Our Lady of Ngome, the Tabernacle of the Most High

Sister Reinolda May was born on 21 October 1901 in Pfahlheim, near Stuttgart. She joined the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing and arrived in South Africa in 1925. In May 1938 she earned her midwifery diploma at Greys Hospital, Pietermaritzburg.

From 1938 to 1976 she ran the maternity department of the Benedictine Mission Hospital in Nongoma. She delivered about 28,000 babies. One of them, in 1948, was the future Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini.

Some accounts begin on 8 December 1954. She saw two figures at a table. A woman dressed in white, with a long white veil. A monk dressed in black, with raised hands.

Then, on 22 August 1955, shortly after Holy Communion, Mary stood very near her "in a wonderful light more beautiful than the sun." She was "robed all in white, flowing veil from top to toe," standing on a globe. "On her breast rested a big Host surrounded by radiant light." She appeared as "a living Monstrance." She said, "Call Me 'Tabernacle of The Most High'," and told Sister Reinolda to tell her priest.

In October 1955, "Christ came out of this big Host and was in union with Me." On 5 June 1956, during Benediction, Mary "came out of The Monstrance and approached me as a living Monstrance." No words were spoken.

In March 1970 the Devil appeared first. Then a bright light surrounded her. Mary stood beside her, with the archangel Saint Michael on the other side, holding a lance. The last vision came on 2 May 1971, before the painting in the Ngome chapel, which she said was "very much alive" and stepped forward.

15 March 1956. Mary appeared serious. She asked for a shrine "where seven springs well up and meet." She pointed northwest, indicating the direction "majestically upwards" with her hand. She promised graces and conversions. In December 1957, Sister Reinolda visited Ngome and identified the springs. A vision in April 1958 confirmed the site. "On your property, on the mountain."

Bishop Aurelian Bilgeri, of the Diocese of Eshowe, opposed publicity. He allowed a painting of "Mary, Tabernacle of the Most High" to hang in the school classroom, then a small chapel, blessed at Pentecost 1966. Pilgrimages began on 15 March 1966. He stopped them, and refused a larger church until he died in 1973.

A 1976 commission concluded that pilgrimage to Ngome would be beneficial, and under Bishop Mansuet Biyase a larger church was built in 1984. In October 1992 he declared Ngome a "Place of Prayer." The Church permits devotion at the shrine, but has never confirmed the reported visions. There was only ever one witness. No one else saw or heard anything, and nothing was photographed.

Sister Reinolda died of cancer on 1 April 1981 at Inkamana and is buried in the Inkamana Abbey cemetery. In October 2014 Cardinal Angelo Amato granted the nihil obstat, and she became a Servant of God. In August 2018 the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference approved the process unanimously. Today about 50,000 pilgrims a year come to Ngome. Some call the spring water healing, and Philip Harrison compared the shrine with Lourdes in 2004.