Bibles for Chinese Catholics
May 3, 2008 by Amy
With the advent of the Beijing Olympics this summer, the world is turning an attentive eye to that vast land and its 1.3 billion people. Catholics make up a tiny minority at this point. Some belong to the Patriotic Catholic Church which is recognized by the government, and some are part of an underground Church. Very few Christians have Bibles, but the Holy Spirit has opened a way in response to the prayers of the faithful throughout the world.
Chinese officials have given permission for 15 million Bibles to be printed - one for each Chinese Catholic. They will be distributed through Partnership for China an international trust which solicits international collaboration for the exchange of culture, arts, knowledge and values with the people of China
The Objective Summary for Partnership for China is to work towards
+ Soliciting and facilitating international collaboration with the people of China.
+ Contributing to a greater awareness of the Chinese world to the Western world and vice versa.
+ Promoting and organizing international cultural exchange programs and activities
+ Studying contemporary trends in the Chinese culture and contrasting their influence on other international cultures.
+ Coordinating humanitarian assistance to help the marginalized that they may enjoy a dignified life.The Holy Father has responded to this need by giving his papal blessing to the project and sponsoring 12,500 Bibles to be printed. Each Bible packet costs $4 and includes a Bible in the Chinese language, a DVD of the story of Jesus, and a booklet titled, “Discovering God in Chinese Characters.”
Do they need money?
I wonder if I qualify for the distribution. I’ve heard tell of a Christian Chinese character book from people at my Chinese parish and also my Chinese teacher, but no one seems to have a copy of it. It is really quite fascinating when people can use Chinese characters for catechesis. One notable one is all the places the character for “fu” (blessings) appears inside of other characters. Many Chinese Christians look for it to see what are blessings from God. Another one is the character for boat, which contains a number of characters related to the story of Noah. Hen you yi si (very interesting).
I plan on donating but looks like you have to mail a $4.00 check …odd…if they let people use paypal or even credit cards I bet they could raise the $$$ to buy all 15 million within the year.
Oops…I’m the idiot…looks like it can be done online….
What a great idea - as the good guys in Acts learned, I’m a firm believer in the use of foreign languages as a medium of the affirmation of the Holy Spirit’s working in our own lives. Try this on for size :
好 [ unicode & # 2 2 9 0 9 ; ] hǎo or “good” in Mandarin,
meaning something resembling the Greek χαριτόω “most highly favored” is composed of the radicals for woman and child.
Place it liberally wherever you don’t have time to read Luke 1:28 or pray the Angelus, you’ll have a wee diptych icon to open and “read” as the Easterners say:-
to the left, the 女 logogram of a madonna nursing a baby in her lap is the Theotokos [nǚ) or "woman" unicode & # 2 2 8 9 9 ; ]
to the right, the 子 logogram of a swaddled infant is the Christ [ zǐ or "child" unicode & # 2 3 3 7 6 ; ]
And the two together?
Ever since John Bosco’s vision, the two pillars are symbols for “Church” the one, true… the good (no accident Zen has ‘em on his Episcopal Crest, right?)
But we’re not done: consider this spiritually profound iota in addition: we have a mere 26 characters in our alpha - beta - catalog right? The Chinese on the other hand thousands. Contemporaneous to the advent of modern missionary encounters, the Chinese Ming dynasty (Northern Steppe Mongol Silk Road ancestry) scholar Mei Yingzuo compiled the Zihui dictionary of radicals in an ordered progression based on stroke construction.
http://www.chinaknowledge.de/Literature/radicals.html
Now … hold that thought and turn instead to John of the Cross and his canticle with its verses numbered to match the penitential season of Cuaresma…
http://www.catholicfirst.com/thefaith/catholicclassics/johnofthecross/canticle/canticle1.cfm
Lookee- see — by what marvel we learn that the radicals for woman, child (and their Carmelite “consummation” 宀 mian or “roof” ) fall in the Mongol scholars list into a trinitarian “three strokes”category ranked :
38 [ Holy Thursday in our Triduum ] woman
39 [ Good Friday in our Triduum ] child
40 [ Holy Saturday in our Triduum ] roof
Thus the Cross is the timber thrust into the depths of Sheol before being raised as the roof — and supporting it still — the Bridegroom’s bower for his bride the soul, like Jonah’s gourd vine, a tent in the sun, an eternal tabernacle.
Now…
.. back to more prosaic matters of commerce, heck — I’m with Ambrose, why is it WalMart has the market cornered on merchandise made in/for China? I’d like to buy a Chinese Bible too!
Our dear doddery mater-ecclesia clots need access to the services of folks with the savoir faire of secular modernity (– E-bay and Craigslist we all know, but there’s Etsy too a great online market for all sorts of private artisanal things)
The Church and her associations should have an online banking presence like PayPal (or if they are more fearful of contamination than Jesus was in the temple) perhaps the K-of-C could create a new funding vehicle for granting monies to domestic or international 501(c)3s who could set up such a system for merchandizing these marvelous materials in a global media market (imagine, a Wikipedia-like self-directed, self-generated offering of ‘all things’ Catholic from ‘all beings’ Catholic, a 24-7, a Nǚzǐpedia emporium of “goods” if you will…
I would have bought hundreds of PRINTED copies over the years of the kiddie bible — in the various languages for the CCD kids I teach to contemplate and pray over as a spiritual act of mercy for the fellow CCD’lers the world over — if I could get my hands on them, from an “incarnated” church, at a reasonable price for each copy! There’s only a couple of languages as pdf’s online and while English is available in the UK I think for c. $5 (not including S&H) which is extortianately (ie sinfully) expensive for a folio of colored paper when I can get the whole 800 pages of the Jerusalem Bible at Amazon for just double that (the price covers a donated copy and a personal copy, but sorry its still bad economics …
Meanwhile, relax and enjoy playing a wee online version of those letter jumbles with the Chinese character for love:
http://goodcharacters.com/chinese.symbol.for.love.html
and let your imagination be filled with the Holy Spirit with what wonders American ingenuity could work for evangelization if only our hierarchy would get off their collegial USSCB-scuttle butts and into gear, or better yet (subsidiarity being my pet-bugbear) if only our institutions of higher learning would get off their tenured butts and into gear, or even better if only our parochial schools would get off their elitist butts once a day and let us into to use their gear after the last school bell had rung, we could use all that expensive computer lab equipment the parish and diocese (and incidentally in PA all taxpayers) subsidizes and ‘Nika!” just go do it ourselves. . . .
Only problem is a juridical one - who owns the stuff in the parish school? How is it accounted for in the clerical economy of “goods” fit for purpose deigned to us by our Creator
An asset…
… or a liability …
… you decide
(each knows their neck of the subsidiairity woods best…
Rant over,
misericordia Domini
oops - missing Aid to Church in Need Bible for kids in chinese, features another trinitarian 38-40 radical combo
字 dzi
[someone's given courtesy "name" unicode & # 2 3 3 8 3 ;
http://85.10.210.140/kinderbibel/index.php?bibel_showpictures=1&bibel_language=051&bibel_zoom=35&bibel_chapter=n-1-000&action=view&change_chapter=n-1-002
47. 他 的 名 字 是 神 与 我 们 His name is Immanuel - God with us
see etymology of that logogram here:
http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=%E5%AD%97&action=edit§ion=33
and check this out
-- in Old Chinese the Holy Name logogram is also a verb with meaning "Love"
(*) pronounced this resembles "aghadzi" in Korean for "Lord" like aga, hagia, hegemon, ottoman from related protoIndoeuropean root]
Thanks for the link. I have a Chinese daughter and am pleased to help Chinese catholics.
I went to mass several times in a state sponsored church in China and was impressed at the number of congregants and their devotion. Reminds me how easy it is to be a Catholic here in the U.S.
Gracie
This is wonderful!