ARTICLES

Comboni Sisters answer God’s call

By Steve Neill
of The Catholic Virginian

Traditionally in the past when a young Italian woman sought to enter the Comboni Missionary Sisters as a postulant, she had visions of serving in Africa.

This did not happen in the case of Sister Bruna Colomba who this year will celebrate her 60th anniversary of her religious profession.

“My Africa was America,” Sister Bruna told The Catholic Virginian.

The young Italian sister came to the United States in 1950 and headed for Richmond whose society was one of segregation by race. Her ministry was to be among the blacks who lived in poor neighborhoods in South Richmond and the Fulton neighborhood of Richmond’s East End.

But two other members of the Comboni Sisters who were born and raised in Italy and are celebrating special anniversaries had their dream fulfilled. They served in the African missions and among the poor in Richmond.

They are Sister Angela Didone, who will celebrate 60 years of religious profession in September, and Sister Natalina Salbego, who will celebrate her golden jubilee (50 years). It was a time they will never forget.

Sister Angela spent 14 years in Kenya where she worked all 14 years in a medical clinic which upon her arrival was an abandoned military post.

But most of her ministry for almost 60 years has been in the United States. It was not what she planned, but feels it was God’s plan.

“I realize that the place where God sends us is the best,” Sister Angela said. “There is always something to do for the Kingdom of God in every area.”

Sister Natalina spent the 20-year period of 1981 to 2001 in Kenya where she did nursing and served as provincial for seven years.

But she admits that her earlier service at the former St. Gerard Maternity Home in Richmond in a way prepared for her work in the missions. St. Gerard’s opened in 1955 as a home for young unwed black women who were pregnant. They stayed in the residential facility operated by the Comboni Missionary Sisters until they had given birth. Most of the girls gave their babies up for adoption.

During the time in which Sister Natalina served at St. Gerard’s the residents ranged in age from 11 to 34. Two girls had babies at age 11, but most of them were 16 or 17 up to age 25.

“I started at St. Gerard’s and this prepared me for the missions,” Sister Natalina said. “I learned to love each person without prejudice.”

Sister Bruna was among a group of eight Italian nuns who arrived in Richmond on Oct. 12, 1950, having left their native Italy by boat and then traveled to Richmond by train. They had been invited by Bishop Peter L. Ireton to start an apostolate here.

They were members of the religious community known as Pie Madri Della Nigrizia which translated into English as Pious Mother of the Negroes. The old name was given by Bishop Daniel Comboni, who had founded the religious order. The current name was adopted about 12 years ago to reflect the name of the founder.

“We spoke no English, we just had a few lessons in Italy,” Sister Bruna said.

Upon the nuns’ arrival in the U.S., four went to Richmond and the other four went to Mobile, Ala.

“We first learned some English from a professor,” Sister Bruna recalled, “and then we started visiting people in the (Bainbridge) neighborhood and opened a nursery in our house.”

A second nursery was later opened in the Fulton neighborhood.

Over the years Sister Bruna also served in Lansdale, PA where the sisters opened a facility to care for elderly people. She was there for 12 years and later served in Alabama.

Sister Angela came to Richmond Nov. 11, 1955 and began work at St. Gerard Maternity Home which opened three weeks after her arrival.

“I was a registered nurse and we had doctors who came every two weeks to check the girls,” she explained.

“I had been dreaming with my vocation to go to Africa, but instead the Lord left me on a different path to come to America,” Sister Angela said.

“I learned obedience could make a miracle. I loved what I was doing.

“I was there 24 hours a day, day in and day out except when I made an annual retreat,” she continued.

“I was there 15 years and then finally in 1970 Mother General asked me to go to the missions.”

She returned to the U.S. in 1984 after 14 years and has served since in Richmond, Chicago and Lansdale before returning to Richmond where she now lives in retirement.

She was the fifth of 10 children and grew up in Cittadella, near Padua.

“I was only 20 when I entered and my mother was not too happy,” Sister Angela said. “She didn’t think I was strong enough to cope with the situations in Africa.”

But her mother later changed her attitude during her daughter’s period as a postulant.

“She realized I was happy,” Sister Angela said.

Sister Natalina, who is from Vicenza in northern Italy, is the 9th of 12 children.

She recalled that when she was six a parish priest spoke to her about her future.

“He said, ‘Natalina, now is the time to start to pray to choose your state in life for the future,’” she said.

“I did not understand then what the priest meant. I though ‘state’ meant the state of Rome or the Church.

“But a cousin took me aside and said I will explain it to you.”

The young Natalina began praying to the Holy Spirit at age six “that God would enlighten me to where he wanted me.”

In her late teens Natalina was engaged and had plans to marry. But she also felt a call to the religious life in which she“wanted to show to the Lord that I was thankful for what my parents had given me – faith, love and protection – and I wanted to share it with those who had less.”

She felt a struggle between love of her fiancé and love for the Lord.

“But the Lord won the battle,” Sister Natalina said.

She broke the news to her fiancé two weeks before she entered the convent.

“He told me ‘Rather than see you marry somebody else, I’d be happier to see you enter the convent.’”

Sister Natalina entered the postulancy in Verona and spent several years in London where she had nursing training and learned midwifery. She came to the U.S. in 1964 and was at St. Gerard’s for eight years.

In Africa she worked at a small mission hospital where there was no electricity or water.

“We had to use a generator anytime we had surgery or to sterilize things,” she said.

The people of Africa taught her a lot she says.

But she is also grateful to the people of the United States who she knew were praying for her while she was in Africa.

“I felt sustained by prayer,” Sister Natalina said. “I knew I was not alone. It means a lot to know that people are praying for you.”

And does Sister Natalina ever think back on the life she might have led if she had married the young man whose proposal she initially accepted?

“I did not become a mother of 10 or 12 children,” she says, “but I became a mother of many more.”

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