Sometimes I run across something that just stops me in my tracks. This story recently appeared in our ephemeris links and is so remarkable that I thought it should be publicized a bit more. On WDTPRS, Fr. Zuhlsdorf recently posted on Joseph Cardinal Zen (of Hong Kong) and in the comments to that post Stephen Morgan related a story about a priest he had known in Hong Kong:

Twelve years ago, when my daughter was baptised in Hong Kong, the priest who baptised her, Fr Bernard Tohill, SDB, had returned that morning from a short trip into the mainland. He had been asked to go and offer Mass in a small village about 300 miles into China for a community that had been without the Mass since 1949. He had relearned how to say the old Mass and was expecting be be saying Mass for about a dozen people.

When he arrived in the village, there were over 1,000 people waiting to hear Mass and after the first Mass he heard confessions for 6 hours straight. The following day he heard confessions for another 6 or 7 hours before celebrating Mass at which over 700 made their Communion.

The faith in this area had been kept alive by families and small groups meeting to pray the Rosary and to learn the Catechism, for over 45 years.

Whenever I hear stories about China, I am reminded of Fr Bernards story and I offer the days sufferings, frustrations and joys to our Lord through the intercession of His blessed Mother for the Church and people in China. Our Lady of Consolation, pray for China.

After reflecting on this for a while several questions came naturally to mind. Would Novus Catholics raised on the thin gruel of the post-Councilor Church be able to remain so steadfast? Are we today made of such stern stuff? Stories like this are so wonderful, precisely because the historical saints can’t help but seem a bit remote. To know that there are such people, our brother Catholics, oppressed, denied the Sacraments for 45 years, hoping, praying constantly that God would send His minister.

But then comes what is perhaps the more relevant thought: what worms we are! We complain constantly about everything that’s wrong with the Church: the destruction of the liturgy, the timidity of our shepherds, the laxity of our ministers. But at the end of the day, the longest I’ll have to wait for Confession is until next Saturday. And pretty much any time I want I can go to a local Perpetual Adoration chapel to visit Jesus. And even if, in my diocese, I can only assist the Old Mass every other Sunday, gritting my teeth and averting my eyes from the Eucharistic Lay ministers, as bad as it is, is a pitiful joke.

Forty-five years without the sacraments! Think about that; it just boggles the mind. Don’t get me wrong: I’m not denying any of the problems, or down-playing them, and as the shock of this fades, I’ll be back belly-aching with the best of them about how bad it all is. But when I do, I hope I will occasionally remember my brother Catholics in that small village in China, and I will fall down and Thank God for Holy Mother Church.