I have
been deeply affected by the death of Plaxedes Ruvadiki Kamudiya, a teacher at
St George’s intermediate school in Harare. I do not live in Zimbabwe at the
moment and I may not have all the facts correct. It seems she went to Mutemwa,
the settlement near Mutoko where people living with leprosy and other
disabilities are cared for. Mutemwa has drawn people who wish to “go away for a
while” (Mark 6:31) since the time John Bradburne – the “vagabond” of God – who lived
and was killed there in the 1970s.
Plaxedes
was one of these pilgrims and she wanted to share with her young students the experience
of peace and encouragement the place gives. She went with a friend to plan a
pilgrimage and, after the logistics were settled, she went up the mountain alone
to pray as many have done before her. But a man saw her and attacked, raped and
killed her. She had resisted and when her body was recovered from the dam,
where the man had dumped it, it had several bruises and had been bleeding.
I
cannot say I knew Plaxedes well but we met a number of times when working
together preparing the liturgy in her school. She was a beautiful person,
centred on God and his people and she used her gifts of teaching, singing and
composing that gave joy and hope to many hearts. Her family and companions in
the school, especially her young students, must be in shock and profound
sadness.
We
crack our heads to make sense of such tragedies. All is quiet and then suddenly
evil erupts like a volcano spreading its darkness and ashes over the earth. We
cannot “explain” evil but we know it presses on us as part of the struggle we
are all in. Something similar happened to a young Italian girl, called Maria
Goretti, at the beginning of the last century and, in the 1960s in the Congo,
Anwarite Nengapeta endured the same fate. Maria and Anwarite were honoured by
the Church as models of courage in the struggle against evil which Jesus came
to lead.
Once
again, as so often in our faith story, weakness is greater than strength (1 Cor.
1:25). Maria forgave her attacker and wanted him to “come with her to Paradise.”
Plaxedes, when she was a religious for a time, chose the name Ruvadiki, little
flower, fragile and beautiful. She seems to have kept that name together with
her religious vows when she left religious life, if I interpret the photo on
the internet correctly. She, like John Bradburne, shared in the death of Jesus
and added her name – ‘little flower’ – to that of the ‘vagabond’ in
consecrating Mutemwa, a place for the ostracised, as a source of courage for
Zimbabwe.
29 October 2017 Sunday
30 A
Exodus 22:20-26 1
Th. 1:5-10 Matt
22:34-40
