Anecdotes about the Virgin Mary

The Lady who protected Donglü

Donglü (China) (1900)

In the village of DonglüIn the province of Hebei, in northern China, there was at the end of the 19th century a fervent Catholic community and a church dedicated to the Virgin Mary, venerated as Mother and Queen of China. That Marian fervor would be tested very soon.

En 1900 estalló el Boxer lifting, a xenophobic and anti-Christian movement that caused terrible persecution against Chinese missionaries and Christians. Hebei was among the most punished areas. It is documented that the community of Donglü was attacked, that there was resistance and that, following those events, the Marian devotion of the place was greatly strengthened. About what happened in the sky of Donglü, the memory of the people keeps an affectionate account.

According to these devotional chronicles, the Boxers surrounded the village and opened fire, but the apparition and prodigious phenomena - lights, bullets that did not reach the temple - made them retreat in disorder, leaving Catholics safe. It must be clearly said that the vision of the Virgin in heaven and those details belong to the Pious traditionnot a canonical research in the style of Lourdes or Fatima; no consta a formal decree of recognition of the apparition. What is documented is the persecution, resistance and flowering of devotion.

In 1924, the first council of the Catholic Church in China declared Mary Patroness of the country under the title of Our Lady of China, reinforcing Donglü's importance as a major Marian shrine, with massive pilgrimages in May. Since the 1990s, the government has imposed strict restrictions, including arrests and roadblocks. Even so, thousands of faithful attempt to reach the shrine each May, many on foot and praying. When the police close the shrine, they remain praying the Rosary in the nearby fields, transforming the paths into a living rosary of devotion.