ST. JOSEPH FREINADEMETZ (1852-1906)
Biography taken from the official website of the Vatican, (source.)
“Joseph Freinademetz was born on April 15, 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 he inherited from his family a simple but tenacious faith.
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 July 25, 1875, and assigned to the community of Saint Martin very near his own home, where he soon won the hearts of the people. However, the call to missionary service did not go away. Just two years after ordination he contacted Fr. Arnold Janssen, the founder of a mission house which quickly developed into the Society of the Divine Word.
With his bishop's permission, Joseph entered the mission house in Steyl, Netherlands, in August 1878. On March 2, 1879, he received his mission cross and departed for China with Fr. John Baptist Anzer, another Divine Word Missionary. 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.
Those were hard years, marked by long, arduous journeys, assaults by bandits, and 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, especially catechists, for first evangelisation. He dedicated much energy to their formation and prepared a catechetical manual in Chinese. At the same time, together with Anzer (who had become bishop) he put great effort into the preparation, spiritual formation and ongoing education of Chinese priests and other missionaries. His whole life was marked by an effort to become a Chinese among the Chinese, so much so that he wrote to his family: “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.
When the bishop had to travel outside of China in 1907, Freinademetz took on the added burden of the administration of the diocese. During this time there was a severe outbreak of typhus. Joseph, like a good shepherd, offered untiring assistance and visited many communities until he himself became infected. He returned to Taikia, the seat of the diocese, where he died on January 28, 1908. He was buried at the twelfth station on the Way of the Cross, and his grave soon became a pilgrimage site 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.”
:::::::
St. Freinademetz, together with St. Arnold Janssen, the founder of his Society, was canonized on October 5, 2003 by Pope St. John Paul II.
:::::::::::::::::
Prophecy of the Future Expansion of China in the World. (Source: “Avvenirie” Italy, August 16, 2014)
(Date he gave this prophecy is not known.)
“There is nothing more important than the conversion of China. Here lives the third part of humanity - In the near future China will inundate the whole world and with it a blessing or a curse will enter the families of the whole earth, depending on whether it professes itself Christian or not ”.
(OBSERVATIONS: we can see this prophecy has come to pass – China is spreading everywhere, it has many huge development projects in underdeveloped nations around the world.)
:::::::::::::::::
Prophecy of the future occupation and conversion of China.
Prophecy printed in a report from the Catholic Newspaper 'The Observer' of Rockford Illinois, June 19, 1955. (Source.)
“HEADLINE: Predicted Ban of Missioners 50 Years Ago.”
A prediction made by a missionary from the Tyrol 50 years ago that all foreign missionaries would be expelled from China has been recalled here.
The prediction is attributed to Father Joseph Freinademetz, S.V.D., whose cause for beatification is now being discussed in Rome.
The Divine Word Missionary predicted also the China would be converted to Christianity after the country had been divided among foreign powers. The priest, who died in 1906, made his prophecies before a group of school children, two of whom are still alive. They quote him saying:
“In the future all foreign missionaries will be expelled from China. You will have to go hundreds of miles to find a priest, and even the the trip will be in vain. Some priests in high places and some of the laity will turn away from their faith....
“After all the foreign missionaries have been expelled there will be a war, and foreign powers will occupy the whole of China, dividing it among themselves. One of them will be very terrible and hard on the people. But during this time almost the whole of China will be converted.”
+End of the Report from the 'Observer'.+
:::::::::::::
OBSERVATIONS: since Fr. made this prophecy to school children it is obvious that as only two were still alive by the time this report was made in 1955, and Fr. died in 1906, he must have made this prophecy sometime in the late 1800s.
What we learn from this prophecy:
+ Christian missionaries would be expelled from China; – with the foundation of the People's Republic of China in 1949, religion was actively discouraged, many missionaries left the country. Then, a religious crackdown occurred n the 1960 and 70s. Although not a reliable source at times, Wikipedia tells us: “From 1966 to 1976 during the Cultural Revolution, the expression of religious life in China was effectively banned, including even the Three-Self Church. During the ten-year period the government began to crackdown and persecute all religions. This forced the Christians to be secretive and go underground to avoid getting executed by the communist government. Religions in China began to recover after the economic reforms of the 1970s. In 1979 the government officially restored the Three-Self Church after thirteen years of non-existence, and in 1980 the China Christian Council (CCC) was formed. Since then, persecution of Christians in China has been sporadic.”
+ Laity and Religious will leave the faith, even priests in high places: so we see an apostasy will happen according to this prophecy. The disturbing thing is – does this include those who join the 'State Approved' Communist version of the Catholic Church? Priests in 'high-places' will fall from the faith, and considering Pope Francis has conceded to the demands of the Chinese Communist Government regarding the appointment of state-approved bishops, this is very dark indeed. The Church did not stoop to this level during the French Revolution and refused to acknowledges the French Socialist Republic's state-appointed priests and bishops. Now, that Pope Francis has made this concession to China, how many Catholics will attend the state-sanctioned communist version of the Catholic 'church' because 'the pope approved it'? Note this now brings events into the 21st century.
+ A great war will happen – the whole of China will be occupied by several nations. One occupier will be more tyrannical than the others and cause the Chinese people to suffer greatly. However, the great conversion to the faith with start to happen during this terrible time. – We can see this has not happened yet. Who the tyrannical occupier will be, we cannot tell form this. We can take it as a warning to keep an eye out if any nation in particular starts becoming more belligerent than the others towards China. Also, we can assume judging from the other prophecies in the Timeline here that the arrival of occupiers invading China must happen during the great universal war that will break out just before or during the time Great Catholic Monarch comes to help cleanse the earth and prepare the world for the Age of Peace, which will be the greatest era of conversions the world will ever see before the end of time.
:::::::::::::
Return to the Great Catholic Monarch and Angelic Pontiff Timeline, click here.
::::::::::::::
Please help to support this site, click here to find out how.
