Torn clothes and God’s message: Nurse who wants to see Pope Francis

By KATHURE MUKURU

“I have an urgent message from God that I urgently need to pass to the most Holy Father – the Pope. A message of moral reforms in the Catholic Church!”

These are the words of one Mercy Teresa Njura, a trained nurse from Imenti South in Meru County, who claims she has a message for the Pope from God.

Dressed in a tattered skirt and blouse, Njura narrated to The Standard on Saturday how she received a vision from Jesus in September 2007 that showed priests, sisters and brothers in the Catholic Church had fallen to the temptations of life and engaged in severe immorality.

“The salt has lost its flavour and the Lord wants me to be an instrument of announcing interior moral reforms to all Roman Catholic shepherds. I will go to the Pope to take His message and show how moral reforms should be carried out,” said Njura.

The nurse has worn the tattered blue blouse and matching skirt everyday since 2007 “as instructed by the Lord”. She says tattered clothes symbolise the original image of Jesus in the church, one which “has gradually faded away in the church”.

Sister Njura says the Holy Spirit is requesting heads of the church to accept this transfiguration, renew the image of Christ and have a special book, which she claims was handed to her miraculously and has teachings of interior life that furnishes the Catholic synthesis.

When asked if she has talked to the local clergy about this, she says she has camped at the offices of Bishop Salesius Mugambi of Meru Diocese and his Eminence Cardinal John Njue who did not take her seriously.

She says the bishops’ handlers and local priests assumed she had psychological issues.

“The bishop himself has organised several medical examinations for me that have proven I am of sound mind, but they did not listen to me even after camping at the Cardinal’s offices,” Njura says desperately.

“They all know me for my persistence and I am not giving up”.

 Anglican doctrines

She says she has been ordered to remove the tattered clothes, but says she will only do so after she has met the Pope and passed God’s essage.

The 37-year-old was partly raised in an orphanage in Meru Children’s Home, Nkabune, before she was adopted by a single mother who raised her with her two daughters and three sons at Mitunguu area in Imenti South.

She grew up attending the Anglican Church of Kenya and learning its doctrine. Her first vision, she claims, was when she was doing her KCSE in 1995. The vision showed her becoming a Catholic nun, which she said was weird because she was not Catholic.

After consulting a nun in Nkubu Mission Hospital, she was assured of support. She made friends with the nuns and eventually begun volunteer work at the Mujwa Sisters Dispensary and thereafter trained as a nurse at Nkubu Mission Hospital before she was posted to another mission hospital in Isiolo.

This time she had already converted to Catholic and had not lost her hope of being a nun. It is while working in Isiolo that she received a letter to join the convent.

She says this was objected by several of her former colleagues.

“After mingling with the sisters, brothers and priests and seeing their true ways of life that outsiders do not see, I was discouraged and wasn’t so sure if I wanted to join them anymore. So many of them were against my joining the convent anyway,” says Njura.

She went back to Isiolo only to find her boss had sacked her after she walked out of her duties and went to Nkubu for an orientation into the convent and had nowhere else to go. Her family had disowned her for ditching their church.

A male friend who had been pursuing her came to her rescue and she moved in with him. A few months later, she conceived, but lost the baby after a sickness.  This saw her back at the children’s home and Nkubu Mission Hospital.

She never went back to her fiancee because “a vision confirmed that it was Lord’s wish that she lost the baby so that her mission in life to pass the message to the Pope would be accomplished”. That’s when she vowed to remain celibate.

“I have worked as a volunteer in several churches with Mitunguu Catholic Church being my home parish,” said Njura.

Divine vow

Njura says she has faced ridicule with some nuns who previously supported her, now labelling her a maniac. 

She prays that she will eventually get to the Pope “to deliver God’s message”, the special book and the new divine vow to all shepherds.

Speaking to The Standard on Saturday, Bishop Mugambi confirmed he had met Njura and that Cardinal Njue is aware.

He said the church cannot bar her from pursuing her mission and urged her to meet the Apostolic Nuncio (the Pope’s representative to Kenya) who is in a better position to assist her.

“I advised her to write a letter to the Pope but she can meet the Pope’s representative who will assist her get to the Holy Father because we cannot afford to facilitate her travel” said Mugambi.

The bishop says Njura is free to preach moral reforms in the church.

Most priests in Meru confirmed that they know her story but refused to talk about it, only referring us to the bishop.