Description
Blessed Marie Clementine Anuarite Nengapeta Healing Oil
Blessed Marie Clementine Anuarite Nengapeta was a religious sister from Congo who was killed when she resisted rape by invading rebels fighting the 1964 civil war.
Anuarite Nengapeta born in Congo in 1939, and educated in the first mission in her region of Africa. When she entered the religious community of the Holy Family Sisters in 1959, she took the name Sister Marie-Clementine.
Five years later, civil war broke out across Congo. Rebels opposed foreign influence in the nation, and even suspected religious men and women who were native to Congo because they thought they cooperated with western powers.
On this date in 1964, the Holy Family Sisters convent attacked by rebels. The rebel commander, Colonel Pierre Olombe, assaulted Sister Marie-Clémentine and attempted to rape her. When she refused, she beaten with a rifle butt. Before being bayoneted and shot, she managed to proclaim, “I forgive you for you do not know what you do.”
When Pope St. John Paul II visited Zaire in 1985, he beatified Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta. Among the crowd was Olombe, the colonel who had killed her.
Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta was beatified from among the Bantu peoples, an ethnic group from the southern half of the continent who share indigenous language similarities. Her image used here with permission from Catholic.org.
Blessed Marie-Clémentine Anuarite Nengapeta, you the African nun who forgave your killer while you attacked–pray for us!
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