A role model of love and courage

By Sean Collins CSsR

An ex-gangster saw me at the post office in Eden Park on the East Rand and approached me with a friendly greeting and offered the following testimony.

Some years ago in his youth one of his fellow gang members was stabbed more than 30 times and was fighting for his life in the Natalspruit hospital. While my interlocutor and his gang brothers boarded the bus to visit their buddy in hospital, they immediately noticed seated on board a member of an enemy gang. The laws of the mob dictated only one thing: blood had to flow and a lethal lesson had to be taught to the enemy.

Terror seized the other passengers who scrambled to the opposite end of the bus when four knife-wielding executioners cornered their hapless victim-to-be. At that point a nun who was among the passengers stepped forward and stood protectively in front of the intended prey.

The would-be murderers were furious at being deflected from their evil intent, and she herself stood in deadly peril. Nevertheless she stood here undaunted: her message was clear: “You’ll have to kill me first.”

Miraculously the young gangsters agreed to put away their knives and were persuaded by the nun—a stranger to them—to leave the boy unmolested even after she would leave the bus.

God intervened that day and a change took place for the better as peace and reconciliation dissolved the enmity between both sides. The former gangster is now a school teacher and committed Christian active in his community.

Sr Finbarr, the nun, didn’t seek any reward or newspaper accolades. She is remembered and revered in the hearts of ordinary people with whom she rode on bus, whom she consoled when they were sick at home, whom she instructed in the faith, and whom she joined in scrubbing the church spotless for Christmas.

A role model indeed she has continued to be years afterwards. Till today.