TAIWAN (AsiaNews): Jesuit Father Matthew Chu Li-teh died at the age of 91, originally from Shanghai, he was arrested while still a seminarian in 1955 and spent 27 year in prison and doing forced labour. He and five of his brothers were arrested, including the one who was already a priest, Jesuit Father Francis Xavier Chu Shu-de, who later died in prison in 1983.
Their mother, Martina, a widow, would shuttle between six different prisons to visit her sons. She did this until each was sent to a labour camp in distant provinces: Heilongjiang, Guangxi, Zhejiang, Gansu and Anhui. She didn’t see them again for 20 years.
Father Chu was released in 1984 and four year later was allowed to travel to the United States with Bishop Ignatius Kung Pin-Mei.
Finally, on 9 January 1994, at the age of 61, he was ordained a priest for the Jesuit order in Taipei, Taiwan. His mother was able to attend his ordination.
“I had moments of great fatigue: phases of deep trust in the Lord alternated with others of prostration. My prayers often turned into laments: ‘Why, Lord, have you given me such a heavy cross?’” he recounted to PIME Father Gianni Criveller, in a 1994 interview published by Mondo e Missione [World and Mission].
“I asked myself countless times if I was really, in those conditions, still called to offer my life to him. In all this, remembering the words and example of my mother, I simply and obstinately asked the Lord every day for the grace to be faithful to the gift of his call,” Father Chu recalled.
“There is joy and peace in my heart,” he told Mondo e Missione. “Together with many of my brothers and sisters in the faith, I too know that I have done nothing against God or against my country, which I love intensely. We were sent to concentration camps only because we wanted to keep intact the faith received and to do the will of God who wants us to be real people.”
Even in his final years, until his last days, Father Chu continued to serve the faithful with a devout heart.
