Giuseppe (Joseph) Freinademetz was born on
the 15th of April 1852 in Oies, a small hamlet of five houses situated
in the Dolomite Alps of northern Italy. The region, known as "South
Tyrol," was then part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. He was baptised on
the day he was born and inherited from his family a very simple but
tenacious faith and a great capacity for work.
While Joseph was studying theology in the
diocesan seminary of Bressanone (Brixen), he began to think seriously of
the "foreign missions" as a way of life. He was ordained a priest on the
25th of July 1875, and assigned to the community of Saint Martin (S.
Martino di Badia) very near his own home, where he soon won the hearts
of his countrymen. However, the call to missionary service did not
leave. Only two years after ordination, he came into contact with Fr.
Arnold Janssen, founder of a Mission House, which was soon to become
known as the "Society of the Divine Word."
With his Bishop's permission, Joseph left
for the Mission House in Steyl, Netherlands in August 1878. On the 2nd
of March 1879, he received his mission cross and departed for China with
Fr. John Baptist Anzer, another Divine Word Missionary priest. Five
weeks later they arrived in Hong Kong, where they remained for two
years, preparing themselves for the next step. In 1881 they travelled to
their new mission in South Shantung, a province with 12 million
inhabitants and only 158 Christians.
The next two years were hard, marked by
long, arduous journeys, assaults by bandits and filled with the
difficult work of forming the first Christian communities. As soon as a
community was just barely developed an instruction from the Bishop would
arrive telling him to leave everything and start anew.
Soon Joseph came to appreciate the
importance of a committed laity, and especially catechists, for first
evangelisation. He dedicated much energy to their formation and prepared
a catechetical manual in Chinese. At the same time, along with Anzer,
who had become bishop, he put great effort into the preparation,
spiritual formation and ongoing education of Chinese priests and other
missionaries.
At different times he served as
Administrator for the Mission, Rector of the seminary, Spiritual
Director for the first group of Chinese priests, and as Provincial
Superior. He always exercised his authority in a brotherly fashion, and
the respect he received came more from his example and life witness than
from the dignity of the office he held.
His life was marked by a desire to become
more like a Chinese among the Chinese and in that vein he wrote a letter
to his family saying: "I love China and the Chinese; I want to die among
them and be laid to rest among them".
In 1898, Freinademetz was sick with
laryngitis and had the beginnings of tuberculosis as a result of his
heavy workload and many other hardships. So at the insistence of the
Bishop and the other priests he was sent for a rest to Japan, with the
hope that he could regain his health. He returned to China somewhat
recuperated, but not fully cured.
In 1900, after twenty years of hard work
in China, Fr. Janssen invited him to travel to Steyl for the celebration
of the 25th anniversary of the Congregation. Fr. Joseph declined the
invitation. It was the time of the Boxers Rebellion against the
Europeans. The German authorities ordered the missionaries to retire to
the port city of Tsingtao for their own protection. Joseph decided to
stay at the mission station at Puoli, knowing well the risk that he was
taking. At one point he sent a group of orphans from the interior
mission to the coast of Tsingtao, where it was relatively secure. He
wrote to the missionaries there: "They (the orphans) are absolutely
destitute. Please have the kindness to do something for them. With
conditions as they are we must not hesitate to incur a few extra
expenses in order to save what can still be saved." He added: "I think
it would be better to sell the horses".
Whenever the bishop had to travel outside
of China, Freinademetz would take on the added burden of the
administration of the diocese. At the end of 1907, while he was serving
as Diocesan Administrator for the sixth time, there was a severe
outbreak of typhus. Joseph, like a good shepherd offering untiring
assistance, visited the many communities until he himself became
infected. He went to Taikia, seat of the diocese, where he died on the
28th of January 1908. He was buried at the twelfth station on the Way of
the Cross and his grave soon became a site of pilgrimage point for
Christians.
Freinademetz learned how to discover the
greatness and beauty of Chinese culture and to love deeply the people to
whom he had been sent. He dedicated his life to proclaiming the Gospel
message of God's love for all peoples, and to embodying this love in the
formation of Chinese Christian communities. He animated these
communities to open themselves in solidarity with the surrounding
inhabitants. And he encouraged many of the Chinese Christians to be
missionaries to their own people as catechists, religious, nuns and
priests. His life was an expression of his motto: "The language that all
people understand is that of love". |
