Compiled by Sister Mary Giles Mailhot, OSB
to be read at the Liturgy of the Hours
at St. Placid Priory  

Sister Inés Nieves Sancho was a 77 year old French-Spanish nun who taught impoverished women and girls in volatile Central African Republic.

Her body was found early Monday, May 20, near the village of Nola, located in the southwest near the borders with Cameroon and the Republic of Congo.

“Ours is a country where 80 percent of its territory has been conquered by 14 warlords who have trampled it underfoot,” said one bishop in Central African Republic.

According to L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper, the Daughters of Jesus missionary sister had dedicated her life to teaching children, especially girls, to sew in order to learn a trade and make a better life for themselves.

Authorities believe the missionary was murdered…precisely in the room where she taught the children.

The reading on Sister Inés’ memorial is a poem by Carolyn Brigit Flynn:

Keep Walking
from Sisters Singing, Ed. C.B. Flynn
(edited slightly for this memorial)

It is a good road.
Its mean passages and dark turns
Are but a fleck in the great sky.
At night ten thousand galaxies
Send us their light.
Who knows who is praying for us
Beyond the bent window?
The ancient pebbles
Bleeding in our shoes
Are the stuff that keeps
The road held tight.
It is a good road.
Beauty too abundant to behold.
Tell the shattered one
Whose skin is bruised
Her life beams beyond her.
Everything
Is larger than we thought.

Closing Prayer
by Sister Laura Swan, OSB

Triune God,

You are the source of all life. Your resurrection power is all around us. May the martyrdom of Sister Inés allow the power of your resurrection to burst forth, that justice and healing come to the people of Central African Republic.

In Jesus’ name,
Amen.