To live on Earth is a little like living in a hotel. When I go to heaven – at least if the Lord wills it – I really think that it will be like going home. Work, spending, holidays, politics… all these subjects which are so important to society, so central to human existence, don’t really interest me. Since I was born, in 1916, certainly since I was baptised when I was three months old, I have lived in a different world, that of the Lord. I have devoted my entire life to Him.

For over 20 years I have lived in the presbytery of the Shishi cathedral in Guangzhou, the capital of southern China and my birthplace. I am very attached to this place. It is where I was ordained in 1941. I was twenty-five years old. It was the most beautiful, most sacred moment of my life. And the most demanding gift from the Lord as well. It was during the Japanese Occupation. I was carrying out baptisms, praying, giving last rites to my compatriots, without any cause for concern. Paradoxically, this period, dominated by the brutality and cruelty of the Occupation, was a time of peace and inner joy for me.

Today I am an old man and it requires a great deal of energy to continue spreading the word of Christ. I get up each morning at 5.30, pray in the chapel and then around 6.30 I eat a good breakfast. During the day I participate in catechisms all over the province. I listen and, in the light of the Evangelists, I try to answer essential questions. Some of them are curious to get to know me a bit and they ask me about the 30 years I spent in the laogai, the work camps in the province of Heilongjiang, in the northeast. ‘The isolation, the deprivation, the cold – how did you bear it?’ they ask me with emotion… I tell them what happened that famous evening in November 1953 when the police arrested me and sent me off on a long journey. I was accused of having had the audacity to organise a Catholic pilgrimage to Sheshan, not far from Shanghai, something that had never taken place before. When the faithful saw my ‘crimes’ exposed in the press a few days earlier they rushed to the Shishi cathedral where I was living at the time and begged me to run away and hide to avoid the hell of prison. I refused. We shared a last meal together and I said to them, ‘If I ever come back to Shishi alive, we will see one another again. Otherwise, do not be afraid, we will meet again in Paradise.’

It must have been 10 o’clock in the evening. I went to see the bishop Deng Yiming and my brother priests to bid them farewell. Then I packed a bag, in silence, aware that I was setting off on an unknown path. Lying on my bed I thought again about the fifteen years of my apostolic commitment and my seven years at the seminary. I was resigned to whatever fate had in store for me. Three sharp knocks at the door.  Outside it was dark and the air was cool. I wasn’t afraid. In fact I was happy to honour the promise I had made to Christ.

‘Live for Him and die for Him,’ was the prayer that I had formulated when I became a priest. I couldn’t imagine being able to betray His will…

I was sent to prison, then later I was sent to work in a factory making bricks near Guangzhou. One day one of my gaolers said to me: ‘You really are stubborn, you know that? You eat the food of the Communists and you still give thanks to God. Don’t you understand that Work will bring you everything you need?’ I was so happy to be asked that question. I finally had the opportunity to teach him something. I was very direct: ‘Work can only change material things. It can’t create things. If  a farmer doesn’t have seeds, or earth, or sun, or air, or water, what will he be able to produce?’ He marched off without saying a word, absolutely furious. The next day I was condemned to spend the rest of my life in prison near the Russian frontier.

I often ask myself where I got the courage to put up with all these trials. When I addressed public meetings after I had become a well-known figure my legs would begin to tremble. Then the words of the Evangelist would come back to me: ‘Everyone will hate you because of me… But you will not lose even a single hair. Stay strong and you will be saved.’