The 10th
of September 1979 was the day we held the funeral for John Bradburne in the
Catholic Cathedral in Harare (or Salisbury as it still was then). I gave the
homily to a packed congregation .
The 10th
of September 2018 was the day we held the funeral for Celia Brigstocke, John’s
niece, at Milford in Surrey, in the UK. I again gave the homily, this time too
to the many who gathered to mourn and celebrate Celia..
This amazing
coincidence of the date – it was also the day (in 1979) the Lancaster House
talks began that would lead to the independence of Zimbabwe - underlines the
close connection between uncle and niece, for it fell to Celia to gather all
the material about John that has emerged since his death 39 years before. She collected
an archive in her home in Hereford of the poems John wrote, the letters he sent
and the testimonies about his life from people many claiming to have been
healed through his intercession,
Celia, and
her husband Tim, struggled with the surge of interest in John which gradually
gathered round a desire to see John beatified.
This was unchartered territory for both of them and there was some
ambivalence in the response of those who could help take the cause
forward. This was not due to any lack
of appreciation of John but just a reluctance to navigate the complex processes
the Catholic Church lays down for such a step.
Our incapacity to find a way – both in Zimbabwe where John spent the
crowning years of his life – and England where it all began – led to the
process stalling.
It was at
this moment that two things happened: Celia became ill with a cancer that was
to prove fatal and a “postulator” or official promoter of the cause was
appointed by Rome. It would seem these two events are connected: Celia’s giving
of herself totally led to a breakthrough in the project she was devoted to.
So the cause
for the beatification of John Bradburne is beginning. The postulator, Enrico (I do not have his
family name to hand) interviewed those whom he could and he was quite piercing
in his questions. There will be many
more searching questions and part of the process is to try to find reasons why
John should NOT be beatified. There will
be a “trial” according to Church law.
A further
development this year is the English publication of Didier Rance’s Le Vagabond de Dieu, The Vagabond of
God. It is a wonderful book for anyone who really wants to know John. It recounts his wanderings but in particular
it describes in sensitive detail the terrible struggles he had in his last
years. We knew the ever smiling joking
John. What we did perhaps not know was the immense cost of his discipleship of Jesus. There were times when John felt rejected by
nearly everyone. He was laughed at,
expelled from Mutemwa and had to live “outside.” His accommodation was that of a poor man and
his food negligible. Finally he had an agony and a thirst, a Pilate-like
attempted reprieve and finally death in a hidden place near the Mutoko road.
The place
did not remain hidden for long and since 1979 there has been an immense
explosion of interest and devotion. This
is no place to go into details but what is glaringly obvious is that John showed
a flint-like determination to follow the way he felt drawn. Nothing mattered
except his search for God. Everything
else - food, clothing, shelter, convenience or comfort came way down in his
list of priorities. So focused was he
that he would not allow himself the joys of marriage and family life. He lived
a solitary life in a tin hut totally content with the space it gave him to
pursue the one goal of his life.
And one
final thing. It was Heather Benoy who said, “Mutemwa made John.” What I take her to mean is that John had
spent almost fifty years searching for his way and all who knew him in those
early years knew him as an exceptionally holy person. But it was Mutemwa that
crowned it all. There he combined his
intense inner search with a total giving of himself in service to the people
living with leprosy. It was not a
pleasant job and at first he recoiled from it.
But he soon embraced the life and his early years at Mutemwa were the happiest
of his life. He would often write to his great friend John Dove, “I have found
my place at last”
David Harold
Barry . .
