1999 - Zhou Shuying

January 27, 1999

Shanghai

Zhou Shuying.

Zhou Shuying was born in Shanghai on October 14, 1909, to a dedicated Catholic family that had believed in Jesus Christ for many generations. The godly influence rubbed off on the little girl, so that even at the age of three she told her parents she wanted to be a nun. When she had her first Communion, Zhou prayed, “Oh Jesus, I hope with all my heart that right up to the moment of my death, I shall never commit a mortal sin to offend you.”[1]

When she was old enough, Zhou attended the Xuhui Girls’ Catholic High School in Shanghai, where she was described as “cheerful, humorous, full of enthusiasm but dignified at the same time.”[2] During these years Zhou was consumed by God’s grace and diligently studied His Word. Along with two friends she composed a hymn in praise of God. The words went, “I love you and You love me, all day long I think of nothing else but You, and during the night I dream of You.” After graduating, Zhou remained at the high school as a teacher. In 1933, when she was 24, Zhou Shuying decided to leave home and commit herself to a life of service. She joined the Carmelite Order. Her mother wept on the day that Shuying entered the Order. Shuying reminded her, “Mother, do bear in mind that I have long since offered up my whole life to the service of God.”[3]

After the massive crackdown against Catholics in Shanghai occurred on September 8, 1955, Zhou knew it was a matter of time before the Communist authorities arrested her and the other nuns. She packed a small bag of clothes and essentials in preparation for her arrest, but surprisingly it didn’t come until 1958. One of the charges against Zhou was that she had “poisoned the minds of the youth.” For a start she was held in a Shanghai prison, and subsequently transferred to the Baimaolong Prison Labour Camp in Langxi County, Anhui Province. Then all news of Zhou ceased, and for years it was not known if she was dead or alive. Incredibly, “it was not until January 17, 1999, that she was sent back to Shanghai for medical treatment. Forty years of her life had been spent in labour reform, 40 long and hard years of bearing witness to the faith.”[4]

Years later it transpired that the government had offered to release her from prison in 1980. They handed her a notice saying “Zhou Shuying, you are the recipient of magnanimous treatment by the Government. You are rehabilitated.” Sister Zhou commented,

“What kind of law is this? Thirty years have passed. How can such an infringement of justice be redressed?.... I have left my family in order to follow out my vocation, not just left home to follow a different lifestyle. I have no home. The labour farm is the very site of the Carmelite Convent in reality in daily life.”[5]

Zhou Shuying rejected the government’s offer! During her years in prison, she had led more than 20 women to faith in Christ, and had baptized them. All of them died, one by one, and were buried on a small mountain slope near the labour camp. Zhou did not view her decades in prison as persecution, for it was in that place that she found the fulfilment of the ministry God had called her to. In her mind, to leave the prison was to walk away from the call God had placed on her life. Throughout the 1980s and ‘90s Sister Zhou chose to remain in the prison labour camp. It was said, “The final years of Sister Zhou were indeed blessed, for her days were filled with happiness and vitality. She was extremely optimistic and found joy in living each day for God. She would say: ‘God’s mighty Hands rest on my forehead, so what do I have to fear?’”[6]

In the late 1990s Zhou was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Some friends in Shanghai heard about her imminent death so they rented an ambulance and drove all the way to Anhui to bring her back to Shanghai for medical treatment in January 1999. For many of the young Catholics in Shanghai, the news of Sister Zhou Shuying’s arrival brought awe and excitement. They had heard stories about this almost mythical figure who had chosen to remain in prison 40 years for the sake of the gospel.

From her hospital bed she expressed her final wishes: “During my whole lifetime, I have served God as a nun of the Carmelite Order and when I die, I shall die as a nun of the Carmelite Order.”[7] The Bishop of Shanghai, Fan Zhongliang, went to Zhou’s bedside to give her his final blessing. He told her, “Sister Zhou, you have won the hearts of so many who acclaim you as a woman of heroic virtue, a saint.”[8]

Sister Zhou Shuying laid to rest after spending 40 years in prison for her faith.

Early in the morning of January 27, 1999, in her 90th year, Zhou Shuying quietly and peacefully slipped into the presence of the One she had loved her entire life.

1. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 35.
2. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 35.
3. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 36.
4. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 38.
5. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 38.
6. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 38-39.
7. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 40.
8. September 8th Editorial Board, Twentieth Century Outstanding Women, 40.