A Chinese Handmaid of Christ

and Juliana Wang clung to one another, as they looked for a spot to sit on the manure- and urine-stained floorboards. In the elbow-to-elbow crowd of women prisoners, the sisters sat and leaned back against a wall of rough-hewn boards. Eventually, the locomotive’s engine roared. Metal clanged upon metal, as the joints between railcars tightened. Then the train, filled with convicts, sluggishly rolled out of Shanghai’s West Railway Station.

It was October 1958, a dangerous time to be faithful Roman Catholics in the revolutionary, Communist-controlled People’s Republic of China. Prisoners of conscience, the Wang sisters – declared enemies of the State for their unwavering Catholicism – were being transported, like beasts, from Shanghai to a prison in Chinghai province, the province of prisoners, the province of banishment.

The province of unconquered vast open spaces to be conquered with bare hands and bent backs of men and woman on the wrong side of the Revolution.

Only 13 years earlier, on August 15, 1945, when Emperor Hirohito announced the surrender of Japan, signaling the end of World War II, life in the Republic of China had looked promising, especially in Shanghai, the highly cultured, international port city, praised as the Paris of the Orient. On that day of true liberation, planes flew over the city dropping leaflets, THE WAR IS OVER!

People ran into the streets, with their arms raised, hollering with joy. Celebratory firecrackers exploded, with bits of singed red paper flying everywhere, covering everything.

It was the end of the Japanese occupation. No more air raid sirens. No more Imperial Japanese Army soldiers.

No more ID check points. No more shakedowns. No more on-the-spot strip searches. No more prisoner-ofwar internment camps. And the Wangs shared in that optimism, even though the family had to squeeze into a humble, third-story walk-up apartment on Boulevard de Montigny (former name of Xizang Road South). It was wonderful to live in the city’s French Settlement, a district known for its streets shaded by London plane trees with showy marbled bark, pseudo-maple leaves and dangling seed balls.

With the future looking hopeful, the Wang family embraced life, even its daily struggles. During the Plum Rain Season, when abundant rainfall coaxed the beauty of the pink plum blossoms along the Yangtze River, rivulets of rain poured through the holes in the ceiling. Ten-year-old Catherine, warm and dry under a pile of quilts, watched with contentment as her mother, affectionately called Mm-Ma, rushed about, mopping the floor, happily emptying the overflowing wood tub, sauce pot, wash bowl and even the drinking mug.

When Catherine’s father, her Ah-Bà, returned home from his job as a secretary in a Belgian-owned real estate company, sometimes the musical instruments hanging on the wall were retrieved from their places of honor. Ah-Bà sat, and upon his thigh he placed an erhu, a two-stringed Chinese violin held in one hand and bowed with the other. Mm-Ma wrapped her arms around a yueqin, balanced on her lap, as her fingers plucked the traditional Chinese fourstringed lute nicknamed the moon guitar for its hollow body shaped like a full moon.

In the dim light of the apartment, Catherine listened as the tones of the erhu married the tones of the yueqin. A peace and calm fell upon her. Once in a great while, Ah-Bà and Mm-Ma splurged and treated the two oldest children, John and Catherine, to a traditional Chinese opera. In the evening, after dinner, the family walked a few short blocks north, up the wide and busy Boulevard de Montigny, dodging pedestrians in Chinese gowns, limbless beggars, noodle vendors and barefoot rickshaw runners.

At the corner of rue du Consulat (former name of Jin Ling Road East) stood the very famous Gold Theater.

Catherine’s favorite opera "Suo Lin Nang" ("The Jewelry Bag") hinged on the chance meeting of two brides, one wealthy, the other poor. The plot unfolded, revealing universal themes of generosity, gratitude and reversal of fortune, while embracing the Confucian philosophical ideal of reciprocity. From the back row, the least expensive seats, she watched as Yin-Qiu Chen, one of the "famous four" actors, played Xiang-Ling Xue, a bride from a very wealthy family. Catherine sat transfixed as Chen, dressed in a brightly colored bridal costume and exaggerated makeup, traveled in a luxurious sedan, across the stage, followed by a long procession of servants playing horns and gongs, carrying the bride’s trousseau. With his tones of sorrow, Chen’s singing stabbed at Catherine’s heart and wrenched emotions from her, forever leaving deep impressions. Chen was one of the "famous four" for a reason.

On the mundane side of day-to-day life, Catherine began her education at a local municipal primary school. Even though lacking knowledge of the very basics – because the war had made education a difficult pursuit she quickly caught up. Then in 1947, at the age of 12, she transferred to Aurora University’s College of Arts and Sciences, the Catholic university’s auxiliary all-girl preparatory secondary school.

Catherine’s Ah-Bà, as a child, had attended the famous Franco-Chinese School, located in the French Settlement and run by the priests of the Society of Jesus. Always a brilliant student, year after year he received the No. 1 test score, for which he was always rewarded with the No. 1 Seat in the classroom.

And because of his academic excellence, the school also granted to him free tuition, which allowed him to continue his education, all the way to university.

Ah-Bà, who was orphaned at a young age, and Mm-Ma had both been raised as pagans. In traditional Chinese style, they followed Buddhism, especially on Chinese New Year’s Eve, when custom mandated that children kowtow three times before an image of Buddha. One day, I will adore a real God, thought Catherine’s father as a boy, when forced to kneel down and touch his forehead to the ground in front of a stone-cold potbellied statue. Slowly, over the years, as Ah-Bà continued his education in Catholic schools, he began to feel drawn to the Church. After his marriage and the birth, in 1929, of their first child, a son, all three Wangs were baptized at the same time, in 1932, with holy water cupped from the marble font in Saint Peter’s Church, the collegiate church of Aurora.

Ah-Bà was baptized Louis, after Saint Louis the King. Mm-Ma received the baptismal name Mary. And their son was baptized John, after Saint John the Apostle. And when their first daughter was born in 1935, she was readily baptized Catherine, after Saint Catherine of Alexandria (282-305), the brilliant and beautiful Virgin Martyr who was scourged, imprisoned, then finally beheaded. Then Juliana arrived, and, eventually, the youngest, Cecelia.

Despite a religious home and an education in a prestigious Catholic school, Catherine, unlike Ah-Bà, didn’t particularly feel an attraction to the sacred life. She was the type of girl who preferred fun and pleasure. Rather then spend time reading passages from the Bible, she preferred to spread the pages of the newspaper before her, to look at the pictures and read the short serialized stories, even though her educated father hinted that she should seek deeper understanding in life. "One should also read editorials," he counseled.

Editorials weren’t fun. And neither were the after-school weekly catechism classes on the fundamentals of the faith, taught by any one of the many Jesuit priests affiliated with the Aurora campus. But there was no escape, because as she and the other girls walked down the stairs to leave the school for the day, the nuns, the Mesdames of the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, were always waiting at the bottom step, to direct them, with a glance of an eye and a point of a finger, straight to the lecture hall.

Until one day, when Catherine, a girl as clever as she was pretty, figured out a way to escape the dreaded catechism class. Instead of going down the stairs, she walked up the stairs, to the roof, through the roof terrace, down the stairs of the convent next to the school, through a large garden tended by the sisters, continued straight out the back gate, smiling to herself all the way to the street where she was free!

On February 1, 1949, the Communists "liberated" the ancient city of Peking (old form of Beijing), the northern capital. Then on April 23, they marched triumphantly into Nanching (old form of Nanjing), the southern capital, in Chiangsu (old form of Jiangsu) province. Nanching was only 187 miles from Shanghai, also in Chiangsu province. It would just be a matter of time. And it didn’t take long. The following month, on May 27, 1949, the Communists "liberated" Shanghai, the city in the East built by the West.

Although the nearby countryside had been scarred by military battles, the city proper escaped unscathed. Catherine never heard a single gunshot, perhaps because she lived in the center of Shanghai, which sprawls over an area of more than 2,000 square miles. The only sign of "liberation" that she noticed was the following day, when she saw People’s Liberation Army soldiers lying around, reclining on the pavement in the streets, relaxing in their glorious victory.

When the school year began, the People’s Liberation Army Cultural Troupe entered the school campus freely every day after classes. Being a teenager looking for excitement and diversion, Catherine readily joined the music group. She enjoyed being with the Communists. They were fun. The old songbooks filled with the beautiful lyrics of the ancient poets formerly sung in school were tossed away by the Communists. Instead, the army troupe performers, decked out in impressive and enviable gray uniforms, taught Catherine and the other students how to sing revolutionary songs, which mostly consisted of shouting slogans. "Where the Party points, there we go!" Catherine and others chanted in unison. "Mao Tse-Tung Thought is the beacon, lighting our advance!"

To go along with the slogans, students were also taught how to play the yaogu, a canister shaped, doubled-ended drum tied at the waist and beaten with sticks.

The students were ready to march by the time Chairman Mao stood atop the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Peking’s Tiananmen Square, on October 1, 1949, and announced, "The Central People’s Government Council of the People’s Republic of China took over office today in this capital." To celebrate the glory of the Communist Party on that very first National Day, the army troupe organized the students to form a primitive parade, which consisted of shouting slogans and playing their waist drums as they walked along the crowded city streets, which were being renamed because of the city’s "liberation" from the despised reactionary and counterrevolutionary factions. Those streets with bourgeois names were being replaced with names that honored the Revolution. "Heaven and earth are great, but greater is the kindness of the Party! Father and Mother are dear, but no dearer than Chairman Mao!" an exuberant Catherine shouted with the others.

All day and into the late night, Catherine paraded around, aimlessly and endlessly

Didn't the Communists promise freedom of religion? Why are their actions not keeping with their promise?

following the others along the streets of Shanghai. Exhausted, she wanted to go home, but had no idea where she was, until she realized that she was along the Huangpu River. And just around the corner was Saint Joseph Church, where she and her family attended Sunday Mass. So she sneaked away and hurried home. By the time she quietly opened the door to the apartment on Boulevard de Montigny and tiptoed to her bed trying not to wake anyone, it was almost midnight. "If you bring that drum home next time, I’ll throw it out!" her brother, John, threatened. Apparently not everyone had been asleep.

Back at school, Catherine continued with the troupe. But then, some of the students held a meeting to start up a branch of the Communist Youth League. They invited Catherine, and she happily attended. Held in a small classroom, only a handful of students showed up.

Quickly, she noticed that the meeting was completely different from the music group, in its tone. Fun-loving Catherine listened carefully to what was said, and what she heard in the hate-filled ideology, she didn’t like.

The leader, who addressed the group, mocked religion, slandered the priests and nuns.

Catherine wondered. After that meeting, Catherine refused to take part in any of their activities.

Instead, sometime in the spring of 1950, when classmate Ma-Li "Mary" Gu asked Catherine to join the Legion of Mary, a religious organization, she readily accepted the invitation. Since she had dropped out of the Communist-led groups, and the government had begun banning all forms of entertainment except that which pushed the revolutionary propaganda, she had not much else to do to occupy her free time.

For Legionary work, and in adherence to the virtuous corporal works of mercy, Catherine and her fellow Legionaries went in pairs to visit the sick children in Guang Ci Hospital, which was a big Catholic hospital, originally named L’Hôpital Sainte-Marie. The little patients were very young, very thin and very frail, as a result of their illnesses, but when they saw the Legionaries, they immediately filled with joy.

The Legion brought a new beginning, a new meaning to Catherine’s life. The seed of spirituality that had been planted in her heart began to sprout. It seemed as if she had finally begun to heed her father’s advice of seeking a deeper understanding in the world, not only of the natural, but also of the supernatural.

Around the same time, the Wang family moved to an apartment at the corner of Jinling Road East (formerly rue du Consulat) and Yongan Road (formerly rue Montauban). After the move, they regularly attended the daily 6 a.m.

Mass at Saint Joseph Church, at 36 Sichuan Road South, headed by Jesuit missionaries from France. Perhaps the family had been inspired by the cross gleaming atop the middle tower, which they could see from their apartment windows, just one parallel block over.

Or perhaps it was the tolling of the bell three times a day, at 6 a.m., noon and 6 p.m., signaling the faithful to pray the Angelus. Or perhaps it was a simple need for something spiritual in a world becoming all too materialistic under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, led by the totalitarian Communist regime.

After Mass, Catherine rushed home for a quick breakfast, grabbed her school books, then rushed down the street and jumped on the electric streetcar that ran along Jinling Road East and turned onto HuaiHai East Road (formerly Joffre Avenue). She rode all the way until her stop at Ruijin Road, where she hopped off and headed to school. When the final bell rang at 3:30 p.m., she and her classmates walked down Ruijin Road half a block and crossed the street to Christ the King Catholic Church, staffed with American and Chinese Jesuits.

The priests were all friendly and kept their young flock busy with plenty of religious activities. For Catherine, first there was homework, followed by choir practice until the service that began each afternoon at 5:30 p.m. It consisted of the rosary, doctrinal instruction and Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament.

Also included was regular catechism class for the elder students. By that time, Catherine loved catechism class. But by the autumn of 1950, the Communist wind shifted.

In an attempt to break with the "imperialistic" Holy See, the People’s Government created the Three-Self Reform Movement, so-called for its aim to be Self-governing, Self-supporting and Self-propagating. It was the establishment of the new-and-improved revolutionary Chinese catholic church, independent from the Pope, despised as the "running dog of the American imperialists," and the Vatican, described as the headquarters of the "imperialistic cultural invasions." The Religious Affairs Bureau, the long arm of the People’s Government, would regulate and control all religious activities, all religious persons and all religious houses – all required to be registered with and approved by the Bureau.

Roman Catholics were ordered to align themselves with the State's official church, backed and promoted by the Party. Those who did not, were warned that they would suffer the consequences.

In 1951, the Purge began. On October 8, 1951, the official attack against the Legion of Mary began. Hit pieces in the regime’s newspapers declared that the religious organization was nothing but a counterrevolutionary clique, and that its members were running dogs of the Imperialists. Mao publicly condemned the Legion, labeling it Public Enemy No. 1. Legionaries were ordered to resign immediately and were given a deadline, December 15, 1951. They were to report to special centers overseen by the Military Control Committee, which had been assigned to organize the attacks.

Outside the centers, 6-foot-tall signs posted: SECRET SUBVERSIVE ORGANIZATION, LEGION OF MARY, MEMBER REGISTRATION CENTER.

Clemency was promised to those who resigned; otherwise, punishment, prison, and possible death were the end results for those who refused to comply.

Authorities contacted Catherine’s school administrators, who ordered her to go to the police station. Obedient, she appeared before officers. They sat her down. They threatened her, repeatedly.

They hollered, repeatedly. They banged their fists on the desk, repeatedly. They cursed every filthy word imaginable, repeatedly. They demanded that she sign a document claiming that the Legion of Mary was counterrevolutionary, repeatedly. Catherine remained silent.

Finally, the officers permitted her to leave, and she returned home. But it was only a temporary reprieve. Since she did not resign, she would pay the consequences. Not if, but when. At the Wang home late one night, long after everyone had gone to bed and fallen asleep, someone pounded at their door. Police had arrived to arrest John, Catherine’s older brother.

After the Communist takeover of China, Mao had ordered the directive: Harness the Huai River! And whatever Madman Mao ordered, was done. In late 1951, college seniors were forced to stop their studies and go to Honan (old form of Henan) province, to participate in the campaign. John had been studying architectural engineering and, at that time, had just entered his senior year at Aurora University, his father’s alma mater. Helpless to keep him from being banished to the countryside like millions of other students, the "sent-down youth," the Wang family could do nothing for John but quickly gather supplies: a quilt, some extra clothing, bits of food.

When they arrived at the police station with the bundle, they were told that he had already been sent to Honan. But authorities accepted the bundle, with assurances that John would receive the items. He never did. In fact, when he returned home the following year, on December 27, 1952, his feast day, his family learned that he had never received any of the supplies they had sent to him. While being forced to labor like a peasant, including the butchering of pigs, he wore shoes that were so worn out, they barely covered his feet.

He never resumed his studies; instead, he preferred to visit with the Jesuits at Zikawei.

In the spring of 1953, the year Catherine was to graduate from secondary school, all the students in her school were ordered to be present at a meeting in the Big Hall. The girls lined up at the door in single file, and as Catherine entered, something above the raised stage caught her eye. A huge character poster with big square characters: ACCUSATION MEETING OF THE IMPERIALISTS’ DOG – REN-SHENG WANG.

Catherine knew Father Ren-Sheng "Louis" Wang (1909-60, Society of Jesus) very well. He was a man of strong character, adored by the students.

When his mother died, Catherine and many others rushed to the apartment where the woman’s body lay. Around her death bed, all stood, openly weeping, all except Father Wang. Catherine watched his face turn redder and redder, as he fought to hold back the tears.

Father Wang had been appointed principal of the Aurora University’s College of Arts and Sciences following the expulsion, in 1952, of English-born Mother Margaret Thornton (1898-1977, Society of the Sacred Heart). But prior to the accusation meeting, Father Wang had been replaced by Wen-Yao Wu, a Communist.

Replacements, as such, were a common part of the Communist progression in China, which included the cleansing of foreigners and foreign sympathizers from all religious institutions, which were subsequently confiscated by the People’s Government. At that time, every leader of every unit, especially in the spheres of learning and science, had to be a Communist, who could be and would be controlled by other Party members. At the accusation meeting in the Big Hall, Catherine and others in the graduate classes were seated in a place of prominence. In the middle, Catherine waited. She waited to hear what position her Catholic classmates would declare about Father Wang, who was not present at the meeting. School authorities wanted the students to make accusations against him, in his absence.

In the Big Hall, the atmosphere was already tense. When the leader of the accusation meeting prepared to speak, silence spread throughout the hall.

"Accusation of Wang, Ren-Sheng!" the leader shouted. Catherine promptly stood up, turned around and walked out of the hall. One by one, other students stood up and followed her out.

A week later, the day before she and the other students were to take the physics examination required for graduation, Catherine was called to Principal Wu's office. Extremely upset, she sat attentively, but heard nothing, as the principal gave her a long lecture.

"Be a good citizen after you leave school," was the only thing she heard him say as she left his office.

She feared expulsion. The next day, she took the physics exam, but the results were not good. She received a failing grade of only 50 percent. Catherine

A Chinese Handmaid of Christ

couldn’t believe it. Neither could her physics teacher. And Catherine wasn’t the only one who failed. All those students who had walked out during Father Wang’s accusation meeting received failing grades, as well.

Days later, the failing grades were followed up with written disciplinary warnings, delivered by special messengers dispatched from the school to the homes of the students and needed to be signed by parents. Catherine wasn’t expelled, but a serious mistake had been noted on her record, in her file. Not long after, when Catherine and the other Catholic students took the national university entrance examination needed in order to enroll in universities, the results were much the same. When the enrollment lists were subsequently published, not a single name of a Catholic graduate was on the roll. And all received the same notice from the enrollment head office, including a senior who had signed up to take the exam but decided not to and opted to join a religious community, instead.

The notice: "Your mark on the entrance exam does not meet the standard for enrollment." Unable to pursue their studies, their futures looked bleak. Catherine and the others were devastated. But not long after, she read a book that changed her life: "The Story of a Soul," the autobiography of Carmelite nun Thérèse of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face. The written reflections of the saint, who was born Marie-Françoise-Thérèse Martin of Lisieux (1873-97) and canonized in 1925, captivated Catherine. Feeling that she, too, may have a vocation for the religious life, she prayed to the Little Flower, trying to discern, whether or not she should enter the convent, and if she were to enter, she promised that she would take her name – Thérèse.

Catherine shared her religious aspirations with her spiritual director, Father Yuen-Tang "Joseph" Chen (Society of Jesus). A philosopher and a man of few words, he said nothing about the matter until the following month when they met again. "Visit the Mother Superior of the Carmelite convent," Father Chen suggested. Catherine took his advice and traveled to the western part of the French Settlement, to Zikawei (translation: Zi family together), to visit the Mother Superior of the Holy Cross Convent, commonly referred to by the Shanghainese as Sun Yi Yuan, the Holy Clothes Court.

The grounds of Zikawei could be spotted from far away, especially the twin gothic spires of the red-brick Saint Ignatius Cathedral that towered above all. Spread out over an area taking up several blocks, there were many buildings, including the minor and major seminaries, the dome-topped observatory and Tu San Wei, a gift shop where the faithful could purchase rosary beads, prayer books and religious pictures.

Catherine walked toward the convent, in the southeast section. Behind a high wall, in observance of the papal enclosure norms of the time, a barrier separated the cloistered nuns from the outside world. But they didn’t need the outside world, for their grounds included a large wheat field, a garden filled with vegetables, fruit trees, a flower nursery, grape trellises, a chicken coop and a graveyard.

With permission to enter the reception room, which was divided into two, Catherine took a seat in front of a curtain that covered the grille between her and Mere Marie Cecile de Jesus, the Mother Superior from France who had joined the Carmelites when she was 25. Also there was Soeur Thérèse d’Eli, who acted as an interpreter. After the first visit, Catherine visited again and again, each time the curtain remained down, in front of the grille. She could only hear soft throaty accents of French, between tones of Chinese interpretations. During her final visit to the convent, Mother Superior requested that Catherine sing, "I Want to Be Close to God."

reception room, she heard the clanking of metal. The grille opened, then a hand pulled back the curtain. For the first time, Catherine saw Mere Marie Cecile’s face, surrounded by the purity of the white wimple. Catherine had never seen such a beautiful face. The eyes, an unforgettable pure beauty. With the veil cascading down past Mother Superior’s shoulders, Catherine didn’t notice that she had a big humpback. Only later, Soeur Thérèse d’Eli informed her that the deformity had been caused by making too many sacrifices.

On February 2, 1955, the Feast of the Presentation, Catherine stood on the steps of the convent. In her hands, she clasped a bouquet of five calla lilies wrapped in white paper. To commemorate the special occasion, she posed at the foot of the convent steps for a few photographs with her father, sister Juliana, and Peng-Sheng Wang (the brother of Father Ren-Sheng Wang, who was still in prison). With final farewells, Catherine climbed the eight steps to the double-door entrance of Holy Cross Convent. The doors opened, and she crossed over the threshold to become mystically betrothed to Christ. The doors closed, and she left behind the secular world for the sacred.

The Communists are coming!" Soeur Madeleine warned. More than 20 Communist soldiers, men and women, had used extension ladders to climb over the high enclosure wall. They jumped into the garden, used their nightsticks to smash the windows then ambushed the nuns in the convent. v