From the table to the Mass, from Emmaus to the celebrationWhen I was in the second year of elementary school, we moved from our hometown to HHH (a large city of China) and we changed schools. I remember that every weekend, Father Tang (not his real name), a priest who was over 60 years old, would ride a folding bicycle and then take the subway to go to the homes of the Catholic faithful in the city to celebrate Mass.
Our house was one of those meeting points where people came to participate in the Eucharist. The the priest The dining room table was covered with a white tablecloth, two candles were lit, a cross was placed on the table... and an altar was prepared. Between twenty and thirty faithful filled the living room. Parents and children served as altar servers and readers, and if there was no one for these functions or they did not know how to read, the priest himself took care of everything.
When someone wanted to go to confession, the dormitories became confessionals. The priest would wait seated on the corner of a bed, his back to the door and to the faithful who entered. The line of people waiting to receive the sacrament stretched down the hallway from the door of the room.
Masses in warehouses and stadiums
On special occasions, such as Easter or Palm Sunday, the Masses were celebrated in the business of some faithful who had a store, which made it possible to gather a hundred or two hundred people. Over the years, due to increased government surveillance, Mass locations and times were communicated by word of mouth. "WeChat" (an application similar to "WhatsApp") was also used, but it was not written in a clear way, but rather code words were used to refer to the Mass. Of course, no pictures of the priest were ever taken and nothing was ever posted on social media.
At Christmas, a larger venue was rented to house all the faithful of the underground HHH Church, some four or five hundred people. We rented theaters, stadiums and even resorts. The expenses were considerable, but they are always covered by the faithful who have the financial means to afford them.
I remember an embarrassing situation one Christmas Eve, an occasion for which we had rented a stadium, at the price of 25,000 RMB. Shortly before the Mass was to begin, for reasons unknown to me, the police arrived. In order to protect the priest, the Mass was not celebrated, and only the Christmas performances prepared by the faithful remained. From that year on, all Christmas Masses began to be celebrated at midnight, and I do not know if it was due to that incident.
The situation during the pandemic
When I got married I moved to WWW (medium-sized Chinese city). During those years, the pandemic forced us to cancel Masses, but every two weeks, we Catholics would gather in a park to receive the Eucharist and go to confession.
The priest who served us wore normal clothes and was indistinguishable from passersby. In order not to arouse suspicion, each person who approached him for confession or communion pretended to be walking.
During the pandemic years there were times when we would go a month without receiving the Eucharist. Fortunately, after the end of the confinement, Masses were once again celebrated in the homes of the faithful.
Daily Mass attendance
With this in mind, it is understandable that I was very envious when I read the biographies of the saints. Many of them said that they attended Mass every day, something we could not afford in my family. Now that we are in Spain and have the opportunity to go to Mass every day, I can only thank God.
