Split, (IKA) – Sister Lukrecija Mamić, a missionary killed by robbers on November 27, 2011, in the village of Kiremba in northern Burundi, was buried on December 5 at the Lovrinac Municipal Cemetery in Split. “Sister Lukrecija Mamić is the pride of the Church among the Croats and the Croatian homeland,” said Archbishop Marin Barišić of Split-Makarska, who led the funeral rites, attended despite rainy weather by approximately 2,000 of the faithful, approximately a hundred priests, several hundred religious, friends of the deceased and others from the village of Zidina near Tomislavgrad who had traveled from Bosnia and Herzegovina by bus. Sister Lukrecija’s order has a common tomb at the Lovrinac Cemetery.
“Faithful to her missionary and religious vocation, faithful to the love of Him who loves us, Sister Lukrecija readily responded as a Sister of Charity ten years ago and went to the African continent. She served in the little-known country of Burundi, at the margins of global public interest, living among the most vulnerable and poorest tribes of the Pygmies, especially taking care of sick and poor children, as well as sick and humiliated women. Burundi passed through the hell of war and still lives in economic poverty and political uncertainty,” said Archbishop Barišić in his homily.
Croats throughout the world are proud of Sister Lukrecija. She was an “evangelist, witness to God’s love, while also an ambassador of the heart and the face of her nation,” said the archbishop, adding that today the world needs missionaries of God’s love who help the “little ones,” as Sister Lukrecija had done in Burundi, working with orphaned children and women suffering from AIDS. “The so-called intelligent ones know how things are. They are aware of all the social and political factors, and stop at that. The intelligent manipulate and control the situation merely to protect their political and economic interests,” he said, adding that Sister Lukrecija joyfully helped the poor of a tribe of Pygmies in Burundi, in order to provide them with a better future. Split is also proud of the late Sister Lukrecija because it was in this city that she took her perpetual vows and accepted her missionary cross, and is particularly “honored that the mortal remains of this martyred missionary will be laid to rest in the Lovrinac Cemetery. She will be buried under the sign of the cross, the crucified love from which not even death could separate her.” At the end of the homily, Archbishop Barišić spoke about Sister Lukrecija’s murderers: “I am certain that Sister Lukrecija would say about her murderer and the murderers of her associates: ‘Do not speak so badly about them. … They are not so bad but circumstances have made them so.’ Love sees better and further. Love forgives and hopes that their lives will change.”
Sister Lucija Baturina, Mother Superior of the Cyril and Methodius Province, of which the Sisters of Charity of whom the late Sister Lukrecija was a member are a part, said that the life of Sister Lukrecija was “a life of courage and the blessing of the Creator.” She recalled the words of Sister of Lukrecija, who said that “she was always delighted by the universal dimensions of the Church and the opening of new areas for the proclamation of the Gospel and the spread of the charism of our beloved order.” This was the reason that she departed on her mission. Sister Lukrecija combined medicine and theology, asceticism and sociology, said St. Lucija, adding that she will always remain a role model for the Order as a faithful Christian and consecrated life.
On behalf of the Croatian missionaries, Sister Klementina Banozić, who had served with the late Sister Lukrecija in a mission in Ecuador where they had helped the Native Americans, bid farewell to the deceased. “Sister Lukrecija is a model of a life of radical Christianity and her missionary service was her response to Jesus. May the blood of Sister Lukrecije, with its warmth, be a blessing for those she served and for the Church of Africa,” said Sister Klementina. The Director of the Pontifical Missionary Works of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Ivan Štironja, speaking in the spirit of a prayer by the Blessed Mother Teresa, said that Sister Lukrecija was an excellent Catholic woman and spiritual mother, who tirelessly did good although she knew that it could be quickly and easily forgotten.
The President of the Croatian Conference of Religious Superiors, Fr. Vinko Mamić, said that the death of Sister Lukrecija “returns dignity to the Church,” adding that the deceased helped everyone, regardless of religion, nation or views.
Sister Lukrecija Mamić was born in 1948 in the village of Zidina near Tomislavgrad in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the seventh of eight children (of whom two became nuns and one a priest). Beginning in 1984, she served as a missionary in the South American country of Ecuador, and in 2002 continued her missionary work in Burundi. She was killed on November 27, 2011, when robbers raided the convent of the Sisters of Charity in the village of Kiremba. That same evening, the Italian volunteer Francesco Bazzani was also killed and Sister Carla Brianza was injured. The murderers of Sister Lukrecija Mamić were sentenced to life imprisonment.