VATICAN (SE): “(On May 24) the Catholic faithful in China celebrate the feast of Our Lady Help of Christians, the celestial patron of their great country,” Pope Francis noted in remarks following the Regina Coeli on Pentecost Sunday, May 23, Vatican News reported.
The pope recalled the great devotion Chinese Catholics have to “the Mother of the Lord (and) of the Church” at her sanctuary of Sheshan in Shanghai. Under the title of Our Lady of Sheshan, she “is assiduously invoked by Christian families in the trials and hopes of daily life.”
Sharing the message of the Pentecost, the pope said, “How good and how necessary it is that the members of a family and of a Christian community are ever more united in love and in faith! In this way, parents and children, grandparents and grandchildren, pastors and faithful can follow the example of the first disciples who, on the solemnity of Pentecost, were united in prayer with Mary as they awaited the Holy Spirit.”
Pope Francis invited everyone to accompany the Christian faithful in China, “dearest brothers and sisters, whom I hold in the depth of my heart” with “fervent prayer.” He prayed that the Holy Spirit, “the protagonist of the Church’s mission in the world, guide them and help them to be bearers of the happy message, witnesses of goodness and charity, and builders of justice and peace in their country,” Vatican News reported.
The pope’s prayers came just hours after media reports that a bishop, priests and seminarians were arrested in China in an apparent crackdown on the unofficial Church. Sixty-three-year-old Bishop Joseph Zhang Weizhu, has been bishop of the Diocese of Xinxiang (Henan) since 1991. Catholic media agencies reported that he was arrested on May 21 in Xinxiang province, a day after the detention of seven priests and 10 seminarians in a raid on a seminary housed in a factory in Hebei province, reportedly belonging to a local Catholic.
(Pope Francis) prayed that the Holy Spirit, ‘the protagonist of the Church’s mission in the world, guide them and help them to be bearers of the happy message, witnesses of goodness and charity, and builders of justice and peace in their country’
In February, the Chinese government issued new rules for religious communities on the mainland, regulating the religious practice in the country, and enforcing the policy of Sinicisation of religion in China. The regulations came into force on May 1.
In 2007, then-Pope Benedict XVI encouraged Catholics around the world to mark the Feast of Mary Help of Christians—May 24—as a Day of Prayer for the Church in China. In his Letter to Catholics in China, he encouraged them to the celebrate the day “by renewing your communion of faith in Jesus our Lord and of faithfulness to the pope, and by praying that the unity among you may become ever deeper and more visible.”
He said, “the Catholics of the whole world—in particular those who are of Chinese origin—will demonstrate their fraternal solidarity and solicitude for you, asking the Lord of history for the gift of perseverance in witness, in the certainty that your sufferings past and present for the Holy Name of Jesus and your intrepid loyalty to his vicar on earth will be rewarded, even if at times everything can seem a failure,” Vatican News reported.
Last year, Pope Francis assured Chinese Catholics that “the universal Church, of which you are an integral part, shares your hopes and supports you in your trials. She accompanies you with prayer for a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit, so that the light and beauty of the Gospel might shine in you as the power of God for the salvation of those who believe.”
Vatican News reported that at the time, Pope Francis prayed that the Chinese faithful “might be strong in faith and steadfast in fraternal union, joyful witnesses, promoters of charity and hope, and good citizens.”
