To compromise is a sure sign of not possessing the truth. When a man gives way in matters of ideals, of honour or of Faith, that man is a man without ideals, without honour and without Faith. –
I had never heard of her before, so I looked up the story (here is a bit below):
In April 1900, a force of ten thousand rioters attacked Tong Lu (a village in China). The soldiers, in senseless rage, started to shoot into the sky. Then suddenly they fled, frightened, and never came back again.
According to the legend, a woman in white appeared above the settlement, and the rioters' bullets were aimed at her. When the apparition did not fade, attackers had not even time to reorganize because a strange horseman put them to flight. Soon after they had disappeared beyond the horizon.
Father Wu, a Chinese priest, confessed to his flock that he invoked the help of Mary. A new church was built on the site and Father Wu placed a picture of Our Lady on the main altar. He asked the painter to dress Our Lady in the royal robes of the dowager Empress Tzi-Hsi. The image of the Blessed Virgin in the royal robes of the pagan Empress, with the Christ Child on her knees, is vivid expression of Chinese tradition. It is a shrine of the Mother and her Son. Though her robes be pagan, she belongs to every age, to all people and to every race. As was told and promised in the Old Testament: "I am the mother of fair love, and of fear, and of knowledge and of holy hope."
The Tong Lu church was completely destroyed recently by the Chinese Communists, but the picture of Our Lady of China remains intact because only a copy of the picture was used in the church. The original was hidden in the wall behind the copy, and this was recovered and found intact. It is now in possession of Chinese priests who carry out their activities in disguise.
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Sometimes I think about what heroic courage and faith the Catholics in China have. It can be so easy for us to think of people risking their lives for the faith as something in the past. Something that doesnt really happen anymore. But oh how it does! The Catholics in China risk persecution, torture and death for Christ & His Church, and similarly in many other places round the world. How much they must love Him to do so! How many of us would do the same?
Sometimes I think about us in the Western world; we are free to go to Mass every day of the week, to recieve the Sacraments of Reconcilliation as frequently as we want, to read the Bible, to read holy and wholesome books...really, we have it all on a plate, without risk of (overt) persecution.....and yet how much we take it all for granted!
We may recieve communion without really being aware of *what* exactly we are recieving; without even appreciating what we are recieveing. We moan and whine when we have to go to Mass. We may neglect to go to frequent confession, turning a blind eye on our sins, and so becoming even blinder. We may pass by a Catholic Church and not even spare a loving thought for Jesus who is inside. We may put off praying our daily rosary or daily prayers, but instead waste our evenings watching trash tv and mindlessly surfing the net.
It is ironic really that we, who can freely access all the love and graces that God has to offer through His Church, are so neglectful and have such a lack of appreciation for them! Choosing instead activities that starve us and stiffle us.
But yet there are people in the world, at this very moment, who risk all they have, their very lives, to acess these exact same things that we so often choose to neglect!
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