MORE 20TH CENTURY MARTYRS IN CHINA

John Paul II chartered the course for the Church to enter the Third Millennium and the 21st century. With lively faith and practical wisdom he detailed our mission as Christ’s Church.

Among his many inspirations and encouragements, is his emphasis on the witness of countless martyrs of the 20th century. Most of us were their contemporaries.

In ‘The Coming of the Third Millennium ‘ of November 10, 1994, he wrote: “At the end of the second millennium, the Church has once again, become a Church of martyrs. The persecution of believers - clergy, religious and laity has been a great saving of the seed of martyrdom in different parts of the world. This witness must not be forgotten”.

At the close of Jubilee 2000 in his ‘Entering the New Millennium’, the Pope reminds us - “May the shining example of the many witnesses to the faith whom we remembered in the Jubilee sustain and guide us. Martyrs has always been the seed of Christians. Will this be true of the century and millennium we now begin”.

Perhaps we were used to thinking of martyrs as distant, associated with the early centuries. The Jubilee shows that our own time is particularly prolific in martyrs”.

Canonization of Saints, especially martyrs, was a preeminent event of Jubilee 2000. On October 1, John Paul II canonized 120 martyrs of China and Katherine Drexel of the USA, Josephine Bokhita of Sudan and Maria de Guerra of Spain.

Among the 120 is the Chinese priest, Augustine Zhao Rong. There were 33 European bishops and priests, but most of the martyrs were laity. Eighty seven men and women, married and single, children teens, young people and elderly suffered for the faith. All consecrated the Church of China with their blood.

Thousands died in persecutions of the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. Of the 120 new saints, 85 were martyrs of the 20th century.

This persecution stemmed from the uprising of the Society for Justice and Harmony - called the BOXERS. This occurred at the start of the century. The slaughter of European missionaries and Chinese Catholics was brought about sadly on religious grounds.

Historical documents provide evidence of the anti-Christian hatred that spurred Boxers to massacre them. On July 1, 1900 an edict decreed that European missionaries must leave at once and the faithful be forced to apostatize under penalty of death. Among the 85 martyrs of July 1900 were 61 Chinese Catholics with 5 Chinese seminarians.

There were 19 European missionaries: nine priests, three bishops and seven Franciscan Sisters.

Many of these died on July 9, 1900 when the Boxer Rebellion reached the Vicariate of Xianxian, in the care of the Jesuits. The martyrs were four French Jesuits and 52 Chinese men, women and children. The eldest at 79 and the youngest at 9. There were 13 teenagers and 3 children. Most were killed in their Church of Tehau-Kia-ho.

The annual memorial of these 120 martyrs of China is in the Universal Calendar on July 9th.

These are excerpts from the homily of John Paul II on October 1, 2000: “Your word is truth; sanctify us in your love” (Jn 17:17). This invocation, an echo of Christ’s prayer to the Father after the Last Supper, seems to rise from the host of saints and blesseds whom the Spirit of God continues to raise up in his Church from generation to generation.

Today, 2,000 years since the beginning of Redemption, we make these words our own, while we have before us as models of holiness Augustine Zhao Rong and his 119 companions, martyrs in China, Maria Josefa of the Heart of Jesus Sancho de Guerra, Katherine Mary Drexel and Josephine Bakhita. God, the Father “sanctified them in his love”, granting the request of the Son, who opened his arms on the Cross, put an end to death and revealed the resurrection, in order to win for the Father a holy people.

These words clearly reflect the experience of Augustine Zhao Rong and 119 companions, martyrs in China. The testimonies which have come down to us allow us to glimpse in them a state of mind marked by deep serenity and joy.

Today the Church is grateful to her Lord, who blesses her and bathes her in light with the radiant holiness of these sons and daughters of China. Is not the Holy Year the most appropriate moment to make their heroic witness shine resplendently? Young Ann Wang, a 14 year old, withstood the threats of the torturers who invited her to apostatize. Ready for her beheading, she declared with a radiant face: “The door of heaven is open to all”, three times murmuring: “Jesus”. And 18 year old Chi Zhuzi, cried out fearlessly to those who had just cut off his right arm and were preparing to flay him alive: “Every piece of my flesh, every drop of my blood will tell you that I am Christian”.

The other 85 Chinese men and women of every age and state, priests, religious and lay people, showed the same conviction and joy, sealing their unfailing fidelity to Christ and the Church with the gift of their lives. This occurred over the course of several centuries and in a complex and difficult era of China’s history. Today’s celebration is not the appropriate time to pass judgement on those historical periods: this can and should be done elsewhere. Today, with this solemn proclamation of holiness, the Church intends merely to recognize that those martyrs are an example of courage and consistency to us all, and that they honor the noble Chinese people.

Resplendent in this host of martyrs are also the 33 missionaries who left their land and sought to immerse themselves in the Chinese world, lovingly assimilating its features in the desire to proclaim Christ and to serve those people. Their tombs are there as if to signify their definitive belonging to China, which they deeply loved, although with their human limitations, and for which they spent all their energies. “We never wronged anyone”, Bishop Francis Fogolla replies to the governor who was preparing to strike him with his sword. “On the contrary, we have done good to many”. God sends down happiness”.

A GIANT of faith in our own time inspires - Francis Xavier Van Thuan (1928-2002) was in the Communist Prison at Phu Khanh for 13 years. Nine of these were ‘solitary confinement’. After several years of ‘house arrest’ he was expelled from Vietnam in 1991.

In Jubilee 2000 he led the Lenten Spiritual Retreat for John Paul II and he entire Vatican staff. This was published in ‘Testimony of Hope’. Cardinal Van Thuan died on September 16, 2002.

This is from one of his talks ‘The Seed of Christians - the Martyrs of Today’: “How many martyrs! A crowd of martyrs: martyrs for purity, martyrs for justice, child martyrs, men and women martyrs, and martyred peoples. This great fresco stretches out before our eyes - one of a Christian humanity, meek, humble, non-violent, resisting evil, weak and at the same time strong in the faith - people who have loved and believed beyond death. This martyred humanity is the hope of the century we are beginning to live.

This is a heritage for the Christians of the twenty-first century, one that we must embrace and choose. It is a heritage to embrace in everyday life, in the small and great difficulties, in the stripping away of all aggressiveness, of all hatred, of all violence. The heritage of the martyrs is accepted every day in a life full of love, meekness, and fidelity. Isaac the Syrian wrote: “Let yourself be persecuted, but you, do not persecute. Let yourself be crucified, but you, do not crucify. Let yourself be abused, but you, do not abuse”.

I seem to hear a question being asked of all of us in this Lent and Easter of the Great Jubilee. Do we desire to embrace the heritage of these martyrs beneath the sign of the Cross and of the Resurrection?”