JOHN RANDAL BRADBURNE, MISSIONARY

JOHN RANDAL BRADBURNE, MISSIONARY - 5 SEPTEMBER

VENERABLE JOHN RANDAL BRADBURNE, MISSIONARY

John Randal Bradburne was born on June 14, 1921 in Skirwith, Cumberland, England. A son of Thomas William Bradburne and his wife Erica May he was baptised in the Church of England. John had two brothers and two sisters. Educated in Norfolk, he had a religious experience in Malaya while a soldier during the Second World War. When he returned to England after the war, he stayed with the Benedictine monks of Buckfast Abbey and became a Roman Catholic in 1947. He then was a Sacristan at Westminster Cathedral for some time, visited the Holy Land twice, and lived for a year in the organ loft of a tiny church in Italy. Posthumously nicknamed "Vagabond of God", he played plainchant on the harmonium and recorder, loved birds, and ate but once a day. A prolific poet, he wrote more than 170,000 lines of verse, for which achievement he holds a Guinness World Record.

Fr John Dove SJ invited him to move to Rhodesia and be a missionary helper. This is where in 1969, Bradburne found Mutemwa Leprosy Settlement near Mutoko, northeast of Salisbury (now Harare). It was a cut-off community of leprosy patients abandoned by others. Here John stayed with these patients until his murder in 1979. He cared for them as their warden and stayed in a tin hut, ministering to the lepers.

By July 1979, the Rhodesian Bush War was approaching Mutemwa. His friends urged John to leave but he insisted that he should stay with the lepers. On September 2, 1979, guerrillas of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army abducted him. He was shot and died on September 5 at the age of 58. He was buried in a Franciscan habit, according to his wishes, at the Chishawasha Mission Cemetery, northeast of Salisbury (Harare).

Since John’s death, the settlement has become a major pilgrimage centre, with thousands gathering for Mass each year on the anniversary of his death.

Sources:

https://angelusnews.com/voices/john-bradburne/

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bradburne

https://catholicherald.co.uk/100-years-of-john-bradburne-a-life-lived-fully/

Comments

WELCOME

Please pick your saints: January - Saints by date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 February - Saints by date 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 March - Saints by date: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 April - Saints by date: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 May - Saints by date: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

ST JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS - 13 AUGUST

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN AUGUST Saints celebrated on the 13th of August WELCOME! SAINT JOHN BERCHMANS, RELIGIOUS (Patron Saint of Altar Servers.) The eldest boy of a poor cordwainer, in a small Belgian town, John was ever a dutiful, prayerful, and studious child. Our Lord called him when but young to leave his father and his father’s house, to serve Him in the Society of Jesus. And because he was so good a son, it cost his father much to give him up to God; but he was too good a Christian to refuse outright. HE WAS SENT TO ROME John had hardly taken his religious vows when he was sent to the centre of Christendom, the holy city of Rome. His modesty, his purity, shone out as great virtue always does; and the young laymen who attended the lectures would come to gaze upon his beautiful and holy face, and go away the better for the sight. GREAT VIRTUE Three short years, and his last sickness found him sighing for heaven, and three days before the great feast of Mary’s Assumption in 1

ST LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR - 19 OCTOBER

WELCOME! SAINT LAURA OF CORDOBA, WIDOW AND MARTYR Laura, a widow and martyr of Cordoba in Spain, is mentioned in the Spanish martyrology of Tamajode Salazar, who refers to Luitprand, where it says the following: St Laura is said to have been of a noble family, and according to the wishes of her parents she married an equally noble man and gave birth to two daughters. After the death of her husband and her daughters, she went to the monastery of St Aurea, named St-Maria de Cuteclara, and after her martyrdom led the same for nine years as her successor. After she had made wonderful progress in all virtues, she was finally summoned to renounce the faith before a Saracen judge. But since she remained steadfast, she was first beaten very cruelly and then thrown into a bath of boiling pitch, where she remained in praise of God for three hours and then flew to heaven on October 19, 864. St Laura is of the 48 Martyrs of Cordoba. PRAYER: Grant, we beseech you, almighty God, that we who

SAINT FEAST DAY FOR EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR

Search This Blog