Encounter with the miracle priest

I wait patiently for the last prayer, keeping my eyes fixed on Father Giuseppe Frizzi, the parish priest and witness of the miracle in Nepepe, Mozambique in 1989 that touched off one of the most hallowed ceremonies in the Catholic Church’s liturgy.

I could not afford to lose him in the crowd. His presence at the Friday Vigil mass at Gikondi Catholic Church, in Nyeri, for the beatification of Sister Irene Stefani was very significant.

At the special mass on the eve of the beatification, he, for a moment, let us into the accounts that presided the baptismal font miracle.

Had it not been for his witness account of what happened after invoking Sister Irene’s name in prayer, the epic event taking place in Nyeri on Saturday may never have happened.

Fr Frizzi recounted the epic death-and-life moment when frightened men, women and children who were in a church surrounded by a band of armed Renamo rebels prayed in Sister Irene’s name.

“We were in church teaching the Christian doctrines to the interested Mozambique citizens when the church was surrounded by the Renamo (a Mozambican rebel movement),” he said.

Fr Frizzi only understands a little English but is fluent in Italian and a Kenyan Catholic priest was at hand to translate. He described the events like they happened yesterday.

A church surrounded by armed soldiers, all exits barricaded. There were at least 500 people inside the church, Fr Frizzi says. There was no help in sight and the rebels were charging.

“They fortified the doors and repeatedly ranted; ‘blood! blood! blood’ they shouted like blood thirsty vampires,” he recalled.

The lockdown would last for three days during which the miracle happened. With no way out, the hostages spent their time praying. Fr Frizzi says that on the third day, there was nothing to eat and that the church hall was filled with cries of children, hopeless women, desperate men and silent murmurs of praying catechists.

The hostages relied on water in the baptismal font to quench their thirst. Miraculously, the baptismal font — the basin or vase, that holds baptismal water — did not run dry.

According to Fr Frizzi, the Lord had heard their prayers through the intercession of Sister Irene and the congregation drank from the font without it running dry.

Fr Frizzi says there are other miracles which happened in those three days and which are not talked about and recounted how soldiers had made him sit on the floor and made numerous threats to kill him.

“Coming out of the church alive was not an ordinary occurrence but a miracle,” he says.

The joy that Saturday’s event in Nyeri has brought to his life was evident on his face as he sat thousands of miles away from Mozambique where the miracle happened.

“Sister Irene had made herself part of the people and had loved charity more than anything else,” he said.