December 3--St. Francis Xavier, Priest and Religious

Portrait of St. Francis Xavier by Unknown Artist licensed under public domain.

He was the most famous missionary since St. Paul! He traveled to India, Malaysia, the Maluku Islands, Japan, and China. He converted about 30,000 souls. He evangelized in native languages, adapted to native cultures, and promoted native clergy. He co-founded the Society of Jesus, the Jesuits, and was named “Patron of Catholic Missions” by Pope Pius XI. That is quite a résumé for today’s saint, St. Francis Xavier!

Pope Benedict XVI wrote: “St. Francis Xavier … saw as his own mission ‘opening new ways of access’ to the Gospel ‘in the immense Continent of Asia’. His apostolate in the Orient lasted barely 10 years, but in the four and half centuries that the Society of Jesus has existed it has proven wonderfully fruitful, for his example inspired a multitude of missionary vocations among young Jesuits and he remains a reference point for the continuation of missionary activity in the great countries of the Asian Continent.”

Jesus commissioned the Apostles and, through them, us as well: “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt. 28:19-20). We do not have to go to India or Japan or China. We just need to go to our families or neighbors or colleagues or friends. They need to see and hear in us that we have something great to share: Jesus loves us and them. The Church welcomes us all into her midst. We just need to repent of our sins and live as the saints Jesus calls us to be. What greater missionary effort is there than to love our neighbors?

July 9--St. Augustine Zhao Rong and Companions, Martyrs

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Is Catholicism a Western ideology or a universal religion? This is an important question if we are to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ. St. Augustine Zhao Rong was one of 87 native Chinese, along with 33 foreign-born missionaries who were martyred between 1648 and 1930. He was a soldier assigned to escort a French bishop in China. St. Augustine was so impressed by the priest and his patience he converted and soon became a priest. However, Catholicism was seen as a foreign religion and a threat to Chinese culture. Shortly after his ordination, St. Augustine Zhao Rong was “jailed, tortured, and left to die in prison” in 1815. Many were martyred during the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, one a nine-year-old. None of the martyrs were engaged in political activities, nor were they agents of Western colonial powers, although that was what the governments feared. They were living their faith in Jesus.

The word catholic means universal. We have been given a command by Jesus to “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age” (Mt. 28:19-20). To do so we must inculturate, or adapt to the local culture, the message of Jesus and the faith of the Church. That is what missionaries do and have done through the centuries! Some have been more successful than others, but the goal has never been to wipe out other cultures to supplant it with Western culture, although many in modern society have accused the Church of doing so. Thus, the destruction of statues of St. Junipero Serra! We are called to love, not destroy.

* https://mycatholic.life/saints/saints-of-the-liturgical-year/july-9-saint-augustine-zhao-rong-and-companions-martyrs/

September 11--St. John Gabriel Perboyre, Priest and Martyr

St. John Gabriel Perboyre, born in France in 1802, joined the Congregation of the Missions with a great desire to be a missionary. He was ordained in 1826 but was prevented from going to foreign missions due to his excellence at teaching in the seminary. However, in 1835 he was finally sent to China. In China he rescued street children and taught catechumens. But China was an unstable country and the Opium Wars ignited persecutions of foreigners. In 1839 St. John Gabriel was betrayed by a catechumen and then subjected to a year of trials and tortures. He was accused of teaching a false religion, charged to reveal other Christians, made to kneel on rusty iron chains, hung by his thumbs and hair, beaten by bamboo canes, and accused of immoral relations with a Chinese girl. He was sentenced to death by strangulation while on a cross and died a martyr on September 11, 1840.

St. John Gabriel faced persecution in two ways. France was an anti-clerical country after the French Revolution. China was anti-Christian because it associated Christianity with Western culture. Both societies brought him closer to Jesus by their opposition to Jesus and his Church. We are living in a society that is moving in the direction of being anti-Catholic due to Church teaching in which we follow Jesus in matters of marriage, sexuality, and the dignity of the human person at all stages of life. The chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee ridiculed an effort by the current administration regarding human rights because he believed it would “give preference to discriminatory ideologies.” This is the new label facing the Catholic Church. We are at the start of an era of persecution. We may not be killed, but we will be vilified, yet another kind of martyrdom.

July 9--St. Augustine Zhao Rong, Priest, and Companions, Martyrs

    

Christianity has had a speckled history in China.  It was first introduced in the seventh century and then reintroduced in the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries.  The Church has not expanded into China very well for a number of reasons, including being associated with Western colonial powers in the last centuries.  There have been times of growth and acceptance as well as setbacks and times of persecution.  Over 120 Chinese Catholic martyrs died between 1648 and 1930.  Most of them were born in China and were children, parents, catechists, or laborer ranging in age from nine to 72.  They were beatified at different times, but St. John Paul the Great canonized them together in 2000.

St. Augustine Zhao Rong was originally a soldier who escorted a bishop to his martyrdom.  St. Augustine was moved by his patience and eventually was baptized and ordained a priest.  He was then arrested, tortured, and also martyred within months of his conversion.

"The blood of the martyrs is the seed of Christianity."  This saying from Tertullilan, an early Christian apologist, is true for the Church today and in China.  The Catholic Church in China has about 12 million members.  However, it is still in a state of flux.  There are two Catholic Churches, one the official Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association sponsored by the Chinese government, and the other, an "underground" Catholic Church. There have been some efforts to work together and try to regularize the situation but they are not complete.  We pray for the intercesssion of St. Augustine Zhao Rong and the Chinese martyrs to help Catholicism to grow in China.