Columban Sisters

On 15th November 1926, a group of five Columban Sisters arrived in Hanyang, China and were soon busy with language study, setting up house and responding to sick people who came to the house for treatment. Hopes and dreams of developing ministries to the poor were soon shattered, however, by the tense political situation between the warlords, nationalists and communists in Hanyang, as well as campaigns against foreigners.

Only a year later, the situation in Central China deteriorated very quickly. When the Japanese massacred several Europeans, including some missionaries, foreigners were leaving on all available boats. As the situation worsened by the hour, the Columban Sisters were also forced to depart for Shanghai, less than five months after their arrival in Hanyang.

In a letter of 7 April, written on the riverboat carrying them to Shanghai, Sister Mary Patrick described how she felt: ‘How sad it was to ride down the main street of Hanyang in our rickshaws, to see the busy teeming population all intent on their business: the old banker with his nanny-goat beard and silver scales to weigh the silver ounces, the quack doctor with his Materia Medica, the tea houses with those quaint figures sitting at little polished lacquer tables sipping their bowls of tea or arguing over their games of Chinese chess. So many quaint houses and quaint scenes, down to the coffin house with gaily covered sarcophagi and the busy carver decorating these coveted caskets. The fish lay in baskets and boxes by the side of the road, men sat in chairs being shaved, women washing their babies; such a medley of people, in and out, jostling one another on the road. It was just the same as the day we came, and now we were going away.’

Fortunately, by Christmas the Sisters were able to return to Hanyang. They were still without a convent or dispensary. But, as soon as they heard the Sisters were back, the people began to arrive daily in huge numbers and so the Sisters began their medical ministry in a makeshift dispensary, serving the sick with whatever medicines they could find.

A few years later, the river Yangtse burst through a vital dyke protecting the city of Hankow and caused one of the worst natural disasters in history: the Central China Flood of 1931. Thousands were drowned and many more left homeless. The Hanyang area where the Columban Sisters lived and worked was one of the places worst affected with the water rising to fifteen feet high. Refugees from the floods kept coming so that very soon the Sisters’ newly built convent, in which they had not yet lived, was accommodating more than three hundred refugee women, ranging in age from grandmothers to infants in arms. It was a handsome three storey house fronted by wide verandas, never intended for the purpose to which it was now put, and it took some measure of ingenuity to pack in three hundred people and feed them. At a later stage the building housed over four hundred. Altogether the Columbans sheltered and fed about eight hundred people, from early August 1931 until the floods began to abate in mid-October.

In the years that followed, marked as they were by war, floods and epidemics, life in China was never easy for the Columban Sisters but a strong bond with the Chinese people grew and has endured to the present day.

Sister Joan Sawyer

Lurigancho Prison in Lima “is a sad, depressing, foul-smelling place, as are most prisons in South America,” Columban Sister Joan Sawyer wrote some months after she began working there as a pastoral agent in the early 1980’s. Originally intended for 1,800 prisoners, it had a population of over 6,000. A petite, gentle Belfast woman, Joan was shocked at the conditions in which the men were incarcerated. The insurmountable tensions created by such overcrowding, the rage, and the frustration they experienced found expression in the daily violence among the inmates. And yet, she could write, “Behind the bars of Pavilion 6 and 8 (where she worked), I have seen acts of loyalty and charity that maybe if I were in the same situation, I would not be able to do.”

From the beginning Joan was determined to do all she could to alleviate the pain of the men she worked with. Most of them came from poor families, with never enough to eat, illiterate, jobless and all too frequently on drugs. It was a dastardly existence but it did not deter the ‘wee nun’ who gave of herself, heart and soul to this ministry. “I can say that these months have been the most deeply rewarding of my life.”

What does prison ministry involve? For first it meant letting the men know they were people of worth and with dignity. She respected them and they felt it. They told her their names, gave her their family address, and told her the reason for their imprisonment. A good listener, she spent much time with them, encouraging them not to lose hope despite the injustice of the system that brough them to this hellish place. Believing things will get better, Joan prayed with them and helped them to prepare for the weekly liturgy of the Eucharist.

Of course, in that soul-destroying place, the overwhelming desire of every man was to be released, to escape from the inhumane environment of Lurigancho. Joan felt their pain and felt frustrated at being able to do so little to help even though her colleagues saw her as a committed friend to the prisoners. Tenacious in her appeals on their behalf to the Department of Justice, she worked to get their sentences reduced, their documents rectified, their appeals heard. She acted as a go-between in her visits to their families, helping to reconcile fathers to their imprisoned sons. She brought them the little gifts of food from their mothers, small sums of money to help pay towards legal aid.

But the tension increased in the oppressive summer heat as Christmas drew near in 1983. Sporadic riots took place, followed by severe punishments for the rioters. Like a virus the unrest spread among the men; a heavy air of foreboding hung over the prison; something had to give.

Finally on Wednesday 14th December, it happened. Nine of the prisoners decided to make a break for freedom or die in the attempt. Their plan was to hold the pastoral agents and social workers as hostages until the prison authorities gave them transport to speed away. It was a plan made in desperation; negotiations went on for hours, the men asking for an ambulance, as it was less likely to be held up as they escaped. Joan and the other five hostages were bundled into the van with the nine escaping prisoners. No sooner had they driven through the gates than the police opened fire. Joan and seven prisoners were shot dead.

When news of the botched escape broke, the poor in their thousands gathered to mourn the little nun who gave her life for others. She was one with the prisoners. Her funeral was attended by the men and women who understood something of her hidden and heroic sacrifice. “It is not possible to bury the light” was the theme of one of the many Masses offered for Joan and her companions and it catches something of the radiant spirit of faith of this great missionary. Her light continues to shine today, inspiring others to commit themselves to fearlessly work for justice, to be people of the Kingdom so that, even in the places of darkness and despair, Christ’s love and compassion may be known.

A large banner in the church proclaimed, “Juanita, you will live on in the hearts of your people.”

While Joan’s body lay in the church in Cueva, a shantytown of Lima, crowds of people gathered and filed past the coffin through the night. These were the people among whom Joan had lived and ministered for six years: helping them find food for their children, taking care of their sick and easing the lot of prisoners.

Sr. Redempta Twomey (Far East Magazine)

Daring to Hope