Saint Who?
Saints Who Were Teachers
Saint John Wu Wenyin
Martyr († 1900) Feast: July 8
By the 19th century, both Catholic and Protestant missionaries had established communities of believers in China. When China experienced several disasters in 1898, a group of people nicknamed Boxers (because many practiced Chinese martial arts) blamed foreigners and Christians. During the Boxer Rebellion, groups of Boxers traveled from town to town, seeking out Christian scapegoats.
In 1900, John Wu Wenyin was a fifty-year-old Catholic layman, catechist, and leader in his village in the Hebei province of northern China. When a group of Boxers arrived in his village, he was immediately arrested. His Catholic mother did not want her son to apostatize and bluntly told him that if he did renounce his faith, she would no longer consider him her son. But, according to many witnesses, John simply told her, “Mother, go back home and do not worry. Thank you very much for bringing us up by yourself as a widowed mother. I am going to die for God. Goodbye. I’ll see you in heaven.”
John was tortured, but he continued to confess his faith in God. His final act as a catechist was to show his friends and family how to love Jesus Christ to the death, which is the reason he is now known as Saint John Wu Wenyin.
Heavenly Father, remind us of the joys of heaven
when we are tempted.
