She was part of a group of five nuns from the congregation of the Franciscan Sisters of Saint Mary’s Abbey, Mill Hill, London, who came to back up the Mill Hill Fathers at the time when British interests in East Africa were high.
According to www.catholicireland.net, their task was to care for the women and girls and to further weaken the association of Catholicism with French missionaries, and Protestantism with British missionaries in the then British Protectorate.
Because of the presence of the White Fathers from France, Catholicism was heavily associated with the French, which posed a big challenge to the British who were still fighting with other European powers for control of territories in Africa.
From the group of five nuns, Kevin would have far-reaching impact on humanity as her works resulted into the establishment of health care facilities, education institutions and two religious congregations: Franciscan Missionary Sisters of Africa headquartered at Nsambya, and Little Sisters of St Francis of Assisi headquartered at Nkokonjeru in
Buikwe district.
She was an adherent of St Francis of Assisi, and this explains why, when she laid the foundation stone for Nsambya hospital, it was named St Francis’ Hospital Nsambya. The hospital started as a small clinic operating under a mango tree, but within four years, it had developed into a single-ward hospital.
Soon Kevin spread her wings to present-day Buikwe district, specifically at Nyenga and Nkokonjeru, where she replicated some of the institutions that she had started at Nsambya. Most outstanding, other than the convent at Nkokonjeru, is the leprosarium she set up at Nyenga to care for lepers who were treated as outcasts.
“She worked very much for the poor, needy and especially the sick; the outcasts like people who were suffering from leprosy when she opened clinics for them at Nyenga and Buluba [in Mayuge district],” Rev Fr Edward Ssekabanja, a member of the committee on the Cause for the Beatification of Mother Kevin, said.
Buluba was later transformed into St Francis’ hospital Buluba, currently under the management of Jinja Catholic diocese. On the education front, she founded schools such as Mt St Mary’s College Namagunga in Mukono district and St Joseph’s Girls SS Nsambya, among others.
BEATIFICATION CAUSE
Her 52 years of missionary work in Uganda are remembered for her generosity and compassion for the poor and needy, which gave her the name ‘Maama Kevina (Mother Kevin)’. But that was not enough for the Church to embark on a lengthy journey that may lead to her beatification and later on canonisation as a saint.
“There are people who prayed through her and received what we call in the Catholic Church, favours from God. Based on those favours or miracles, the Church launched investigations on her life, virtues, intercessory powers and favours, a process that we have concluded today [November 17],” Fr Ssekabanja said.
The investigations were launched on November 16, 2017 at Lubaga cathedral in Kampala when Archbishop Dr Cyprian Kizito Lwanga announced the same process for the first Catholic missionaries, Fr Simeon Lourdel (Mapeera) and Brother Delmas Amans of the White Fathers Catholic Missionaries.
Ululations filled the Lugazi cathedral during the thanksgiving mass on November 17 when members of the tribunal for the beatification of Mother Kevin presented their findings compiled in nine packs that are to be handed over to the Papal Nunciature (the equivalent of Vatican’s embassy in Uganda) for transfer to Rome.
Dr Waldery Hilgemam was appointed Mother Kevin’s postulator; one who will represent Lugazi diocese’s interests for the nun’s beatification. He is based in Rome, and is the same person who is working on the causes for the beatification of Masaka diocese’s Msgr Aloysius Ngobya and Sr Amedeo Byabali.
Hilgemam was not at Lugazi but the Vatican was represented by Bro Reginald Cruz to witness as members of the tribunal took oaths and appended their signatures to confirm the authenticity of the documents.
All members of the tribunal of the cause for her beatification are bound by an oath of secrecy and thus, none could speak about the information they collected from witnesses who knew her or from her writings. In fact, Bro Cruz put a seal on each of the boxes containing the findings of the investigation.
Mother Kevin, presently referred to as Servant of God, has a lengthy process to sainthood. After the conclusion of the diocesan investigation, a second phase of investigations will kick off by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. During this phase, a miracle must happen for her to get beatified.
“Locally, people will remain praying through her for a miracle to happen. Not until a miracle happens and is scrutinised and approved by Rome, she cannot be beatified. A miracle is a requirement for beatification,” Ssekabanja said.
Once beatified, the church will await a second miracle to happen, after which she will be canonised into sainthood.
LIFETIME
Mother Kevin was born Teresa Kearney on April 28, 1875 as the third daughter to Michael Kearney, a farmer of Knockenrahan, Arklow, Ireland. She began her education at a school run by the Sisters of Mercy in Arklow until the age of 14 when she dropped out.
She had wanted to be a teacher but since she was born three months after her father Michael Kearney died in a motor accident, and her mother died when she was 10, Teresa could not raise the finances needed for her education.
Nonetheless, she was registered as a junior assistant mistress (JAM) as an untrained teacher in her native Ireland. At 15, she took up an assistant teaching job in Dublin and later in Essex, England from where she developed the desire of joining the religious life.
With a growing conviction that God was calling her to join the religious life, she applied for admission to the Franciscan Sisters at St Mary’s Abbey, Mill Hill, London. While at the convent, she volunteered to work among the African-Americans and for three years, she waited patiently for a posting to the American Mission, but when the call to foreign mission came, it came from Africa, when Bishop Hanlon of the Mill Hill Fathers in 1902 requested for six sisters to work in the Vicariate of the Upper Nile.
The group of nuns that she came with had one American, one English, one Scottish and three Irish women. For 52 years, she worked as a missionary in Uganda but her influence had extended to Kenya and Tanzania by 1955 when she retired.
On October 17, 1957, after a night of appealing for missionary funds in Boston, USA, she was found dead in her bed, aged 82. Her body was flown to Ireland and buried in a cemetery at Mount Oliver but after one month, her remains were exhumed and brought to Uganda.
On December 3, 1957, she was reburied at Nkokonjeru to permanently stay with the Congregation of the Little Sisters of St Francis of Assisi that she founded. And that is how Nsambya Kevina village got its name; from the Irish nun who served that community and others selflessly for decades that her seeds are still bearing fruit to this day.
sadabkk@observer.ug