John Bradburne
1921-1979 20th century
The long wandering that finds at last its rest in serving the most rejected.
Who was John Bradburne?
An English veteran of the Burma war, long a wanderer in search of God, he became a Franciscan tertiary and found his place at last among the lepers of Mutemwa, in Rhodesia. He washed them, sang for them, refused to let numbers be hung around their necks, insisting they had names. He had made three wishes (to serve the lepers, to die a martyr, to be buried in the Franciscan habit) and left thousands of poems; he was killed in 1979.
In their own words
This people, this exotic clan of lepers, being less yet more than man as man is worn today: this is a people born to be burnt upward to eternity.
Three wishes: to serve the lepers, to die a martyr, to be buried in the habit of Saint Francis.