In the year 1981, Singapore, the only city-island-nation in the world, was shaken to the core by a gory event. A man called Adrian Lim, who claimed to be a medium able to commune with gods and the dead, murdered two little girls, aged 9 and 10, as part of a magical ritual. His two “holy wives” were his accomplices. All the three were arrested and sentenced to death.
It was in the aftermath of this shocking incident this Sister’s rare ministry blossomed. Sr Gerard Fernandez, a Good Shepherd nun from Singapore, was born in 1938 in a good, Catholic family of ten. After joining the Good Shepherd congregation, she co-founded the Catholic Prison Ministry in Singapore in 1977 and began visiting and comforting the prisoners in Singapore’s Changi Prison.
When the two innocent girls were murdered in 1981, Sr Gerard was deeply affected by the tragedy, because she knew one of the victims. She knew also the father of Catherine Tan, one of the two wives of Lim, the murderer. After the three were jailed, Sr Gerard wrote to Tan. She waited for several weeks for a reply. After six months, Tan wrote, signing the letter as “Catherine, a black sheep.” Sr Gerard went to visit her in prison, and soon she discovered that her special calling was to accompany the prisoners on the death row. This meant visiting the prisoners condemned to death, counseling them and helping them seek forgiveness and peace, and preparing them to meet God.
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M.A. Joe Antony, SJ
