the Carmel
From Fr. Roulland to Thérèse – September 25-26, 1896

DE  
ROULLAND Adolphe Father
À 
MARTIN Thérèse, Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus

26/09/1896

From Fr. Roulland to Thérèse. September 25-26, 1896
My sister, Finally I have set foot in China: I have arrived in my new adopted country. Our good mother will kindly give you a few details about my trip, which, moreover, went very well: the ships today are veritable palaces, compared to the sailboats which carried the first missionaries of our Society to the East; it was the heat that made us suffer the most. - I am now at the procure or common establishment of the Society, and I impatiently await the happy moment when I will be told to leave for the Su-Tchuen: the current of the Blue River is too rapid now, and going up it would be difficult. in front of a certain shipwreck. I am therefore not going to speak to you again of this province which is so interesting; however, I saw four Christians from my mission and I am delighted with them; when they learned that I was their father, they genuflected before me one after the other; I was a little embarrassed during this ceremony which was so new to me. The Father Prosecutor who was with me then told me: in your mission, Chinese society is much more distinguished than here and your Christians will have for you a respect, an attachment unknown here. We are in Shang-Hai, an important port located 2 hours from the sea, on a large river, wider than the Seine, and called the Wampoo. Two very distinct parts in this city: the part inhabited by the Europeans and the Chinese part. Most of the Europeans are English, and therefore Protestant; so we only see ministers walking more or less gravely with their wives and children. These ministers as well as those of the entire Celestial Empire, thanks to their pecuniary resources, put many obstacles to the action of the missionary. The Chinese can circulate in the streets: they take advantage of it; the sidewalks are covered with them and the middle of the streets are encumbered with rickshaws, small single-seater cars, drawn by Chinese people of more or less tanned yellow complexion. Another means of locomotion is the wheelbarrow; a Ferris wheel is in the center; to the right and to the left there is a sort of seat to sit down on. - Others, with the help of bamboos, carry enormous loads. These Chinese run for an hour, or carry the burden for 6 or 7 French sous. - Again
 
imbued with the mores of Europe, I felt sorry for their fate; a father quickly corrected me: You must always treat them haughtily, never smile at them; otherwise they will ridicule you and you will have lost all authority. I have therefore taken the resolution not to pass any judgment on a people with morals so different from ours and to note only the facts. And I didn't have to go far to see it. The Chinese town is a stone's throw from the procures; we went for a walk there; we crossed the gate of the fortifications; the largest streets are barely 2 m wide: on the right, on the left there are shops, always shops; I wondered where all these merchants found buyers, I will find out later; in these shops I saw stuffs, pipes, superstitions, fish which had a rather disagreeable smell, etc. All the Chinese watched us pass with curiosity; for them we are devils of the West. We enter a pagoda, a kind of temple where the devil is worshiped from all sides. It hurts the heart to have the Chinese prostrate themselves before these hideous forms, arrayed around a large room with walls blackened by the smoke of the candles. I had my parasol in my hand and I would gladly have given myself the pleasure of bumping into all these devils: but I could have paid dearly for this pleasure. - Finally we arrive in a Catholic church; formerly it was a pagoda and today in place of the old Boudda, a statue of the Immaculate Virgin stretches out her arms to us; the Father in charge of the parish also has the administration of a school. - What must be very painful is that in these towns with such narrow streets there is a lack of air; in this connection the father who directed us said to us laughing: it is a good thing that there are not too many drafts: the cholera microbes cannot circulate. campaign ; we head for a nearby church; we follow the national road, a small path half a meter wide which winds through the middle of fields sown with rice, cotton, peas, this time I breathe deeply; the Chinese work in the fields because the weather is threatening and the rice and cotton are good to harvest; most of these workers are Christians and have permission from the Father to work on Sundays. In the fields we see tombs here and there. Around towns they are very close to each other. These are tumulus, ten times larger than the tombs of France, or small houses 1 m high; here the coffin is simply placed on two trestles and covered with a coarsely woven mat; there the coffin is simply placed on the ground. - No bad smell ever emanates from the bodies because the chests are very thick, very well closed, and the bodies are surrounded by quicklime. We arrive at the residence of the Father, a Jesuit from Caen, Fr. Pierre: he has a fever and begs us to give salvation. We go to church; the Christian women are there in large numbers on one side; the men who are not busy in the fields are on the other and all aloud, in Chinese in a singsong tone, recite the Rosary. After the greeting everyone recite a consecration to the Sacred Heart. We return a little tired but happy and loving China and the Chinese even more. - Another interesting walk is that of Zi-Ka-Wei, 9 km from Shang-Hai. It is this village, do you remember my sister, that you pointed out to me when you spoke to me of the Carmelites of Shang-Hai. It is a partly Catholic village. The Jesuits have magnificent establishments there: scholasticate, orphanage for boys, orphanage for girls; among the latter we have seen poor little beings, thin, withered; soon they will go to Heaven. - The Carmel is very close to the orphanage, but I was so tired that I didn't go there. An apostolic vicar, Mgr. Chouzy du Kouang-si, a prisoner of the Chinese, wrote recently to our procurator: “We have succeeded in an enterprise; it is thanks to the prayers of the Carmelites of Zi-Ka-Wei: thank them for us and tell them to pray again for our poor mission. “I can see that in Heaven the daughters of St Thérèse will share the reward of the missionaries. Like these they do not dabble in pagan filth (expression of a holy missionary) but by a life entirely of sacrifices spent among the most beautiful flowers of spirituality, by their holy prayers, they do holy violence to the heart of our God . - Around October 15, feast of St Thérèse, I will wear Chinese clothes: they will shave my head except for a circle placed at the top; we will adapt to this hair a braid of false hair, taken I don't know where; I will be given a long pipe and I will be Chinese and I will leave for Su-tchuen confident in the future because it belongs to God, because in Heaven a Mother will watch over me, because in Carmel a sister will pray for me : we will convert souls, we will baptize little Chinese, and when you fly away to our common homeland, you will meet these little angels who will owe you their eternal happiness. - I will arrive at my bishop's around December 25: I will write to you towards the end of January and my letter will reach you at the end of March f. You had sent me a box of large hosts; the box is in my room, ready to embark again; the hosts served us to celebrate Holy Mass on board and we were all happy to use a host prepared by a Carmelite nun. -During the crossing, I said the Holy Mass several times; but I was so warm in these cramped cabins, my preparation and my thanksgiving left so much to be desired that I had to give up this happiness.
end of the book, I beg you, my sister, often lay at the feet of Jesus, in the name of your brother, some of the feelings which kindle your heart: on this condition I will continue to say every morning: "My God set my heart ablaze sister of your love”. - On December 25 you will send me your intentions; I guess them: you will thank the Lord for this day of grace among all, probably the day when the good Lord called you to Carmel. - I am sending you the main dates of my life: I commend to your prayers a young girl who wants to consecrate herself to Jesus and is encountering serious difficulties. - My parents continue to be resigned, my father's conversion is a serious conversion: Deo gratias. To God, my sister, apostolic union; I bless you A. Roullandmiss.ap.Su-Tchuen(the main dates of my life):+ R.Ap. Days of Grace granted by the Lord to his unworthy Missionary -Birth: October 13, 1870 - Baptism: October 15, 1870 - First Communion: July 3, 1881 -Confirmation: June 8, 1883 - Vocation saved by ND de la Délivrande: September 8, 1890 - Entrance Major Seminary: October 1, 1890 - Tonsure: June 29, 1892 - Minor Orders: September 24, 1894 - Sub-diaconate: September 21, 1895 - Diaconate: February 29, 1896 - Priesthood and apostolic union: June 28, 1896 - Conversion of my father: July 9, 1896 - Departure from France: August 2, 1896 - First baptism of a pagan child:..... - First conversion of an adult pagan:.....”

back to the list