Our Lady of Deliverance, Empress of China
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Our Lady of Deliverance, Empress of China
In 1900, the Catholic Church was healthy and growing in China. There were forty bishops, about 800 European missionaries, 600 native Chinese priests, and the number of native Catholics throughout the whole of China proper was estimated at 700,000.It was during this time that the Boxer Uprising (1898-1900) started which ushered in a period of animosity against all things European.
It was from this hatred that the Boxer Rebellion was born. In June, 1900 the Boxers besieged the Beitang Cathedral. Directing the defense during the siege was the French Lazarist Bishop Pierre-Marie-Alphonse Favier, C.M. of Peking. Bishop Favier, who designed the cathedral, kept a journal during the siege and gave vivid accounts of what was endured not only before, but during the siege. He provides the following account of the Boxer revolt:
“The Boxers are a truly diabolical sect;
invocations, incantations, obsessions, and even possessions, are common
among them. Savants may attribute their extraordinary doings to
magnetism or hypnotism or may look upon them as victims of hysteria and
fanaticism, but to us they seem to be even more directly instruments of
the devil. The hatred of the name Catholic drives them to the greatest
excesses. Established as they are in every village they unite on a day
specified to attack any one Catholic settlement, destroying and
murdering everything and everyone in it. Small children were quartered,
women were burned in church or run through with a sword, men were
stabbed or shot and some were even crucified. The conduct of the
Catholics is admirable; apostasy is proposed to them, but they prefer
flight, ruin, even death.”[1]
The cathedral, which
was the Lazarists’ usual place of residency, was besieged by 10,000
Boxers and soldiers from the regular army. Behind the walls of the
church, were over 3,000 Chinese Catholics, 30 French seamen led by a
23-year-old Lt. Paul Henry (who died in the siege,) 11 Italian soldiers
led by a 22-year-old Lt. Olivieri, and numerous French and Chinese
priests and sisters. This siege resulted in the deaths of more than 400
people. Over the two month siege, the Catholics endured continuous
bombardment, mine attacks, flaming rockets, and starvation. Many of the
children died from smallpox.
Related:
In 1901, at the Lazarists’ mother house in Paris, Bishop Favier would recount events of this dramatic siege:
“… Every night during those two months,
the Chinese [Boxers] directed heavy gunfire at the roofs of the
cathedral and the balustrade surrounding it. Why? wondered [Lieutenant]
Paul Henry and the missionaries. There was no one there to defend the
cathedral. After the liberation, the pagans provided the key to this
mystery: ‘How is it,’ they said, ‘that you did not see anything? Every
night, a white Lady walked along the roof, and the balustrade was lined
with white soldiers with wings.’ The Chinese [Boxers], as they
themselves affirm, were firing at the apparitions.”[3]
Their miraculous survival was attributed to the appearance of a woman
in white, Our Lady of Deliverance. Bishop Favier had a chapel erected
in thanksgiving, in the church of Beitang in her honor. She is
represented as the Empress of China holding in her arms the Child Jesus,
Who is depicted as an imperial prince.Bishop Favier expressed his absolute confidence in Providence which thus manifested Its protection:
“The good God wishes to save the missions
of China. The persecution had been so cleverly organized, that it
seemed that the Catholic religion in China was going to be extinguished.
However nothing of the kind happened. Thanks be to God. Death gives
birth to life. Blessed are those who succumb to death, they prepare the
way for the final triumph, they are martyrs crowned by God.”[4]
1. Favier, Alphonse, Edited by Joseph Freri. The Heart of Pekin: Bishop A. Favier‘s Diary of the Siege, May-August 1900. Boston: Marlier, 1901. Page 9 & 10.
2. Mazeau, Henry The Heroine Of Pe-Tang; Helen De Jaurias, Sister Of Charity 1824-1900. Sr. Helen de Jaurias died on August 20, 1900.
Note from the book: “In China the power of the devil is manifested visibly by the number of persons who are possessed of evil spirits. We often hear Satan speaking by the mouths of possessed people. A holy Missionary, who has been here for 22 years, told me that he heard him declaring through a woman who was possessed that China was his chosen Empire, and that there was not a single spot of this country where he was not worshiped!” They were told (also by the devil) not to build any buildings higher than 99 feet high.
3. http://www.jesuit.org/wp-content/uploads/Studies_Autumn_09.pdf
4. J-M Planchet C. M., Documents sur les martyrs de Pekin pendant la persecution des Boxeurs, Peking, Imprimerie des Lazaristes, 1920, p. 101.