A Sister-in-Arms

Sister Milburga Fernando died on Wednesday and was laid to rest on Thursday

Sister Milburga Fernando
(Image Courtesy Kanya D’Almeida)

When I began researching the life and work of Father Michael Rodrigo, a Sri Lankan Catholic priest who was murdered in the Uva Province in 1987, I was directed to a nun by the name of Sister Milburga Fernando.

No one knows more about Father Mike than she does, various people assured me. One afternoon with her will give you all the information you need.

I prepared for this meeting accordingly, dressing conservatively and reminding myself not to be too forthcoming about my views on religion.

Little did I know that what began as a formal interview in a tea shop on York Street—midway between my home in Nugegoda and hers in Kerawalapitiya—would blossom into a loving friendship that lasted for years; the last years, as it turned out, of Sister Milburga’s life. And even more surprising than the turn of fate that led us, briefly, onto the same path was my discovery that she was not the kind of “Sister” who cared two hoots about the clothes I chose to wear or even my critiques of the Catholic Church.

I was pregnant at the time we met; temporarily on sabbatical from a career in journalism and social activism and happily prepared for my six months’ remaining ‘confinement’ as some people called it—poised for two uneventful trimesters in the comfort of my home. But Sister Milburga turned those plans upside down. Sensing from our conversation that I was something of a kindred spirit, she enlisted me in a series of road trips that led me into cracks and crevices of Sri Lankan history I might never otherwise have been privy to.

First to Hatton, to a conference on the socio-economic and political issues plaguing communities of tea plantation workers, including the role of local churches and radical priests in drawing attention to their plight. It was here, in our shared room in a little hotel in the hill country, where she spoke at length about liberation theology, especially the revolutionary theological upheaval following the Second Vatican Council that took her to the village of Alukalavita in Buttala in the 1980s.

She had always told the story as though she was an insignificant character—how she and several other Catholics, determined to live out a doctrine of service to the poor, followed Father Michael Rodrigo into the heartland of the Sinhala Buddhist peasantry. It was a visionary project: to live among the poorest of the poor while building an interfaith community of fellowship, dialog and upliftment. Reams and reams have been written about the man who led this tiny exodus of people away from their urban comforts into a remote, rural village, where they eked out a living in thatched-roof quarters and ventured on foot from house to hut, documenting the struggles and lamentations of an entirely ignored population. But almost nothing has been recorded of his two stalwart sidekicks, Sister Milburga Fernando and Sister Benedict Fernandopulle, whose contribution to that mission and that incredible yet little-known chapter of Sri Lankan history became clear to me only when she recruited me on another journey, this time to Buttala.

It was, for her, a kind of pilgrimage—a bittersweet return after many years to a place where she had known tremendous joy before experiencing a tragedy. It was there, in the place they called Suba Seth Gedara, where Father Mike had been shot to death before her eyes while he performed the evening mass. Where she witnessed the murder not only of a man but along with him the demise of his beautiful plans for a better country based on justice for the farming community.

We spent the morning walking around the memorial erected in his honor, and the chapel—now a museum containing relics and photographs of Father Mike.

Every person who came to the door to greet Sister Milburga got down on their hands and knees in a gesture of respect so genuine and so filled with love. Although I had come here to record their testimonies about Father Mike, each family had as much to say about the two faithful nuns who had stood beside him. I was quite forgotten as the conversations meandered through a time they all held close to their hearts. The interviews ended in tears, not only of sorrow but of gratitude. Because the lessons imparted at Suba Seth Gedara—the printing of a magazine pertaining to rural affairs, the English classes offered to the youngsters (now grown, with families of their own), the creation of a village library, the festivals, and above all the sense of dignity instilled in them—had changed the course of their lives.

There are those who live not in the shadows, but in the footnotes, visible only to the precious few who go looking for them. Sister Milburga was such a person. In countless accounts of Father Mike I found her name in the acknowledgments, always given special mention as a particularly rich source of information about a murder for which no perpetrator has yet been brought to book. And on this journey for justice, Sister Milburga has been, not alone (for there have been many others who have walked with her in search of answers) but certainly lonely.

In the months and years that followed I badgered Sister Milburga to allow me to write about her life. No matter where my incessant questioning might lead us, usually into the intricacies of her life’s story as a woman in the church, we always returned, at her insistence, to Father Mike.

Having learned of her demise I am flouting her wishes. It is right, I think, to celebrate her at long last with a larger audience than the one she would have sanctioned. I like to think that the rebel in her would forgive my small transgression, and that the saint in her will bestow upon me her signature smile, as she did so many times throughout the course of our short but very dear friendship.
(KANYA D’ALMEIDA)