1976 - The 'Weed-Eating' Monk

1976

Tianhu Prison, Anhui

One touching and powerful testimony of a Catholic martyr during the Cultural Revolution came from a prisoner named Jiang, who in the mid-1970s witnessed the powerful Christ-like life of a Catholic priest at the Tianhu (‘Heavenly Lake’) Prison Labour Camp in Anhui Province. Jiang, not a believer at the time, simply referred to the priest as a ‘monk,’ and never learned his name. Still, Jiang’s recollection of this anonymous man is worth repeating here.

Tianhu prison was a terrible place to be sent. Thousands of men made one-way trips there, dying from the unhygienic conditions and crushed under the strain of the workload. Jiang’s cell contained 48 prisoners, including the man the other inmates simply called “monk,” who had been in prison since 1955, some 20 years earlier. The nameless monk was the most respected person in the cell. Jiang recalls, “The rest were thieves, rapists or [gang members] like me…. The monk was a quiet person. His countenance was peaceful and calm. His eyes were bright, and his gaze was sharp and piercing.”[1] Many of the prisoners despaired of life, and numerous fights broke out between the hopeless men. Ridicule and scorn were heaped on the most unfortunate prisoners, but according to Jiang, the monk

“...would embrace the person and hold his hands. Then he would place his right hand on the man’s head. I did not see the monk talking or chanting. Strangely enough, the man who was howling only a few moments ago would calm down. The monk would talk softly to him for a short while.”[2]

The monk would never join his cellmates during their times of telling dirty jokes and lewd stories, but would withdraw to a corner of the cell where he would calmly pray with his head bowed and eyes closed. While all the other men were exhausted from their daily labours and coveted every moment of sleep they could get, the monk would often stay awake into the early hours of the morning, praying and gaining strength from the Lord Jesus Christ.

During all his years in prison nobody ever visited the mysterious monk, and on one rare occasion when he received a package containing a new winter jacket, he immediately gave it away to a man who needed it more than himself. While the food rations distributed to prisoners were meagre and coarse, barely able to keep the men alive, the monk always set aside two-thirds of his food to share with others in need. One day the monk was found entering the bushes on the edge of the labour camp. A guard hurried over and found him eating weeds. He thereafter came to be known as the “weed-eating monk.”

The monk rarely spoke, but he did take the opportunity to share the good news of Jesus Christ when the opportunity arose, especially with sick and dying men. One practice Jiang saw the monk do often was to wash the heads of certain men by pouring water on them. Jiang commented, “A strange thing happened to those whose heads were washed. They fought no more and cursed no more. They liked to help and care for others, just as the monk did.”[3] Only after his release from prison did Jiang understand that the monk had not been washing men’s heads, but baptizing them as new believers in Christ.

Finally, the old Catholic monk, whose name nobody knew, fell sick. Jiang remembers seeing the stool coming from the dying man was full of weeds. He finally passed away from starvation, and was sorely missed by the other prisoners, who honoured him with a proper burial.

Nobody knows just who this man was, but there is One who knows all, and it is He who warmly welcomed the weed-eating monk into His eternal kingdom when he finally drew his last breath.

1. September 8th Editorial Board, Blessings of the Divine Bounty, 188.
2. September 8th Editorial Board, Blessings of the Divine Bounty, 188-189.
3. September 8th Editorial Board, Blessings of the Divine Bounty, 190.