Sister Mildred Lungile Madlala FMM : Sister on a Mission

THE ADVENTUROUS NUN – Stories my family told me: The biography of Sister Mildred Lungile Madlala FMM, by Marcia Mandisi Mabaso. 2022. 240pp.

Reviewed by Günther Simmermacher

It is important that the stories of those who serve God be recorded. In The Adventurous Nun, we read the story of Sr Mildred Lungile Madlala, a Franciscan Missionary of Mary (FMM) from KwaZulu-Natal who served in South Africa, Mauritius, Kenya, Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) and Madagascar.

That story is told by her grandniece, Marcia Mandisi Mabaso, with whom Sr Mildred collaborated over several years. Sadly, Sr Mildred did not live to see the book’s publication. Her hope was that it might inspire young people to see the joy of God which she felt in her vocation. As a former vocations director, she was keen to communicate the blessings and fulfilment she had derived from being a missionary Sister.

Born in 1945 on a farm near Umzinto, KwaZulu-Natal, Sr Mildred came from a complicated family background, which Mabaso describes in some detail. A bright child, Mildred was educated at St Anne’s Convent School in Umzinto and St Francis College in Mariannhill.

Flying in formation

At St Anne’s she was impressed by the Sisters’ love of God and for each other. “They seemed to fly in formation at the name of God,” she would observe. The seed for Mildred’s own vocation was sown by that example, and she would later join these Sisters.

During her time at St Francis College, the prefect was the later political activist Steve Biko. He would become a friend and inspire Mildred to be politically conscious — something she had to conceal when she entered her postulancy with the FMM. Her great spiritual influence at the time was Fr William Slattery, then still a young Franciscan priest who would later become the bishop of Kokstad and archbishop of Pretoria.

Before and after her first stint as a postulant, Mildred worked as a teacher. In 1973, she rejoined the FMM and was posted to Mauritius. She made her first profession there in 1978, and her final profession in Rome in 1983.

By then it was already decided that Sr Mildred would be part of a group of Sisters chosen to set up a FMM Province in Kenya. Among the people we meet along her way there is Fr Tony Rebello SVD, now bishop of Francistown in Botswana.

Before departing for Kenya, Sr Mildred had two encounters with Pope John Paul II. At a general audience, the pope told her that he was praying daily for the demise of apartheid. At the second meeting, for missionaries about to go off to other lands, the pope blessed Sr Mildred, kissed her cheek, and advised that “life is not going to be easy for you”. She was about to follow the “suffering servant”, but the Holy Father would pray for her.

These words would sustain Sr Mildred in tough times, especially during her decade in Zaire, which covered the 1990s and were marked by recurrent civil wars.

She returned to South Africa in 2000, serving as her congregation’s vocations director from 2007-15. In January 2020 an old dream was fulfilled: Sr Mildred was posted to Madagascar to teach young Sisters English. She would not return home. On July 27 that year Sr Mildred died unexpectedly of Covid-19.

Painful and exciting

Writing about the life of a missionary, author Mabaso observes: “To [Sr Mildred], and for other Sisters, being sent on mission was painful as much as it was exciting; in essence it was like a small death because you were leaving behind the people you loved. Nevertheless, once on the plane, their hearts were already looking forward to their mission…”

Sr Mildred’s story provides an instructive glimpse into the life of a missionary Sister, and presents that path as challenging but richly rewarding. There are some lovely anecdotes, such as Sr Mildred’s encounter with a lion in Kenya.

Mabaso writes engagingly, with a nice line in metaphors (describing an encounter set in the early 1920s, she writes: “…she was speaking but his mobile data was off and he wasn’t receiving the messages”). The book might have profited from rigorous editing to direct the narrative more effectively, but there always is a lot of heart in the text.

The story of Sr Mildred is supplemented by a section of her poetry, her reflections on lessons she had learnt from certain people, and an extensive collection of colour photos.

The Adventurous Nun is a testimony of service to God and his people, performed by a faithful servant. Sr Mildred was a sower of seeds; may these seeds grow in abundance.

The Adventurous Nun is available in Catholic bookshops and as an eBook. See marciamandisimabaso.co.za or WhatsApp 063 683-8998

Reviewed in the January 2023 issue of The Southern Cross magazine