A congregation of Italian nuns will remember tonight the 90th anniversary of the departure to China of six sisters who, in the current diocese of Mindong, lived their mission for 17 years alongside abandoned girls, before being forced to leave everything with the arrival of the communist regime. A seed and a friendship with the Chinese people that nothing has been able to erase.
Milan () – “We wouldn’t go back even for all the gold in the world. We are happy to be in China,” they wrote from a Fujian that was certainly not today’s dynamic region, but a harsh land, where they, along with the poorest of the poor, picked up abandoned girls. Six Franciscan nuns from the Minimal Sisters of the Sacred Heart in China in the hectic thirties and forties of the 20th century lived a mission stronger than the ideological fury of Mao’s revolution.
Exactly 90 years ago – on November 11, 1932 – these nuns embarked in Brindisi to undertake the long journey that would take them in two months to the then apostolic vicariate of Funing, corresponding to the current diocese of Mindong. They had left Poggio for Caiano, the Tuscan city that was the birthplace of this female religious congregation founded by Blessed Margherita Caiani. And they remained in China for 17 years, until in May 1949 the Mao regime forced them to flee, abandoning a mission, a kindergarten and a school where they had endeared themselves to the population, especially the poorest.
All this will be remembered tonight at Poggio a Caiano by a community that, despite the painful separation of more than 70 years ago, has never forgotten China. The testimonies left by the nuns in their letters will be remembered at an event that will also attend. “This morning – Sister Salvatrice Agosti wrote in 1935 – we found a basket with a beautiful little angel inside on the door handle. Not infrequently we find these surprises… They bring us the dear outcasts, like so many Moses, in a wicker basket, with a bit of straw, covered with an old diaper…”.
It was precisely this completely selfless charity that made its way into the hearts of many people, even in politically turbulent years. “The Mandarin has called the local authorities to a council to deal with our political situation with respect to the Chinese – tells the same sister Salvatrice in 1942 -. They consider keeping us under surveillance, but one of them said: these women are good people, they take care of these poor girls like mothers, they are not interested in politics. Let’s leave them alone and if anything happens, let my head roll. May the Lord repay these good pagans with the gift of faith.”
Their strength was always fidelity to the Gospel, which had taken them so far. “In this part of China – Sister Teobalda Colombo wrote – Heaven seems closer to us and things on earth seem truly nothing to us. And although our tiresome occupations hold us back and occupy our physical energies, our spirit, by the pure grace and mercy of God, is continually occupied in the love of the Three (the Trinity ndr) that dwells in the center of our soul.
In the same spirit they faced the events of 1949 when, faced with the advance of the communists, the same people they cared for convinced them to leave China, assuring them that they would take care of their girls. “It seems to me that our mission is going to end,” Sister Bruna Lorenzoni wrote. It will be what the Lord decides, so that having worked only for Him, we resign ourselves to whatever happens. We live confident and calm, trusting in the Heavenly Spouse who has always protected and defended us.
After that experience ended, the Minimas opened other missions. They are still in Bethlehem, Jordan, Egypt, Brazil and Sri Lanka. But they never forgot China. “I met Sister Salesia, the last of the group of 6 missionaries who were in China, who died in 1993 – journalist Mauro Banchini tells -. When I was with her she was 83 years old. I remember how her eyes lit up when I asked her what she would have wanted most. Even though so many years had passed, she immediately replied, ‘Being in China.'”
But a singular design of Providence decided to keep this bond alive, recalls in the publication dedicated to this anniversary Father Pietro Wang, chaplain of the Chinese Catholics of Prato, an Italian city that is in the same province as Poggio a Caiano and who has become the destination of thousands of Chinese immigrants. “They have come here in search of work, of a better life, of true happiness in God – writes Father Wang -. Many have suffered difficulties. They always need help, and the love of God and the Church of him. The mission and charity continue: the love of Christ impels us to walk with Him towards the poor of our time, as the six Minima sisters did at that time. Let us contemplate and learn from the Heart of Jesus the kindness, mercy, compassion, solidarity, preferential love for the poor, for the little ones, for the elderly, for the sick, for the excluded and for all those who suffer.
