September 11th, St. John Gabriel Perboyer.

St. John Gabriel Perboyer

Today, the 11th of September, the Church celebrates the feast of St. John Gabriel Perboyer.
St. John Gabriel was born in Puech, France,  on January 6th, 1802, to a devout family of eight children. Including John Gabriel, five of the Perboyer children became consecrated religious - three priests and two nuns. He was ordained at age 23 and taught theology at the seminary before being appointed rector and later master of novices in Paris - on account of the holiness his superiors saw in him.
Louis, his younger brother, died on his way to preach in China at the age of 24 and John Gabriel was asked to continue the mission that had been given to his brother. He reached on the island of Macao on August 29, 1835. After getting acclimatized in Macau, John Gabriel began the long trip in a Chinese junk ship, walking, and on horseback, which brought him after eight months to Nanyang in Henan, where the compulsion to learn the language imposed itself.

After five months, he was able to articulate himself, though with some trouble, in good Chinese, and at once threw himself into the ministry, visiting the small Christian communities. Then he was transferred to Hubei, which is part of the region of lakes formed by the Yangtze kiang , Blue River. He worked in his apostolate for four years.
A decree of the Manchurian emperor, Quinlong,  had banned  the Christian religion in 1794.  This resulted in a hunt for Christian missionaries; the soldiers used threats to force a catechumen to reveal the place where the John was hiding. The catechumen was a weak person and could not stand the threat of the soldiers. So, he informed  the soldiers his whereabouts.  John was arrested and underwent the cruelest tortures. He was brought before four different tribunals and subjected to 20 interrogations.
The Prayer of St. John Gabriel Perboyre: “O my Divine Savior, transform me into Yourself. May my hands be the hands of Jesus. May my tongue be the tongue of Jesus. Grant that every faculty of my body may serve only to glorify You. Above all, transform my soul and all its powers so that my memory, will and affections may be the memory, will and affections of Jesus. I pray You to destroy in me all that is not of You. Grant that I may live but in You, by You and for You, so that I may truly say, with St. Paul,"I live-- now not I-- but Christ lives in me."
This prayer had its consummation On 11 September 1840;  the imperial order came decreeing his death by strangulation.
With seven criminals the missionary was led up a height called the "Red Mountain." As the criminals were killed first, Perboyre reflected in prayer, to the wonderment of the bystanders.
When his turn came, the executioners stripped him of the purple tunic and tied him to a post in the form of a cross. They passed a rope around his neck and strangled him.
His body was brought back to France, but his heart remained in his adopted homeland, the land of China.
The heroic suffering and death of John Gabriel led to his beatification in 1889. Pope John Paul II canonized him as Saint John Gabriel Perboyre, on June 2nd 1996.