1870 - Marie-Séraphie Clavelin

June 21, 1870

Tianjin

The town of Jura, France, was the birthplace of Marie-Séraphie Clavelin in 1822. As a young woman she often struggled to understand the purpose of her life, and it was only by giving her body as a living sacrifice to God that she began to understand the joys of sacrifice and service. She became a Catholic nun in 1846, and was part of the convent at La Rochelle.

Throughout her life Marie-Séraphie never forgot what a wonderful and undeserved privilege it was to serve God. This realization kept her humble and always willing to do whatever it took to see God’s kingdom expand. Her desire was to go to the most far-flung location on earth if the need there was greatest. She was stationed for a time at Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey), where she took care of abandoned children.

Although she enjoyed her time at Smyrna, Marie-Séraphie’s heart seemed to yearn for an even more distant land. Her brother, Stanislas Clavelin, had been a missionary in China’s Jiangsu Province for many years. He died on June 9, 1862, and Marie-Séraphie had an earnest desire to replace him and continue his work. She arrived in China in 1863.

Both before her departure for China and after her arrival, Marie-Séraphie experienced many obstacles and hardships. It was as though the devil tried all he could to block her progress, but these struggles only caused her to more earnestly call on Christ in prayer, and resulted in her possessing a much deeper spiritual relationship than she would have otherwise had. For the first four years the Frenchwoman was stationed at Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, where she was occupied with orphanage work and language study. In 1867 she was transferred to the northeast city of Tianjin. She was second-in-charge of the work and was given the jobs of running the pharmacy, the dispensary, and visiting the sick.

After seven years in China without a break, the 47-year-old Marie-Séraphie Clavelin perished in the Tianjin massacre of June 21, 1870. One account says,

“Sister Clavelin was wounded at the south-east angle of the chapel, and was then dragged to the pharmacy of which she had the charge. She had a more horrible martyrdom than the others; for while still alive she had her eyes and her heart torn out. The agony caused her to utter agonizing cries, which these brutes in human form laughed at.”[1]