in the Kottayam district, the nun is said to have divine powers that have cured many people.

She lost her mother at an early age and showed an inclination for religious life as a child despite suffering from various illnesses. She entered the convent in 1927 and died in 1946.

Her beatification, the first step toward sainthood, came under pope John Paul II during his 1985 visit to India. In March, Pope Benedict XVI authorized her canonization after he approved a miracle attributed to her.

The Vatican identified the healing of a 1-year-old boy in Kerala who could not walk because of a congenital disability as her miracle. Jinil was said to have begun walking the day his parents took him to Alphonsa's tomb for prayers.

Alphonsa would be the second Christian saint from India after Gonsalo Garcia. Garcia, born to a Portuguese father and Indian mother in 1556, is the patron saint of the western city of Mumbai and did missionary work in Japan.

Christianity is Hindu-majority India's third-largest religion with nearly 24 million followers, constituting 2.3 per cent of the country's population. According to Indian Christian traditions, Saint Thomas introduced Christianity in India in the year 52. (dpa)