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South African Christian martyr
Manche Masemola
(1913?1928) was a South African
Christian
martyr
.
Early life
[
edit
]
Masemola was born in
Marishane
, a small village near
Jane Furse
, in
South Africa
. She lived with her parents, two older brothers, a sister, and a cousin. German and then English
missionaries
had worked in the
Transvaal Colony
for several decades and by the early twentieth century there was a small Christian community among the
Pedi people
which was widely viewed with distrust by the remainder of the tribe who still practiced the traditional religion.
[
citation needed
]
Martyrdom
[
edit
]
By 1919, an Anglican
Community of the Resurrection
mission was established by Fr. Augustine Moeka in Marishane. Masemola attended classes in preparation for
baptism
with her cousin Lucia, against the wishes of her parents. Her parents took her to a
Sangoma
(African traditional healer), claiming that she had been bewitched. She was prescribed a traditional remedy, which her parents made her consume by beating her.
Relations worsened, and the mother hid the girl's clothes so she could not attend Christian instructional classes.
On February 4, 1928, her parents led the teenager to a lonely place, where they killed her, burying her by a granite rock on a remote hillside.
Manche had said that she would be
baptized in her own blood
. She died without having been baptized. Manche's mother converted to Christianity and was baptised forty years later in 1969.
[3]
Manche was declared a martyr by the
Church of the Province of Southern Africa
in less than ten years.
Commemoration
[
edit
]
The
Anglican Church of Southern Africa
commemorates Manche in its
Calendar of saints
on the 4th day of February each year, as do some other churches in the
Anglican Communion
.
[4]
She is one of the ten 20th-century martyrs from across the world who are depicted in statues above the Great West Door of
Westminster Abbey
,
London
.
Manche Masemola is
honored
with a
Lesser Feast
on the
liturgical calendar
of the
Episcopal Church in the United States of America
[6]
on
February 4
.
[7]
Notes and references
[
edit
]
- Chandler, Andrew (2007). Br Tristam SSF and Simon Kershaw (ed.).
Exciting Holiness
. Norwich: Canterbury Press.
ISBN
978-1-85311-806-7
.
- Davie, Lucille (4 February 2008).
"Alex honours Africa's only saint
(sic)
"
.
Official website of the City of Johannesburg
. Retrieved
2014-08-06
.
- Goedhals, Mandy (1998). "Imperialism, mission and conversion: Manche Masemola of Sekhukhuneland". In Andrew Chandler (ed.).
Terrible Alternative: Christian Martyrdom in the 20th Century
. Continuum International Publishing Group, Limited.
ISBN
978-0-8264-4844-6
.
- Presler, Titus (2001).
Horizons of Mission
. Cowley Publications. p.
85
.
ISBN
978-1-4616-6060-6
.
- Quinn, Frederick (2002).
African Saints: Saints, Martyrs, and Holy People from the Continent of Africa
. Crossroad.
ISBN
978-0-8245-1971-1
.
- Quinn, Frederick.
"Manche Masemola, South Africa, Anglican"
.
Dictionary of African Christian Biography
. Retrieved
2014-08-06
.
- St. James, Rebecca (2008).
Sister Freaks: Stories of Women Who Gave Up Everything for God
. FaithWords.
ISBN
978-0-446-55016-1
.
- The story of Manche Masemola and her fight for faith
(video). BBC
. Retrieved
6 Aug
2014
.
External links
[
edit
]