Chapter 5 Destruction of the Penitentiary

However, the Trappist monks who escaped from the revolution and war sought the far east, but did not find the peace of Xanadu.Brother Sono died only seven years ago. In 1900, the Boxer Rebellion swept across China, and foreigners and foreign religions became the main targets of attack and looting.Although the monastery is an introverted and closed retreat, it is different from any church and missionary place.However, the Boxers did not intend to make a distinction. The monastery was once surrounded by a large number of Boxers, forming a confrontational situation.At this time, Sono's successor, Dean Fan Wei, who was also from France, died of a sudden illness in great distress.A large number of Chinese Catholic refugees from neighboring villages fled into the monastery before the siege.Therefore, the internal and external confrontation is actually Chinese.Even monks are almost all Chinese monks.Because, after the death of Dean Fan Wei, there are only three "foreigners" left here.

The reason why the Boxers did not attack rashly is because it is said that the courtyard has a strong defensive strength.One morning a few days later, the monks were surprised to find that all the boxers who surrounded him suddenly dispersed overnight.Later, the monks who were trapped in the deep mountains gradually heard the whole story about the turmoil outside, and then realized that the change in the external situation was the fundamental reason for their rescue. After that, they experienced nearly forty-five years of peace and tranquility.China in those forty-five years was not a peaceful paradise.Here experienced the end of the Manchu Dynasty, and successive years of civil war.However, none of this has affected the monastery that lives in seclusion in the deep mountains of Taihang.It seems that their site selection principle of being away from the world for religious reasons has resulted in safe survival.It seems that they can start to try out the dream of a paradise again.

During this time, they had some rare guests.They have always had a tradition of visiting each other's seminaries.This tradition continues to this day.Therefore, in 1912, a Trappist abbot in Kentucky, USA, also traveled across the ocean to visit here.And this visitor is from the "Mother Seminary" of the Holy Spirit Seminary where our friend Francis is.In other words, Francis, the ancestor of the monastery family, once saw our Chinese monastery with his own eyes. Similarly, the Yangjiaping Divine Consolation Institute also sent monks to visit brother seminaries in Europe and North America.Only then did they discover that they had become the largest Trappist monastery in the world at that time.At that time they had 120 monks, basically all Chinese.According to their tradition, in 1926, they also "divided production" into another "sub-monastery" hundreds of kilometers away - the Kagura Monastery.This is their golden age.

However, the dream of retreating away from the world was once again shattered.This is a hidden place deep in the mountains, but in the war-torn China, the shock wave penetrated deep into every valley.The Japanese invaders brought the flames of war close to the Taihang Mountains, and finally occupied a nearby city.The first news that shook the monastery was the killing of a dozen foreign missionaries by Japanese troops after occupying the city, including a Trappist monk who had taken refuge there.That was 1937.The appearance of the Japanese army nearby made the area where the Yangjiaping seminary was located a tug-of-war area between China and Japan.The life of the retreat is completely broken.They are forced to deal with various forces that have rudely broken into this closed world, are forced to change their way of existence, and begin an unprecedented struggle for survival.

The Japanese army entered the monastery, took away the few European monks, and sent them to a concentration camp in Shandong.After several efforts, they contacted the church in Germany through the European church, and they were rescued successfully, allowing them to return to the seminary.The Japanese army basically just passed through the site of the monastery, the buildings of the entire monastery were preserved, and the monk community was not dispersed.However, due to the appearance of the Japanese army in this area, the nature of this area has changed. It is no longer a hermitage away from the world, but an anti-war zone where the army is stationed.Here they encounter for the first time the direct interrogation of the secular world.The problem is, they are a special group of monks.They follow God in their hearts.However, their way of life is not understood and tolerated by either side of the war.

They entered a special military control period of nearly ten years.Private space, even life and property are not guaranteed.During this period of time, they were desperate several times and dismissed the monks in batches, and some European monks were also forced to leave.However, driven by hope again and again, they reunited.For these monks, this is not only their home. For more than half a century, they have cleaned up one piece of soil and one stone and repaired one brick after another. It is also a place for them to rest their hearts.They still have a glimmer of hope in desperation, hoping that everything can survive.Such hopes should be reasonable: wars are always temporary, and peace will eventually come.When the gunpowder smoke dissipates, what remains in the valley should always be tranquility.Tranquility is the prerequisite for resuming practice, and it is the only extravagant request of monks for life.

They survived until the end of the World War, but the smoke of the Civil War resumed. The monks did not expect that they had survived a very cruel ten years, but they waited for an even crueler end. In 1947, there were still nearly 80 monks gathered in Yangjiaping Shenwei Monastery.Among them are six foreign monks, four from France, one from the Netherlands and one from Canada.They became the last monks of this Chinese Trappist monastery.The story of this monastery became an oriental version of the French Revolution that wiped out the monastery. In 1947, after being looted and ransacked, the Yangjiaping Divine Consolation Home was burned.A few miles away, a farmer saw the sky red with blood one evening a few days after witnessing the killing of two monks he knew - an excited soldier said to him, "Yangjiaping, we set it on fire! "