Reflection No. 1

Reflection No. 2

Reflection No. 3

Reflection No. 4

Reflection No. 5

Reflection No. 2: Joseph Freinademetz, A Man of Love, Faith and Prayer

The hamlet of Oies where Joseph Freinademetz was born on 12 April 1852 lies in the heart of the Dolomites in the Gader Valley (Val Badia). It was in the small family farm 1500 meters high that little ‘Ujop’, as he was called in his mother tongue Ladin, learned to pray and to work.  There he grew up in the traditions of the Church and the people and with his brothers and sisters experienced what it means to have a home and to feel secure.

Already as a child he left his parental home to study in the town of Brixen.  At that time there was no road in his valley and it must have been rather frightening for the ten year old as each step took him further from home.  They were the first of many steps that would eventually lead him to bid farewell to his home, to his friends and family. Steps that would lead to the realization of his life’s dream, a dream to be fulfilled only after taking many more steps to a very distant land. He was able to leave his homeland, his friends and relatives behind because they were alive in his heart.   The goal of his journey, indeed his life’s goal, was to live for God and for people and   China was the right place for this.  He wished to achieve his life’s goal with and for the Chinese people.

Living  in  Love

But that proved to be not so simple.  Soon after his arrival in China Joseph had to swallow some bitter disappointments.  His report to Arnold Janssen about his first two years shows how difficult it had been for him.  At home he had been respected, loved and accepted.  In China, especially during the two years in Hong Kong, he felt isolated; he was the marginalized foreigner.  He had to struggle not to become bitter or sink into discouragement.  He frankly admits that the life of a missionary – his own life – is rich in sufferings.  “Thorns cover his path.”  Being isolated in this way with relatively little success got the better of him and it showed in his prejudices.  “The Chinese character has little attraction,” he writes in his initial disappointment.  If the missionaries did not have a higher motivation, “they would all sail back home on the next ship.”  Language typical of a person whose expectations have not been met.  But Joseph did not remain with these prejudices; he struggled against his disappointments. Years later he would find it impossible to accept if negative remarks about the Chinese were made in his presence.

We should not forget how strange China must have been to him in the beginning.  It was the time of imperialism when the white race felt superior to all others.  Information about foreign peoples was characterized by this attitude.  Joseph tried his best but he had to admit that mere external adaptation, using Chinese clothing, the obligatory pigtail and a Chinese name, did not make him a different person.  He realized he had a difficult journey ahead of him.  So with full earnestness he began to study “the Chinese point of view, Chinese customs and traditions, the Chinese character and expectations.”  And he knew that it could not be achieved “in a day, nor a year but only after many a painful operation.”  “The main point,” he came to see, “is the transformation of the inner person.”

The longer Joseph lived with the Chinese and worked for them, the more he came to understand them, and all the more did his own personality traits come to the fore.  “His charming and engaging friendliness was certainly in part a precious natural gift.  But it wasn’t just that; otherwise he would not have been able to keep this attitude up so consistently and continuously,” was how Bishop Henninghaus put it.

Tough as mountain farmers are, Joseph did not allow himself to be discouraged.  Among his Chinese he matured to become a saint, a selfless person in line with his own principle: “Don’t refuse anyone anything and don’t desire anything for yourself.”  Or, as Fr. Johannes Blick quotes him: “The pagans will be converted only by the grace of God and, let us add, through our love.”  For “the language of love is the only language which all pagans understand.”  Joseph had learnt to speak this language of love very well. 

Nothing, neither bodily exertions nor malicious slanders, not painful beatings nor dangerous death-threats, could lessen his love for the Chinese.  Not only did he wear their dress, he also spoke their language perfectly and tried to think in their way.  So in the opinion of many he seemed even to become a Chinese and he himself felt more and more like one.  “I have become Chinese and I want to remain Chinese in heaven also.”

So long as he had rejected what was for him a strange world he had not been able to be a true missionary.  Adaptation had not been enough; what was needed was “an inner change,” his own conversion.

Living  from  Faith

That he could choose this path of service for people and for God and follow it through was due in no small way also to his family.  Life in his parents’ house was shaped by faith.  The daily rosary was taken for granted just as much as the Sunday trip down to St. Leonard village for Mass.  Even during the week one tried to attend Mass as far as possible.  Prayers in common and going to Mass were just the outward signs of that deep faith which was rooted in the inner life and which shaped the Freinademetz family, a faith that shaped Joseph and sustained him his whole life, and that had its roots in Oies, in his family.  The faith for him was a precious heirloom which he could not just keep for himself; he had to pass it on to others.

The Church now sets him before us a model.  This surely means in this connection that we cannot, so to say, hide our faith in our pockets where no one can see it, that faith which we too have inherited.  No, like him we have to pass it on to others. To do this in China was his special calling.  We must ask ourselves where is our  China, the place where we meet those people in our life to whom we are obliged or privileged to pass on our faith in a concrete and tangible way.

Living  from  Prayer

When Joseph Freinademetz was ordained a priest, he felt supported by his family. And even as a missionary in distant China he saw himself accompanied by his relatives.  With no frills he let his parents, brothers and sisters, his friends and acquaintances share in the joys and pains of his missionary life.  In nearly all his letters to his family and to his friend Thaler is the request that they should remember in prayer the Chinese entrusted to him and the whole mission, just as he always emphasizes that he never forgets them and constantly recommends them to the Sacred Heart and the Mother of God.  Even before he left his home never to see it again he had written: “Pray and thank God every day at least with an Our Father and a Hail Mary that he was gracious enough to call a missionary from our family.”  In a letter to his parents during the trip to China he admits how hard it had been for him to leave his family and home.  But he consoles them with the thought that they would one day meet again, not in Oies perhaps but certainly in heaven.  “Pray for me and I will pray for you that that day will be a day of joy for all of us.  Pray also that I will have the grace to first do much work in the vineyard of the Lord for the salvation of souls.”

In the spirit of the Bible he writes to his brothers and sisters: “Teach your children as early as possible to despise the world and its riches.”  What he means is not to make them the central point of their lives.  “To fear and love God; teach them to pray, to be humble and obedient.  Pray also for me!”

Joseph was convinced of the power of prayer.  That made him fearless.  Even if the whole world collapses, God will not allow prayer to go unheard.  “The one thing necessary is that we pray much.  A life without prayer is the surest way to hell.  Never forget to pray for us and for all missionaries.”  He was aware that God does not need our prayer; rather our life needs prayer.  And he never forgot that prayer is to be not only for our own concerns and problems but above all for those of others.  When we pray we become the voice of the Church in the world, as Joseph was in China.

What has Joseph Freinademetz to say to us today in our secularized world?

1. Faith is a calling.  It brings with it the duty “of helping those people come to the faith who are struggling with their faith.”
2. We are called to prayer; God does not need our prayer; our life needs prayer.  Through it alone perhaps we won’t change the world noticeably but the power of prayer (God’s power) can inspire people to change the world in the spirit of the gospel till it reaches its fulfillment in God.
3. We are called to community.  The one who is converted to love becomes a

       bridge between people and their cultures.

1. We are called to be a blessing.  In a sermon during the St. Joseph Freinademetz diocesan pilgrimage Bishop Wilhelm Egger from South Tyrol stated: “We will become a blessing when we speak about Jesus Christ and pass on his message…  We will become a blessing when we conduct ourselves like Jesus and do good.  So let us return home as blessed people.  The lives of those who allow Jesus to bless them will be transformed.”

Peter Irsara SVD