Our big debt to nuns

BY WINNIE GRAHAM

Last month’s murder of Sr Mary Paule Tacke, the nun responsible for founding homes for orphaned children in the Eastern Cape, has highlighted the importance of making better known the work being done by religious sisters round South Africa.

For the most part these dedicated women identify a need and simply get on with the job. They are generally a self-effacing lot, not given to blowing their trumpets. They simply follow their calling. Yet their efforts are not always recognised.

In the case of Sr Mary Paule, who knows why the hijackers targeted an 82-year-old nun? Did they not know what good work the sisters were doing there? It seems unlikely. And so a saintly woman had to die.

The Catholic Church is, perhaps, the most misunderstood of all religions. I speak from experience. My father was a Presbyterian, my mother a member of the Dutch Reformed Church. I was baptised a Methodist (the only minister in town at the time).

My mother died of heart failure when I was six. My devastated father, left with four small children ranging in age from seven months to seven years, had difficulty coping.

Initially we were farmed out to aunts but eventually my sister and I were enrolled at a government boarding school. The venture failed. There was no supervision in the hostel. We went to school with our faces unwashed and our hair uncombed. All our clothes were stolen.

We moved from one school to another. In despair, my father approached the Dominican sisters in Potchefstroom where he worked. Did they have space for his daughters in their boarding school? “Of course,” they said. But the local dominee was appalled. How could my father even think about handing over his offspring to the Roomse gevaar (Roman peril)?

“Will your wife look after my children?” my father asked him. The answer, predictably, was no. “We have no space.”

So, fortunately, we were handed over to Sr Lucina at the Sacred Heart convent.

Several decades have gone by since that wonderful day. My big sister was weeping when my father left us at the convent. An hour later we were having supper with our new friends in the dining room. The sisters had made certain we were not left alone for a moment.

Bedtime was an even happier experience. Sister came and tucked us in, pointing to her cubicle in the corner “in case you are worried about anything in the night”. Then she said prayers with us and we settled down quietly to sleep.

I spent the rest of my school days at the convent. I wasn’t always good and I got into trouble fairly often, but the sisters were always fair. They instilled a sense of right and wrong—and the need to apologise when necessary. They provided a routine so essential in the lives of the young. Most important, they showed they cared about us. I never felt alone or unhappy in their care.

Most of all I loved Sr Gerard, a nun probably in her sixties who did the laundry and washed the dishes after meals. I was always under her feet but she never once scolded me. I loved her so much that I prayed that she could be my mother. Sixty years on, I still think about her.

On Sundays the sisters trotted all the non-Catholics to their respective churches. Through the years no effort was made to “convert” us—though, to be honest, I longed to be a Catholic. I loved going into the chapel to say my prayers. The church became a retreat for the times I longed for my dead mother. But I was happy to be with the sisters. I wanted to be like them. I basked in their quiet holiness.

Love was not a word much used then, but I know I experienced it with those no-nonsense Domincans.

It followed naturally that when I had children of my own that I would want them to have the same experience. We enrolled our daughters at Holy Cross Convent in Victory Park, Johannesburg, and our sons at De La Salle College.

It was through them that I am a Catholic today. They came of their own accord, one at a time, asking if they could become Catholics. “Sister says you must see Fr Fidgeon. Please go,” the girls pleaded. And, of course, I did. The boys took the initiative themselves. Within the space of a few years I had four little Catholics in my home. We went to Mass together every Sunday.

Then, one day, I called our parish priest. “It’s my turn now,” I said.

For me it was a homecoming. This was where I belonged. Why had it taken so long for me to realise it? My late husband,  a devout Methodist, followed last, at the behest of his sons.

All this brings me back to religious sisters. I have never known them ask for acknowledgement for the good they do. They have given their hearts to God and do what is necessary.

Yet, for some reason, all sorts of weird reports occasionally surface about nuns. The sisters are supposedly involved in some or other alleged wrongdoing. The headlines are blazoned across front pages.

The old Roomse gevaar monster lives on in the minds of the uninformed.

In more than six decades—the last three as a Catholic—I have encountered only love and warmth from a range of sisters, be it at schools, hospitals or in the field. In my view they are saintly women to be cherished in our midst.

It is for this reason that I believe sisters should receive greater recognition for their contribution. They are everywhere: in squatter camps, hospitals, hostels, refugee centres, homes. They deserve our protection and support.

With Sr Mary Paule lost to us we can only pay tribute for all she did for our children. May she rest in peace and never be forgotten by those she loved and nurtured — and by society.