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| “St. Augustine Zhao Rong” Artist and Date are unknown. Via Memorial Bench. |
Christianity arrived in China by way of Syria in the 600s. Depending on China's relations with the outside world, Christianity over the centuries was free to grow or was forced to operate secretly.I am not sure why but I have always been fascinated by the witness of these brave Catholics in China. Perhaps it is because I've always been interested in China anyway and so these saints naturally draw my attention. Their witness is just as important today as when they were martyred.
The 120 martyrs in this group died between 1648 and 1930. Most of them (eighty-seven) were born in China and were children, parents, catechists or laborers, ranging from nine years of age to seventy-two. This group includes four Chinese diocesan priests.
The thirty-three foreign-born martyrs were mostly priests or women religious, especially from the Order of Preachers, the Paris Foreign Mission Society, the Friars Minor, Jesuits, Salesians and Franciscan Missionaries of Mary.
Augustine Zhao Rong was a Chinese soldier who accompanied Bishop John Gabriel Taurin Dufresse (Paris Foreign Mission Society) to his martyrdom in Beijing. Augustine was baptized and not long after was ordained as a diocesan priest. He was martyred in 1815.
Beatified in groups at various times, these 120 martyrs were canonized in Rome on October 1, 2000. ...
The fact that this considerable number of Chinese lay faithful offered their lives for Christ together with the missionaries who had proclaimed the Gospel to them and had been so devoted to them is evidence of the depth of the link that faith in Christ establishes. It gathers into a single family people of various races and cultures, strongly uniting them not for political motives but in virtue of a religion that preaches love, brotherhood, peace and justice.
You may read more about the individual martyrs.
One of them who recently came to my attention is St. Mark Ji Tianxiang. He was highly respected until he treated himself for an illness with opium and became addicted. Sounds just like the morphine problem after WWII or today's opioid addiction crisis, doesn't it? As he continually struggled with his addiction, his confessor gradually became convinced that the repeated confessions meant that Tianxiang wasn't really trying. So he was banned from the sacraments ... for 30 years. But Tianxiang never turned away from the Church, instead praying that he could become a martyr. His entire family was martyred during the Boxer Rebellion.
Ji begged his captors to kill him last so that none of his family would have to die alone. He stood beside all nine of them as they were beheaded.That is a beautiful bit of selflessness that I hope I would have the courage to emulate. Read his story here.
I particularly love St. Mark Ji Tianxiang
ReplyDeleteThis Addict Is a Saint
Jim Manney Reflections
A friend of mine recently sent me a unusual holy card. It honors St. Mark Ji Tianxiang, a Chinese layman who was murdered in 1900, along with dozens of other Catholics in his village, in the vicious persecution of Christians during the Boxer rebellion. That’s not the unusual thing. The Church has canonized many martyrs, including many Chinese martyrs. What’s unusual about St. Mark is that he was an opium addict who was barred from receiving the sacraments for the last 30 years of his life.
Mark couldn’t receive communion because his addiction was regarded as gravely sinful & scandalous. He prayed for deliverance from his addiction, but deliverance never came. Nevertheless he remained a believing Catholic. At his trial he was given a chance to renounce his faith, but he refused. It is said that he sang the litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary as he was led to his execution.
Saints are exemplary people. The Church wants us to learn from them. So what can we learn from St. Mark Ji Tianxiang?
For starters, he shows that anybody can become a saint—even a man who was kicked out of the church for giving public scandal. The Church also signals a different attitude toward addiction than the one St. Mark’s pastors had a century ago. Drug abuse is sinful, but addiction is also a disease of the mind & body. Addicts today are not excluded from the sacraments because they are addicts.
I also marvel at St. Mark’s confidence in the mercy of God. He probably shared the village’s opinion of him—that he was serious sinner who was behaving terribly. He must have felt despair in his futile struggles & perhaps some bitterness too. But he persevered in his faith. I suspect that in his brokenness he met the suffering Christ. In the end, he went to his death confidently, trusting that love would receive him. May we all imitate St. Mark.
He was an opium addict who couldn’t receive the sacraments.
But he’s a martyr and a saint
St. Mark Ji Tianxiang couldn't stay sober, but he could keep showing up.
Precisely! :-)
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