Sister Eugenia Cavallo, forever in Kenya

She was still a novice in 1913 Marianne, and had not yet changed her name to Eugenia, when she said to the Consolata Sisters, “I would like to be like those little ants who move unnoticed along the paths, working hard, and sometimes being crushed by the feet of passers-by. All this out of love”.

by Miela Fagiolo D’Attilia

This hope of a girl encapsulates the meaning of the self-given life of Sister Eugenia Cavallo (1892-1953) a protagonist of the Consolata Family’s first missionary season in Africa.

She had been born in Spinetta in the province of Cuneo in the late 1800s and in her early twenties had joined the Consolata Institute; after her apprenticeship, she had left for Kenya in 1921 and worked in the missions of Mugoiri and Karima in the diocese of Nyeri.

A few years later, in 1925, she had gone to the villages of Kyeni, Chuka, Ioji in the diocese of Meru where she had remained for nine years; later she had moved to the village of Mujiwa on the high plateau central Kenya, inhabited by the Kikuyu and Embu ethnic groups.

After World War II, opposition to British colonial rule had given rise to the Mau-Mau nationalist political movement, the armed arm of the Kenya Africa Union led by leader Jomo Kenyatta.

The guerrilla warfare of these armed groups had villages in the bush as its theater, but over the years the Mau-Mau had been responsible for terrorist acts and massacres in Nairobi and other cities.

In this atmosphere Sister Eugenia and the sisters live and witness the Gospel in the villages. In mid-September 1953, Sister Cavallo dreamed that “a group of Mau Mau had attacked me, they were squeezing and tugging me saying ‘Tukwenda kiongo kiaku’ (we want your head, ed)”.

People were afraid to go to church because attending foreigners, even if they were missionaries, could expose them to violence from extremists. When she visited families, mware, Mother Eugenia tried to reassure everyone, but she felt a certain awkwardness around her: people had not moved away from the church, but everyone was afraid.

On that September 28, at the end of the usual work day, she had found people armed with spears and pangas, knives, at the door of the Mission, ready to attack. Eugenia remained in place, standing firm as a sentinel, as the blows of the weapons fell on her.

Then she fell in a pool of blood. Thus passed away a martyr after 32 years of mission: at her funeral there was a large crowd of people who for her sake had found their way back to the church.

Image

• Barley harvest in a field in Timau (Kenya) by MAKE IT KENYA PHOTO / STUART PRICE – PDM 1.0

Sources

• People and Mission No. 9/November 2022, p. 50