FROM THE PASTOR’S DESK
Dear St. Mary’s Parishioners,
Recently, I received in the mail the “Project Xavier Newsletter”. Project Xavier (PX, www.projectxavier.org) represents a small group of Catholic faithful who are trying to evangelize, catechize and teach in China. PX is named after St. Francis Xavier, an original member of the “Society of Jesus” otherwise known as the Jesuits. During the last years of his relatively brief life, St. Francis Xavier (1506-1552) served as a missionary in India, Japan and China. The saint’s right arm is kept and venerated in a reliquary in the Church of the Gesú in Rome. It was with his right arm that St. Francis Xavier baptized some 700,000 people. In a letter to St. Ignatius, that is the Second Reading for the Office of Readings on December 3 rd, St. Francis Xavier’s feast day, the baptizing saint wrote: “The native Christians have no priests. They know only that they are Christians. There is nobody to say Mass for them; nobody to teach them the Creed, the Our Father, the Hail Mary and the Commandments of God’s law. I have not stopped since the day I arrived….Many, many people hereabouts are not becoming Christians for one reason only: there is nobody to make them Christians. Again and again, I have thought of going round the universities in Europe, especially Paris, and everywhere crying like a madman, riveting the attention of those with more learning than charity: ‘What a tragedy: how many souls are being shut out of heaven and falling into hell, thanks to you!’” (Office of Readings, Dec 3)
The lay missionaries of Project Xavier have the zeal of their namesake. I found about PX a few years ago when I met Shannon who has over 20 years of experience evangelizing in China. Sadly, on account of the present crackdowns on religious education in China, Shannon and the other PX missionaries are not able to physically work in China right now. Still, they do what they can via the internet and they stay in touch with Chinese Catholics whom they helped to form and who are continuing to spread the Gospel in China. In the PX newsletter (I am finally arriving at the story that I want to tell), Shannon describes a time of year in China called “Spring Festival, the Chinese New Year”. During Spring Festival, it is customary for the Chinese to make special visits to relatives and friends. In some cases, it is the only time of year that they would visit a particular relative or friend. Every year, Shannon’s friend, Mei would visit a woman that she did not see any other time of year. When she was little, Mei would be brought by her mother to visit the woman. As a young girl, Mei did not realize why her mother would take her to visit the woman. Later, as an adult, Mei came to learn that her mother took her to visit the woman as an act of gratitude. It was only in a roundabout way that Mei learned the reason for the annual visits. Mei’s mother wanted her daughter to know the reason why she was visiting the woman, but she could not bring herself to tell her daughter directly. So, she told the reason to a neighbor, in a room in the house next to a room that Mei was in, knowing that Mei would be able to overhear the conversation.
As background to the story, for years, China has enforced the “One Child Policy” which means that a family can only have one child. If another child were to be conceived, the mother would be forced to abort the child. When Mei’s mother conceived her, she had already had a son. She knew that she would not be able to keep Mei. But she went to the abortion clinic to comply with the law. The nurse caring for the pregnant mother at the clinic could sense the mother’s reluctance to have the abortion. When the doctor came in to perform the abortion, the nurse told the physician: “I don’t think she should have abortion today. She has a bit of a cold. It would be better to wait for another day.” Without verifying the nurse’s assessment, the doctor left the room. The nurse told Mei’s mother to leave and return another time when she was feeling better. Mei’s mother never returned to that clinic.
To show her gratitude to the nurse, annually during Chinese New Year, Mei’s mother took Mei to see the nurse so that she could see the girl whose life she had helped to save. In her article, Shannon points out how there are no prolife organizations in China. Yet, Mei’s mother and the nurse, neither of whom is a Christian, had the intuition and inclination that “this was a person who needed to be protected, not killed”. This is one example of many who have found their way around the One Child Policy in China over the years. Mei eventually grew into adulthood and in college she met a Christian missionary. Mei became a Christian and is now a religious sister. Please pray for the success of Project Xavier and for the conversion of China.
May you have a blessed week.
In Christ Jesus, Father Berg
