When we speak of Chinese missionaries we usually mean foreigners who become missionaries to China. Recently the death of Father Andreas Xu brought into focus the life of a Chinese priest who was a missionary to China. Before the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, a number of Chinese priests and students left China. Among them was Father Xu, who was ordained in May 1947 The basic facts of Father Xu's life are simple. He studied in Paris and received a doctorate in Roman Law from the University of Paris in 1957, after which he came to Taiwan. In Taiwan he settled in a poor country place called Sz Hu (Four Lakes) in the middle of Taiwan near the coast with several other Chinese confreres, where they founded Saint Vincent's High School and several small parishes. He was principal of the school for many years and lived long enough to see the school flourish and to welcome younger confreres to the work. He died on February 8, 2002 and was buried on February 21, 2002. His is the ordinary story of the devoted Chinese confreres who like him the Lord brought to Taiwan. But in his dying we came to know him as a Chinese missionary to both Taiwan and China.He once noted that when he first came to this area of Taiwan, there were no Catholics in the whole area of Sz Hu. He had to dream up a ways to get in contact with the local folks. This was hampered by the fact that the language of the area was Taiwanese. In those first years, Fr. Xu not only couldn't speak Taiwanese, he couldn't even speak a decent form of Mandarin since he originally hailed from the countryside of the Jiangxi Province in Southeastern China. But he managed and made contacts by making friends in various and sundry ways. Some of the older Catholics say that before they entered the Catholic Church, Fr. Xu used to take time to teach them how to play Mahjong — a Chinese "gin-rummy" type of game played with little square tiles. The Chinese often spends days playing this game and gambling. He was a Vincentian who always had time just to be with people. One of his famous expressions was: "Mei guan-xi" which literally means "Do not worry" because things would eventually work out for the better, no matter how bad they seemed at first. He had chosen the poor people of the countryside in preference to a teaching career in Taipei. He gave them his heart and they knew it.
He was receiving the best of care at the Miraculous Medal Home for the Aged in Tainan, but he had a passionate desire to return home to die. Home for him had become Sz Hu. The first evening he was back, he was strong enough to be in a wheelchair and quietly concelebrate the Eucharist. At the end of Mass he spoke and wished the people of Sz Hu and the environs blessings and a happy life, not only the Catholics, but everyone around. That evening the Mass was in Taiwanese and the faith of the people was an eloquent testimony to his evangelical influence. Within the week he had gone to the Lord. The funeral Mass was in a huge tent in the schoolyard and more than half the people were not Catholics.His sister and nephew came from Jiangxi to be with him in his final weeks. They opened to us the other half of his missionary vocation. He was also a missionary when he returned home each year or every other year. Father Xu was always a priest, instinctively a priest, so it was natural for him to fill the void in the priestless area from which he had come. He kept a record of baptisms, celebrated the Eucharist and shared his faith with all who came. The whole story cannot be detailed here, of course. What became evident in his last weeks was not only his humanity and natural closeness to the people, but that he had two homes. He was equally at home among the people of Yunlin County in Taiwan and among his relatives and friends in Jiangxi, China. The Church we have learned is missionary by nature, so is the priesthood. The last act of Father Xu's life, his dying at home, told the whole story of a Chinese missionary
HUGH O'DONNELL, C.M. & RICHARD PREUSS, C.M.
