Friday, April 14, 2006
Good Friday.
At the height of foreign presence in China, a secret group of rebels called the Boxers led by Empress Dowager organized a violent movement against non-Chinese commercial, political, religious and technological influence in China.
In 1900, when Catholicism was already widespread, the Boxers raided a school and closed all its openings, leaving only the main gate opened. Before the entrance, they laid a crucifix and told the students they would only be able to go home unscathed was to step on that crucifix. One by one, those students, in fear of being shot to death, stepped on the crucifix and they rushed home.
Then there was one young lady who, as she finally got to the crucifix, knelt down and kissed it. And right then and there, she was shot.
The others, who saw this, were angered. They gathered around the crucifix and did what that young lady, who was no longer sprawling on the ground but was already dead, did. And they too were all shot to death.
These school children were some of the Catholic Chinese martyrs canonized last October 2000. Young as they were, they chose to die for what they believed in over playing safe for their future.
Would you have kissed the crucifix?
