I

LIFE AND WORK

“I can testify that in my 23 years of residence in China, my love and admiration for the Chinese has not diminished.   Even if they are a people of pagans, the Chinese are and remain an ideal people ...  I love China and the Chinese; in their midst I want to die and be buried among them” (letter of 22 October 1901 to his nephew, Peter Freinademetz).  In 1901 Blessed Joseph Freinademetz expressed himself in these terms  – these are his words – that he was not ready “not even for 3000 crowns to leave his homeland and friends to move permanently to a new world.”  Then “love for Jesus and for immortal souls” (letter of 13 April 1879 to Frè Alois, Badia) drew him to Asia.

1.  Diocesan Priest

Blessed Joseph Freinademetz was born on 15 April 1852.  His homeland was Dolomites of the Upper Adige.  His birthplace was the village of Oies in Val Badia (Bolzano).  He was baptized in the parish church of Badia on the day of his birth.  It is from this parish community and from his family that Freinademetz inherited a humble and strong-willed faith, rooted in daily events, and an industriousness that knew no reprieve.

He attended the first two years of elementary school in his village; at ten years of age, he moved to Bressanone where he did the final years of elementary school in German and then classical secondary school.  In 1872 he entered the diocesan major seminary of Bressanone where he finished his theological studies.  It was during these years of formation that Joseph began to seriously think about becoming a missionary.  All the same he was ordained a priest on 25 July 1875 and was assigned to the community of St. Martin of Badia, the first place of his priestly activity.  Humble, zealous, gifted in human qualities, transparent and sincere, he immediately won the hearts of all.

2.  The Missionary Vocation

After just two years of service as assistant in St. Martin he contacted Fr. Arnold Janssen, founder and rector of the new Divine Word Missionary Institute, founded on 8 September 1975.  He asked to be accepted as an aspirant missionary in the Mission House of Style (Netherlands).  Fr. Arnold, on returning from Rome, met Fr. Freinademetz in Bressanone, and the Bishop of that Diocese, Vincenzo Gasser, received both.  Blessed Freinademetz asked for permission to leave his post in the diocese to enter the new missionary congregation.  The response of Bishop Gasser deserves being remembered:  “The Bishop of Bressanone says no, but the Catholic Bishop says yes.  Take my son Freinademetz and make a good missionary of him” (Fr. Borneman, Joseph Freinademetz, EMI 76, p. 38).

In August of 1878 Fr. Joseph arrived in the modest house of Steyl, which Fr. Janssen had acquired to receive the first nucleus of the SVD.  He did not stay long there since after a short time he received permission to leave for China.  On 2 March 1879 he received the missionary cross from the Apostolic Nuncio in Holland, together with the Bavarian priest, Fr. John Anzer.  The same day they left Steyl and after five weeks disembarked in Hong Kong.

3.  Missionary in the land of Confucius

Bishop Raimondi of PIME welcomed the first two SVDs to Hong Kong, and Fr. Freinademetz began his apprenticeship as an itinerant missionary under the guidance of Fr. Piazzoli.

Two years later the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith assigned to the two SVDs the southern part of the Province of Shantung, which had 12 million inhabitants, of whom only 158 were baptized.

Fr. Joseph wanted to learn the Chinese language to perfection; but above all he tried to touch the hearts of the people, enter into their problems, make abundant use of easy to understand similes and examples, and eat and dress like them.  “ ... I love China and the Chinese and would like to die a thousand times for them,” he wrote.  “Now that I do not have so many difficulties with the language and know the people and Chinese customs, I take China as my homeland, as my battle field where I want to die” (Letter of 22 March 1886 to his parents).

His years were difficult:  long trips and encounters with bandits who robbed him of everything.  Fr. Freinademetz was entrusted with beginning and forming the first communities in zones that were still entirely pagan.  He got catechumens and the newly baptized involved in the work of primary evangelization.  Then when the community started up, an order from the Bishop arrived: “Leave everything, go elsewhere to found new communities.”

He understood the importance of the role that committed lay faithful, especially catechists, could have in the work of primary evangelization.  He wanted them to be of solid faith and irreproachable morals, real examples in midst of the people.  For them he prepared a catechetical manual in Chinese.

Fr. Joseph and Bishop Anzer both had their hearts set on every community having a solid basis and tried from the beginning to create and foster a Chinese clergy.   Its beginnings were in the main station of Puoli, from which would later come Thomas Tien, Divine Word Missionary and the first Chinese cardinal.

Something that was always close to the heart of Fr. Freinademetz was the spiritual care of missionaries, the “care of the souls of the curators of souls” (Report of the Provincial Chapter, 22 August 1892, p. 97), as he called it.  In this commitment , he had other responsibilities that he covered: he was administrator of the mission, rector of the seminary, spiritual director of the first group of Chinese priests, and provincial superior.

If he dedicated himself to the spiritual care of missionaries, he gave no less importance to their formation and theological and pastoral updating.  “The progress of missionaries,” he used to say, “means progress of the mission” (Report of the Provincial Chapter, 22 August 1892, p. 97).

4.  Difficulties and suffering 

He covered many assignments as superior, but at heart he wanted to be an older brother who spoke with his example and his life more than with the law.  Cardinal Tien, who had been his student in the seminary,  wrote about him: “... for us who could observe him, it was always an extraordinary experience to see him pray.  The image of this priest on his knees is indelibly impressed in my memory” (Giacomo Reuter, Giuseppe Freinademetz, p. 52 – Interview with Cardinal Tien on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Blessed Freinademetz).

From the beginning Fr. Freinademetz tried to inculturate himself into the difficult Chinese culture.  Only at the end of his life did he succeed in that.

As a missionary he never stepped back from his many commitments.  But constant work and privations over the years affected his vigorous and robust constitution.  In 1898 problems of the throat appeared, and his lungs also showed the beginning of tuberculosis.  Giving in to the insistence of the Bishop and confreres, he moved for a short period to Japan, near Nagasaki, in search of a cure.  He returned somewhat restored to health but certainly not cured.   The region where he stayed and received treatment is the same area where the family of Jun Yamada lives, the young man who in 1987 was completely cured of “acute myeloblastic leukemia, type M2,” thanks to the intercession of Blessed Joseph Freinademetz.

In 1900, after twenty years of uninterrupted work in China, Fr. Janssen, on the occasion of the twtnty-fifth anniversary of the foundation of the Congregation, invited him to Steyl to participate in the commemorative celebrations.  But Freinademetz politely but firmly declined to return to Europe.  It was the time of the “Boxer Rebellion” against the Europeans.  He preferred to remain with his Christians and suffer with them.  And when the danger was at its high point, and the other missionaries at the order of ecclesiastical authorities withdrew to the port of Tsigtau under German protection, Fr. Freinademetz, after a day of travel, turned around his carriage and returned with a lay brother to his Christians in the station of Puoli, well aware of the danger to which he was exposed.  Later he would write: “Your brother Joseph, you believed dead and he is still alive ...  But last year I barely missed joining our good parents, dead now for many years.  So many times I was supposed to die and be killed; once I had to flee in the middle of the night by an unfamiliar path because they were already coming to cut my throat; another time the soldiers were already ready to kill me; the mandarin pleaded so much that they finally let me live” (letter of 6 July 1901 to his brothers and sisters).  But despite everything he did not abandon his Christians.

 5.  Death and fame of holiness

 When Bishop Anzer left for a trip to Europe, Fr. Joseph had to take over the administration of the diocese.  In that period typhus broke out and Freinademetz, as a good pastor, did not spare himself.  He offered his untiring assistance without regard for danger.

He contracted the sickness, and his already weakened body could not resist it.  He returned immediately to Taikia, station and headquarters of the Bishop, where, on 28 January 1908, he concluded his life.

Born under Holy Cross Mountain, he was buried under the twelfth station of the Way of the Cross in Taikia.  His tomb immediately became a beacon for Christians.

The work of Freinademetz and his confreres produced its fruit: The small number of Christians at the beginning, 158, rose to 45,000 before the death of Fr. Joseph.  Catechumens were just as numerous.  In 1100 communities churches and prayer centers were built.  Over 70 priests and assisting brothers, about 40 sisters, and almost 1000 catechists were involved in the missionary activity.

Cardinal Tien, in a 1958 interview on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the death of Fr. Freinademetz, offered these reflections:

“Among all the Christians,” said the Cardinal, “Fr. Freinademetz enjoyed the reputation of a saint while he was still living.  He is like Kungdse (Confucius), the Chinese said about him, all is good, all is perfect in him: always cordial, modest, humble!  He spoke Chinese well.  All those who knew him carried away a deep impression of him, and his presence consoled them in some way.  In Yangku there was an old catechist who always, on principle, expressed judgements different from the others and who hardly found anything good in foreign missionaries.  But only in the following judgement was he in agreement with the others: ‘Fu Shenfu (that was the Chinese name of Fr. Freinamdemetz) is a saint.  He is different from all the others.’  During the seminary years in Yenchowfu I often met Fr. Freinademetz, because it was the rule that every Sunday after the solemn liturgy one went to him to talk.  He used to kneel in the choir of the church, and for us who could observe him, it was always an extraordinary experience to see him pray.  The image of this priest on his knees is indelibly impressed in my memory.  You had the impression that nothing could distract him.  He was a great man of prayer.  He was always at the disposition of the others and only for them, with extreme abnegation and impartiality.  His piety was open and fascinating.  We noted at times how Bishop Anzer overloaded good Fr. Freinademetz with this or that other task, but he put up with everything, always keeping the most cordial bearing.  He was really a perfect man, homo perfectus.”

The Church confirmed the judgement of the deceased Cardinal Tien.  On 16 march 1970 the decree on the heroic degree of the virtues exercised by Fr. Joseph Freinademetz was published.  In this degree it says, after the description of his missionary activity, that one can admire in him “that fidelity that Christ required of his servants and that the Council decree Ad Gentes proposes for imitation by the heralds of the Gospel:  The one sent enters into the life and the mission of the one who has called him, renouncing what he has had up to now “to make himself all things to all people (see 1 Cor. 9,22 -- Ad gentes n. 24).  Blessed Joseph Freinademetz knew how to fully realize that kind of program of life.”