By Bishop James Conley For 500 years, Christians have been martyred in China. Since the first Jesuit missionaries arrived in China, Christians have been put to death for proclaiming Jesus Christ. Emperors, nationalists, and communists have persecuted Christianity, often by the sword. Martyrs may one day convert China. But there is one Chinese martyr whose life and death may have already converted millions. During the Boxer Rebellion of 1900, nationalist forces sought to usurp economic and political control of China from Western powers. Christianity was viewed as a symbol of Western colonialism; so Chinese soldiers were ordered to destroy Catholic churches across the country. They took tabernacles and sacred vessels, and imprisoned Catholic priests. There was one church in the Chinese countryside that was destroyed, while a small girl hid in the back, unnoticed but observant. She watched as the priest was arrested, as the tabernacle was torn away, and as the Sacred Hosts, stored within a ciborium, were strewn across the floor. The girl noticed where the Hosts landed, and noticed that the soldiers never bothered to pick them up. She went back to her home that afternoon, and told her parents what she had seen. And that night, slipping past guards and police officers, she snuck back into the Church, knelt before the discarded Hosts, and spent an hour in adoration. After she had spent time in prayer, she consumed one of the Hosts, and secretly made her way back home. Thirty-two hosts had been thrown across the church floor, and for 32 consecutive nights the young girl went back to the Church. Spending time in adoration, one by one, she consumed the Holy Eucharist. On the last night, after the girl had received the Eucharist, she accidentally woke a sleeping guard, who chased her down and beat her to death. The parish priest, under house arrest but watching from his window, stood by helplessly as the girl became a martyr. The story of the girl’s martyrdom was passed from home to home, and from priest to priest, and eventually it was heard by the young Father Fulton Sheen, the man who would become an archbishop and one of the most effective evangelists in the history of the United States. When Father Sheen heard the story of this young martyr, he resolved that he would spend an hour in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament every day for the rest of his life, and promote adoration of Christ in the Eucharist. He did so, with radio and television programs that reached millions of American homes. The graces of that martyr’s witness helped bring Christ to millions of Americans. But few had ever heard of her... https://zenit.org/articles/eucharistic-adoration-transforming-a-city/
