un published thesis for the Master of Religious Study in University of Saint Joseph, Macao.
ABSTRACT
Dr John Wu (吳經熊 1899 – 1986) was an eminent Chinese jurist, scholar, poet and writer. He had a profound Chinese education and was exposed to Western culture during his studies of law in the United States and Europe. He returned to China and started a brilliant career as professor of law, judge, lawyer and politician. Chinese scholars today regard him as one of the important pioneers in the legal education, legislative and judicial work in modern China. His life took a significant turn after reading the autobiography of St Therese. He embraced the Catholic faith and became a devout Christian. This episode of his life was not only a personal affair for he demonstrated his faith in his career and his many writings. The purpose of this study is exactly to study the meeting of Wu with St Therese, and how St Therese, a young Carmelite sister who had had no academic training could have touched Wu, a distinguished eminent Chinese intellectual. Wu was not touched by the dogma of the Church, but by the life of Therese, the love that she had for God. Wu saw something ‘Chinese’ in Therese that echoed in his heart and he understood that Christianity is all-embracing, is beyond East and West. I hope that this study could arouse the interest in the study of John Wu and through him, in expressing Christianity in a Chinese way. I am sure that Wu’s experience and writings would contribute to the dialogue between Christianity and the Chinese culture which is an important topic in today’s Church.
Table of Content
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION
1.1 Purpose and limitation of the Study 3
1.2 Methodology and Resources 6
CHAPTER II THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY OF WU UNTIL 1937
2.1 China in the Late Nineteenth Century 10
2.2 His Family
2.2.1 The religious background of the family 12
2.2.2 His father 13
2.2.3 His ‘little mother’ 14
2.2.4 His ‘big mother’ 15
2.3 His Intellectual Development and His First Encounter with Christ
2.3.1 A sound Chinese education 16
2.3.2 His exposure to the Western Culture 17
2.3.3 Wu’s first encounter with Christ 18
2.3.4 The years in America and Europe 19
2.3.5 The crisis of his Christian faith 20
2.4 His Life after Returning to China, From 1924 - 1937
2.4.1 A successful career 22
2.4.2 A restless period 24
2.5 The Encounter of Wu with St Therese in the Fall of 1937
2.5.1 The preparation of the encounter 30
2.5.2 The encounter 31
2.5.3 After the encounter 32
CHAPTER III THE ATTRACTION OF WU TO THERESE
3.1 The Popularity of Therese 33
3.2 Therese and China 34
3.3 The Attraction of Wu to Therese 35
3.3.1 Truthfulness 35
3.3.2 Goodness 39
3.3.3 Beauty 41
3.4 Summary 44
CHAPTER IV THERESE IN THE EYES OF JOHN WU
4.1 Therese, a Marvellous Symphony 47
4.2 Therese, a Baby who is an Old Man 51
4.3 Therese, Ambassador of Love 55
4.4 Therese, Her Love for Suffering 58
4.5 Therese, Living the Extraordinary in the Ordinary 63
CHAPTER V CONCLUSION 67
BIBLIOGRAPHY 74
APPENDIX 79
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
The meeting of Wu with Therese is of great significant to the Church mission. It could enlighten the way Christianity meet the Chinese Culture. The evangelisation of China had a very long history and it is still a long going challenging task.
There were studies saying that St Thomas, one of the twelve apostles came to China from India between 65 and 68 AD. However, most people would regard the arrival of the Nestorian missionary Alopen in Changan （長安） in the year 635 as the first missionary attempt of Christianity in China even though one may argue that the Nestorian was a heretical sect, condemned by the early Ecumenical Councils. Changan, which is now called Xi’an （西安） was the capital of China during the time of Tang Dynasty and was the starting point of the famous silk road. The Nestorians stayed in China for at least two centuries until the time of Emperor Wuzong (840-846) who was a strong Daoist. He started severe religious persecutions to all foreign religions. Unfortunately, regardless of the two hundred years of presence, Christianity was still considered as a foreign religion. No trace of Christianity remained except some minor traces of Nestorianism found among the Mongol-Turkish nomadic tribes.
The first Catholic missionary to China was the Italian John of Montecorvino. He was sent to China by Pope Nicolo IV in 1289. China was then under the reign of the Mongols during the Yuan Dynastic (1271-1368). However, Christianity disappeared the second time with the downfall of Yuan Dynasty. One of the many reasons given was that Christianity was too closely linked with the ruling Mongols and thus the new dynasty would not tolerate the religion of the enemy. However, the researcher would like to point out that the Yuan dynasty had left an important influence in Chinese literature by the Yuanqu (or poetry元曲). If that is so, why could not Christianity leave a certain trace of influence in Chinese culture, such as in literature, art or philosophy?
Not counting St Francis Xavier who died at the door of China in 1552, the Catholic Church really planted its root in the soil of China with the arrival of Matteo Ricci（利瑪竇1552 – 1610）. We have to thank the foresight of Alessandro Valignano, S.J. (范禮安1539-1606) who was then the visitor of the Jesuits missions in Asia. He realized that to preach Christianity in China, one must first learn the language. He wrote down the directives for those who were in Macau preparing their future mission that they must learn to read and to write Chinese and must study the customs of the country. It was then upon his request that Matteo Ricci arrived in Macau on August 7, 1582. The next year, Ricci and another Jesuit priest, Ruggieri （羅明堅，1543-1607）, left Macau and arrived in Zhaoqing （肇慶） on September 10, 1583. Ricci stayed in China for the remaining 27 years until he died in Beijing on May 11, 1610. Since then, the Catholic Church had never disappeared completely despite the many difficulties, such as the change of dynasty from Ming to Qing, the rites controversial which lasted for almost three hundred years, the several civil wars and world wars, the many persecutions, especially those during the Communist regime. Unofficially many people would regard Matteo Ricci as the founder of the Catholic Church of China. This year the Church celebrates the 400th anniversary of his death. Pope Benedict XVI pointed out that “Fr Ricci is a unique case of a felicitous synthesis between the proclamation of the Gospel and the dialogue with the culture of the people to whom he brought it” and for this reason Ricci “was accepted by the Chinese with respect and esteem, no longer as a foreigner but as the ‘Master of the Great West’”.
However, the seed planted by Ricci has still a long way to grow before the Christian faith can be articulated explicitly in harmony with the Chinese culture. The relationship of China with the West in modern times is a rather sad love-hate story. While in the past, the West had shown great respect for China, in the nineteenth century it had come to look down on this seemingly backward country. Fr François Houang （黃家城）wrote that some of the missionaries thought that the Chinese language is such a defective and unsightly instrument that it could never be the medium of the spiritual truth of Christianity. Some would even think that China had never had any higher civilization, or its civilization was so deformed that it is not only anti-Christian but also anti-human. Of course, these opinions were some of the extreme opinions, yet it is a sign that a feeling of cultural or even religion supremacy existed among many Westerners in the last century.
1.1 Purpose and Limitation of the Study
After the colonial period, there is a growing awareness in the Church to respect the local culture. One sees that faith, in order to fully mature and bear fruit, requires the interplay between the Gospel and the culture of the people. John Paul II put it in terms of inculturation and regards it as one of the main challenges to the Churches of Asia. Thus, it is important to have enough of spiritual writings, be it in literature or arts, expressing the religious experience and sentiment in that language. Wu is one of the very few who played this important role. As early as in 1940, the great Sinologue John C. Ferguson praised Wu in these words: “Your article opens a long-hoped-for era in the long struggle of Christianity in China. I have lamented its failure to reach someone who could express his convictions in language which would carry its own appeal, and as far as I know you have done so for the first time among Christian converts in your great country… You have expressed yourself in English in sentences which will prove immortal…”
However, due to the political situation at that time, Wu left China and lived in the West. In the fifties, he was more known in the West as a Chinese lawyer and convert and not so much seen as someone important in the dialogue between East and West, a subject which did not receive much attention at that time. Nevertheless, a Jesuit scholar Father John Hardon recognised the importance of Wu and introduced him in his chronological book The Catholic Lifetime Reading Plan, in which he placed Wu among the greatest Catholics writers of all time. With the recent globalisation, and the growing awareness on ‘inculturation’ in the Church’s mission, it is time to re-consider the weight and value of Wu’s writings.
Fr Christian who has set up in Taipei a study centre on Wu had this to comment:
“There is a considerable number of modern Chinese scholars who regard themselves as Christians, but there are very few who explicitly express their ideas about Christ and the role of Christianity in China. John C.H. Wu is one of them. He reflected and wrote extensively on the subject. For him faith was not only a matter of personal conviction, it was a matter of objective truth. So he was eager to do his part to open a path for the Gospel to the heart of the Chinese people….”
In another article, Fr Christian said that “Wu is one of the most learned and experienced scholars engaged in comparative studies and dialogue between Chinese and Western culture.”Fr Christian would readily evaluate Wu’s position in the Church of China as comparable to the early Church Fathers who had assimilated philosophical and cultural elements of Greco-Roman civilization into Christian faith.
Fan Zhihui （樊志輝）, an associate professor of philosophy in the Heilongjiang University said that Wu had a unique place in the philosophical development of modern China. He gave a very insightful comment on Wu:
“His ideas may be understood as a pathway along Chinese thinking towards Christian faith, and in turn a sublimation of Chinese culture through the same Christian faith. He gives fresh interpretation to the canon of Chinese culture from the Christian point of view, but that also allows Christian faith to manifest itself through Chinese forms of expressions at the same time.”
The late Pope John Paul II appealed to the Bishops of Asia to “open wide to Christ the door of Asia”. Thus, any attempt of bridging the distance between the Gospel and Chinese culture is worth studying. Wu’s work becomes even more a subject of interest and importance if one realizes what kind of man and scholar he was.
John Wu (1899 – 1986) was born in Ningbo in the province of Zhejiang, China. He was a distinguished scholar and one of the few Chinese who had obtained an International fame in the early and middle twentieth century as a jurist, philosopher, and Catholic writer. Some compared him to G.K. Chesterton or C.S. Lewis of the west. Li Xiuqing, professor at East China University of Political Science and Law said that in the early modern China, “perhaps no one measures up to John Wu in achievements or reputation for scholarship and research, legal education, and legislative and judicial work.” With the opening of China in these recent decades, the research on John Wu’s scholarly development and on his life experience emerged. Many of the researchers noted that 1937 was a watershed year in the life of Wu. There was an obvious difference before and after this year. In this year, Wu had read the autobiography of St Therese, ‘Story of a Soul’, and decided to become a Catholic. The direction of his life took a turn. His interest and ambition changed from politics and law into religion. To many mainland China researchers, this certainly is an interesting point of study and reflection. This part of his history became ‘a famous suspense in the modern jurist history of China’. This turning point of Wu’s life, if one could name it as a ‘conversion’, would be a luminous Christian testimony and an inevitable challenge for the Chinese intellectuals.
Thus the purpose of this study is to try to understand the influence of Therese on Wu. How could an uninstructed young French Carmelite sister change the life of a highly-educated intelligent Chinese celebrity like Wu? They were from completely different cultural background. Wu said that he was touched by grace after reading the ‘Story of a Soul’ of Therese. Certainly, this was not an accident or an isolated event but a result from a long preparation by the Divine artist of soul. Charles Péguy, the renowned French poet said that “a human destiny is rooted in a soil, an epoch, a family, and is dependent on a heredity and a history.” In order to understand Wu, one has to go back to the early history of his life. This study would try to trace Wu’s ‘pagan’ background and show that, according to his experience, there is a certain affinity between the spirituality of Therese and Chinese cultural traits, notably Daoism（道家）. This would then throw some light on the inculturation of Christianity, an important subject in evangelisation among the Chinese. As early as 1951, Pope Pius XII has stressed in his encyclical “Evangelii Praecones” that the “Catholic Church has neither scorned nor rejected the pagan philosophies”, but called the missionaries to have a “deeper appreciative insight into the various civilizations and to utilize their good qualities to facilitate and render more fruitful the preaching of the Gospel of Christ.” Pope Pius XII believes that “though human nature is tainted with original sin, it has in itself something that is naturally Christian, and thus, if illumined by divine delight and nourished by God's grace, can eventually be changed into true and supernatural virtue.”The life story of Wu would be a strong testimony of this statement. In fact, this was also the theme of Wu’s many religious articles, such as “Water and Wine: Chinese Ethics and the Christian Faith” showing his great desire to introduce Christ to his fellow countrymen in a Chinese way.
In summary, this study will present:
1. The spiritual journey of Wu and his conversion through Therese.
2. Wu’s understanding of the spirituality of Therese and its comparison with the Chinese wisdom.
3. Its implication for the evangelisation of the Chinese
1.2 Methodology and Resources
Sun Wei（孫偉） in his book « 吳經熊與中國近代法制 » (C.H. Wu and the Legal System in Modern China) did an excellent literature review. The research on Wu started in Taiwan in the late 90’s. In mainland China, due to Wu’s political stand, he was forbidden until recently in the last 10 years. With the development of legal system in China, the studies of Wu increasingly become important. His autobiography “Beyond East and West” (BEW) was translated into Chinese in 2002, followed by others articles. The literature related to Wu increases thus facilitating the studies on him. Sun would mention that there is a ‘boom’ in the research of Wu.However, most of the studies are related to jurisprudence. The article from 許章潤 （Xu Zhanrun）was the only exception found. Xu tried to examine the conversion of Wu in 1937 and the reason that caused him to leave his brilliant career as a jurist. Xu gives a valuable analysis of the political and social situation during that time. Evidently, his study was purely from a non-religious viewpoint.
This study is an attempt to complement the research by reflecting the spiritual journey of John Wu, basing specifically on his autobiography, “Beyond East and West” (BEW). John Wu wrote the book “Beyond East and West” in 1951 when he was only 52 years old. He acknowledged that it would not be appropriate to write one’s autobiography when one was still a ‘baby’, considering himself as newly born into the Catholic faith. This book was written under the persistent pressure of many friends, especially his confessor, Father Nicholas Maestrini who had been praying for this more than ten years. They thought that the story of his conversion may enlighten the spiritual physiognomy of other Chinese and give the missionaries some hints on their missionary approach. John Wu put it in his humorous way saying that “their reason is, perhaps, that the capturing and taming of one dragon might lead to the capturing and taming of all the other dragons.”
This study does not attempt to introduce the whole life story of Wu. The researcher would only stress on the points which she thinks are important in preparing Wu for his encounter with St Therese and his embrace of the Christian faith. As support for Wu’s understanding of the spirituality of St Therese and Chinese philosophy, other articles will be used, especially the article ‘The Science of Love’ and some others that are collected in Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality (CHCS).
‘Story of a soul’, the book that transformed the life of John Wu was the autobiography of St Therese, a French Carmelite sister who died in 1897, two years before the birth of Wu, at a young age of 24 in a little town in France. The book was in fact a combination of three parts, which were named respectively by scholars as Autobiography A, B and C. Autobiography A was written in 1895, at the order of Mother Agnes de Jesus who was then her superior. The purpose was to please her 3 elder sisters. It was more of a ‘family affair’. Autobiography B was written in 1896. It was a letter to her sister Marie, answering her request to explain her ‘little doctrine’. The autobiography C was written in 1897 at the order of the then superior, Mother Marie de Gonzague for the purpose of preparing ‘her circular (obituary notice) after her death, for it seems there was really nothing to say about her religious life.’ One year later, when Mother Agnes published the writings under the title Histoire d’une Ame (Story of a soul), she edited them under the order of Mother Marie de Gonzague so that all three parts were arranged in such a way as to seem to be addressed to Mother Prioress alone. She printed only a modest 2000 copies. Very soon the book became a world-bestseller and was translated into more than 60 languages and dialects.
The English translation of the ‘Story of a soul’ had several editions. This paper has chosen the translation done by John Clarke. In his third Edition, he adopted the references devised for the published manuscripts. For example, MsA 2r stands for the second recto page of Manuscripts A. This method is adopted in the notes of this paper for easy reference. However, one should bear in mind that Wu had read the French edition ‘Histoire d’une Ame’, and not the Manuscripts. Though the Thérèsienne scholars recently through detailed studies have found that Mother Agnes when editing changed almost 7000 places in the Manuscripts, the main spirituality of St Therese was not altered. Therese herself had given the authority to Mother Agnes before her death saying that: “all that you think is suitable to subtract or to add to my life story, it is myself who subtracts or adds. Remember this later, and not to have any scruple on this subject.”
(....)CHAPTER V
CONCLUSION
The experience of Wu has much to say about the mission of the Church in China even in today’s world. Wu more or less lost his Christian faith during his first encounter with Western culture in USA and Europe. He suffered a period of darkness, searching for the meaning of life. He regained the joy of life after meeting St Therese through reading her autobiography. St Therese introduced him anew to Jesus and he was then able to establish a personal relationship with God and the Church, the mystical body of Christ. Wu being a distinguished Chinese scholar who had received a top ranking Western education, his spiritual journey could represent the dialogue between Chinese and Western culture, or in a larger sense, the meeting of East and West. From his experience, he drew the following conclusions on the mission of Church.
1. Christ is the only synthesis possible between East and West
Wu lived through the period when China was going through the change from the Imperial Qing to the Republic of China and later the founding of People’s Republic of China. It was a period of transformation, both in political, social and cultural terms. One of the major factors that caused these changes was the impact from the West. Thus, he could later analyse the situation of the world and made the following bold but thought-provoking statement that deserves further reflection.
“If the East does not find the West in Christ, it will never meet the West and love it. If the West does not find the East in Christ, it will never meet the East and love it. If the East is westernized, it becomes worse than the West. If the West is easternized, it becomes worse than the East. If the East and West are married outside of Christ, the union will not last, being the result of momentary infatuation, which will only produce monsters. Only when they are united in the bosom of Christ will they love each other with the love of Christ, and the union give birth to the new man.”
If one would look at some ‘monsters’ produced by the union of East and West outside Christ, the Chinese Communist Party could be one of the examples. Communism is solely an atheist ideology born in the West, adopted by the Chinese and has become the ruling thought in China for more than sixty years. It not only has stifled the spiritual strength of one-fifth of the world’s population but also has caused much suffering and destroyed the lives of so many in the modern history of China.
With the rise of China as a strong economic market, the chance that this ‘monster’ of a ‘westernized’ China could even threatens the West increases, especially when the Christian tradition of the West is weakening. The row made by China against the recent 2010 Nobel Peace Prize is significant. The prize was awarded to Liu Xiaobo "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."However, this antagonised China, for Liu Xiaobo was considered a dissident in China and was sentenced to eleven years imprisonment on 23 December 2009. Not only that he and his wife were not allowed to come to Oslo to receive the prize, but also a number of countries were absent under strong lobby from the Chinese government. News on Nobel Peace Prize was controlled in the Chinese internet or newspaper or any mass media. The tug-of-war between China and the West would only be intensified due to the great potential economic market of China.
“You cannot serve both God and Money.” (Mt 6, 24) Today, both East and West are deeply engaged in consumerism and materialism. Traditional human values such as family structure are changing or even are destroyed in many countries due to modernisation. Natural resources are mercilessly exploited everywhere so much so that the ecology of the world is being threatened.
Globalisation has made relativism more and more popular. This was in a way confirmed by Cardinal Hummes in his letter to priests on May 8, 2009 where he wrote that “the (modern) Western culture which, by means of the globalized media and human mobility, is currently dominant and increasingly widespread throughout the world, even in countries of a different culture, presents no small challenge to evangelization. It is a culture which is marked profoundly by a relativism which refuses any affirmation of an absolute and transcendent truth which ruins the foundations of morality and which closes itself off to religion. In this way the passion for truth is lost, being relegated to the place of a ‘useless passion.’”
The example of Wu showed that one way to endure the restlessness and the relativism is to remain rooted in one’s tradition, keeping the depth of it, while exploring another. The reason that Wu did not give up his hope and his fight during his dark period might be due to his deep foundation in the Chinese culture, received from his family upbringing and schooling. Later when he found peace again, he described in a beautiful analogy the Chinese culture as gifts of Magi to Christ: “I often think of myself as a Magus from China who lays before the Divine Infant in the arms of the Blessed Virgin the gold of Confucianism, the musk of Taoism, and the frankincense of Buddhism.”He claimed that Christ purified them and lifted them up into supernatural values with His divine hands.
Hence it would also be important for the Church to get involved directly in promoting the local cultures, especially as the Church is emphasising inculturation in this post-Vatican era. “The Kingdom of heaven is like this. A woman takes some yeast and mixes it with forty litres of flour until the whole batch of dough rises” (Mt 13, 33) Christianity does not belong to any culture. It is beyond all cultures and it should act as leaven and not as emetic of cultures. As a child of God, a Christian must be a person who appreciates and loves his own culture. After becoming a Christian, Wu became even more Chinese. The evangelization of the intelligentsia was a cherished dream of Wu throughout his life. He visualized a team of scholars from East and West, working together for the purpose of studying Chinese culture and its classical books and discovering in them those seeds of truth that the Holy Spirit has implanted in every culture and religion. In 1961, he and some friends started the project of founding the Chinese Culture University in Taiwan. Later after his retirement from his work in USA at the age of 69, he himself became the Dean of the Philosophy Department in that University.
On the other hand, there are now more and more Westerners interested in the ‘mysterious’ East, or in phenomena like ‘Feng Shui’ （風水）, ‘Qi Gong’ （氣功）, divination and shamanism. The popularity of Buddhist Dalai Lama is also a noticeable example. There are many in the West who seeks a spiritual boost in an age of materialism. They hunger for something other than the benefits that modern industrial society can supply. But instead of searching in their Christian tradition, they look for their answer in the East. How does the Church respond to their needs? Wu’s experience has a lot to tell. Wu represented the meeting of East and West. Though Wu was profoundly in love with his Chinese culture, he saw the inadequacy of it. After years of intellectual searching, his soul could only find rest and his life a fulfilment in the love of Christ through the way shown by St Therese. With globalisation, the meeting between East and West will become crucial and inevitable. The role of the Church is to facilitate the meeting to be in Christ, so as to give birth to a new man. This would be a good news for the whole humankind.
2. The mysticism
Wu observed that from the standpoint of Christianity, Western culture, ever since the Renaissance, has experienced a centrifugal movement. From a philosophical and social point of view, Christianity has become completely humanized and secularized. Man’s self-dependence has grown steadily and his dependence on God has been on the decline. There is a need to re-Christianize this humanism, to go back to the essence of the Gospel in order to give it life and depth.
The conversion of Wu by St Therese has a strong message to tell the world. It shows the importance of mysticism, a spirituality that many theologians had long neglected. This is what Wu said:
“I cannot imagine how anyone can go to the East without being steeped in the mystical theology of our Church as well as in the dogmatic theology. How is one to cope with natural and pantheistic mysticism without being armed with true Christian mysticism? If we want to convert the East, we must first find the real East in ourselves, and I venture to think that the real East is securely in the bosom of the Christian heritage, but we do not realize it, because we seldom probe deep enough into the hidden riches of our Church, and all too often we live on the circumference of the spiritual life.”
Wu lamented that a weakness of Christianity is pretending to have a clear and full knowledge of God. Wu described it as “teaching the catechism as a book of Geometry; as though we could communicate in language all deep things of our Religion in a technological way.”One must not forget Jesus speaks through vivid life examples or parables and metaphors. He does not proclaim doctrines. The Church seems to be talking too much about God and not talking enough to God, or be silent before him. Very often, we overlook that God is by nature hidden and invisible. Even when He reveals Himself, He is still hidden: in creation, in the Incarnation, in Redemption, in the Eucharist. In man’s journey to seek God, God comes to us by His Incarnation. It is only by following His humanity that we can hope to partake in His divinity. St Therese, following the school of St John of the Cross and St Teresa of Avila stressed the Incarnation of God, and that humans are able to love God through loving Jesus Christ. Mysticism is expressed in the language of love. We are not able to know God but we can contemplate His glory and love Him. Through love, a human being is able to reach the mystical marriage that St Therese by her ‘little way’ has put within the reach of all common people. Contemplation or mysticism as understood by Christianity is simply to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind… And love your neighbor as yourself.” (Mt 22, 36-40)
At the present juncture, both the East and the West are challenged to lead a more interior life in order to combat a fast-moving, dissipating and noise-polluted modern society. The West needs to explore the often neglected mystical side of its own Christian tradition, to have a deeper experience of interior silence and prayer. The East needs to discover the Personal God, to establish a close love-relationship with Him, in order not to be submerged in the material world. The human dignity, the respect of the individual comes from his relationship with God. Unless the West recognizes humbly its own need of re-Christianization, the East will not be Christianized so easily. It is an encouraging sign to see that mysticism of the saints is being emphasized more and more, and hopefully it will gradually leaven the whole lump of Christendom.
Suggestions for further studies
There is a Chinese dictum: “Throwing a brick in order to lure a jade”（拋磚引玉）. This paper hopes to contribute a little to the inculturation of Christianity in Asia, especially in China through the meeting of two interesting personages: John Wu and St Therese.
The spirituality of St Therese is a great treasure of the Church. It is a direct, simple and sure way of introducing the Gospel message to people. Wu was the pioneer in exposing her spirituality in a Chinese way, relating it with the Chinese wisdom. On the other hand, through the work of Wu, he enriches the age long Chinese culture, giving it fresh input and new life from the Christian view point. The spirituality of Therese thus serves as a bridge, providing valuable opportunities for the dialogue between Christianity and Chinese cultures. More could be developed so as to give rise to a new break through of civilisation, similar to the early meeting of Christianity with Greco culture that became the foundation of Western civilisation.
Wu’s intellectual growth would also be an interesting subject to deal with in depth. His fourteen years of correspondence with Holmes provide valuable primary source of research. Wu said that they were discussing things that belong more to eternity than to time. Though not directly related to the question of Christianity, the correspondence between these two highly intellectual and influential persons would surely throw light on many subjects.
Wu was one of the pioneers in translating the New Testament and the Psalms into classical Chinese. Wu was conscientious that his translation should appear Chinese, as he said “to weave a Chinese tunic for Jesus. He succeeded in achieving his aim. The publication of his translated Psalms was a big event in China. It became a best seller for many years. The psalms and its commentaries appeared in many papers and periodicals, irrespective of religion published. The protestant missionaries commented the Psalms as: “a piece of art unexcelled in Chinese Christian literature”. He daringly used the word “Dao” for the “logos” in the Gospel of St John. It would be most desirable that people would follow the path that he had opened, making Christianity alive in Chinese culture and literature. Only then, one could say that Chinese culture is truly Christianized.
From the middle of Wu’s life, he was interested in Zen. Zen is also a subject of interest in the West. It created dichotomous reactions in the Christian world. Some Christians would regard it as ‘New Age’ or even ‘diabolic’ and discard it completely. Some feel that the West could be stimulated by the Zen philosophy. However, one cannot ignore the phenomenon that more and more Westerners are attracted to it, and that it satisfies their spiritual search. Wu believed that Zen is a beautiful fruit of Chinese culture and Indian Buddhism. He hoped that something analogous to this would happen between Christianity and Chinese culture, and that it would produce an even more beautiful fruit. He started correspondence on this subject with another spiritual master of present time, Fr Thomas Merton (1915 – 1968). Both of them had worked together on the translation of the ancient book of Daoism, Zhuangzhi（莊子）. In this context, the correspondence of Wu and Fr Thomas Merton would also be an interesting subject to explore.
Finally, the researcher would like to conclude this study by the passage of Isaiah cited by St Therese after praying for her missionary in China: “Enlarge the place of your tent, stretch your tent curtains wide, do not hold back; lengthen your cords, strengthen your stakes. For you will spread out to the right and to the left; your descendants will dispossess nations and settle in their desolate cities.” (Is 54, 2-3) Hopefully, the testimony of Wu drawn from his meeting with St Therese would encourage more people to enter freely and confidently into the adventure of embracing East and West in the bosom of Christ.
Bibliography
Primary Sources on Thérèse de Lisieux:
1. Thérèse de Lisieux. Oeuvres Complètes. Editions du Cerf et Desclée de Brouwer, 1992
2. Clark, John. Letters of St Therese of Lisieux. ICS Publications, Washington DC, 1974
3. Clark, John. St Therese of Lisieux, her last conversation. ICS Publications, Washington DC, 1977
4. Clark, John. Story of a Soul – The Autobiography of St Thérèse of Lisieux. Translated from the Original Manuscripts. ICS Publications, Washington DC, 1996
5. The poetry of Saint Therese, translated by Donnald Kinney, ocd. ICS Publication, 1996
6. La Bible avec Thérèse de Lisieux. Editions du Cerf 1997
Primary Sources written by Wu, John C.H.
1. Wu, John C.H. Beyond East and West. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1951
2. Wu, John C.H. The Interior Carmel: The Threefold way of Love. NY. Sheed & Ward, 1953
3. Wu, John C.H. St Therese and Lao Tze: A Study in Comparative Mysticism. Collected Essays: Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality. Edited by Paul K. Y. Sih Jamaica, N.Y.11432 St John’s University Press, 1965
4. Wu, John C.H. Christianity, The only Synthesis Really Possible Between East and West. Collected Essays: Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality. Edited by Paul K. Y. Sih Jamaica, N.Y.11432 St John’s University Press, 1965
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Appendix - List of Chinese books written on St. Thérèse
I. Books Translated
1. “福女德肋撒行實” 周道范譯 山東煙臺天主教印刷廠 1924
2. “靈心小史” 馬相伯譯 上海土山灣印書館 1928初版，1933再版，由南京教區惠主教出版，1990上海光啟社修訂版
3. “小德肋撒德行新譜”米希聖譯 香港真理學會 1947
4. “一朵小百花” 蘇雪林譯 香港真理學會 1950
5. “回憶錄” 張秀亞譯 香港光啟 1965
6. “小德蘭詩集” 梁雅明譯 香港思高 1965初版，1997再版
7. “聖女小德蘭書簡” 劉鴻蔭譯 臺北光啟出版社 1991
8. “靈心花絮” 玫雨編譯 臺北上智 1993
9. “我的聖召就是愛” 依瓊譯 上智出版社 1995
10. “你的愛伴我成長” 周弘道譯 上海光啟社 1995
11. “里修的小德蘭“ 維農著 康之鳴譯 河北信德社 1996
12. “聖女小德蘭專輯” 彭曉明 康之鳴編譯 河北信德社 1996
13. “聖女嬰孩耶穌德肋撒詩集” 依瓊譯 上海光啟社 1996
14. “聖女小德肋撒連環畫冊” 張澤譯 河北信德社 1997
15. “一個生命的小史” 李鴻皋譯 臺北方濟出版社 1996
16. “我都選取：聖女小德蘭的生活與訊息”鄭開棻譯 光啟出版社 1996
17. “一粒小沙” 彭瑞婷譯 光啟出版社 1996
18. “神嬰小道” 蔡紹謙譯 上智出版社 1997
19. “同聖女小德蘭一起退省” 陳煥章編譯 河北信德社 1999
20. “和聖女小德蘭同行” 德樂沙譯 北京上智編譯館 2000
21. “純然交托” 許平和譯 上智出版社 2000
22. “聖女小德蘭最后言談錄” 荊嘉婉譯 臺北光啟文化事業 2002
23. “聖女小德蘭的神嬰小道” 馬永定譯 聞道出版社 2002
24. “小德蘭的自我奉獻” 姜其蘭譯 光啟出版社 2003
25. “另一種愛——莫里斯與小德蘭”（小德蘭書信集中部分）荊嘉婉譯，臺北光啟文化事業， 2004
26. “聖女小德蘭的21篇祈禱” 荊嘉婉譯 光啟出版社 2009
II. Books written by Chinese
1. “聖女小德肋撒神嬰師表” 大同總修院 公教教育聯合會出版 湯若望(Daems Constant) 1932
2. The Science of Love. John Wu. First published in T’ien Hsia Monthly. Vol. X, No. 4 April 1940.
3. St Thérèse and Lao Tzu: A Study in Comparative Mysticism. John C.H.Wu, collected in Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality. Jamaica, NY, St John’s University Press 1965
4. Thérèse and Céline. John C.H.Wu, collected in Chinese Humanism and Christian Spirituality. Jamaica, NY, St John’s University Press 1965
5. “當代最偉大的聖人小德蘭與中國” 康之鳴 河北信德社 1996
6. “小德蘭神修精華” 陳白希編 上海光啟社 1998
7. “赤子心孺慕情 – 小德蘭的福傳靈修” 曾慶導著 萬致華譯 上智新泉叢書 2002
8. “玫瑰花雨沛降神州” 康之鳴編著 河北信德社 2008
9. “萬花筒” 黃綺雯繪圖及編著 瑪利亞和平之后共融會 2010
III. Magazines published for special occasions
1. “聖女小德蘭朝聖地緣起35周年紀念專輯” 臺灣 1993
2. “聖德肋撒堂紀念特刊” 香港 2002
3. “聖女小德蘭朝聖地手冊” 臺灣臺北
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