By Yiyi Zhang
Mother Elizabeth, a cloistered missionary in Chongqing, endured profound turmoil in the middle of the 20th century. Yet, her memoir reveals a soul who carried the cross not with despair, but with peace, hope, and even joy. She kept a gentle smile while facing war, persecution and upheaval, not because it was easy, but because she trusted that God was with her.
Mother Marie Elizabeth of the Trinity (Mother Elizabeth for short) was born as Marie Roussel in Remiremont, France in 1903. Raised in a devout Catholic family, she entered the Carmel of Nancy in 1926, and responded whole-heartedly to a call to be a missionary soon after. As a result, she came to live in a cloistered monastery in Chongqing, China during the tumultuous years of 1933-1951. Though unable to remain in China after 1951, her ministry continued in other forms, as she later founded a Byzantine Rite Carmelite monastery in St-Rémy, France in 1986, and a skete in Romania in 1994. Her dying words were: “it seems as if I am in a great company, keeping watch. I am falling asleep in the Light.”
Between 1938 and 1943, during five years of relentless bombing, Japanese planes dropped a total of 21,593 bombs on Chongqing, the temporary capital of China. The devastation was staggering—11,889 lives lost, 14,100 wounded, and 17,608 buildings reduced to rubble (Li and Yang, Fenghuo Suiyue Chongqing Dahongzha, p. 8). Amid this chaos, Mother Elizabeth and her fellow sisters endured constant destruction: tiles ripped from their monastery’s roof, windowpanes shattered, floors torn open by explosions. Yet, in the fallout shelter beside their monastery, they reserved a place for the Eucharist, ensuring that the Lord’s presence remained both safe and near.
Their bishop urged them to take refuge in the mountains, farther from the capital, but the sisters refused. They chose to remain, steadfast in their vocation, offering their contemplative lives for China as long as God willed it. Even as bombs fell and debris flew, they continued to pray—whether between air raids or in the very midst of the bombing itself. “We were squeezed into the shelter in the middle of a fine autumn night,” Mother Elizabeth recalled. “Our chaplain put the holy ciborium in its little niche, and we adored the Risen Christ, sacramentally present in our midst... What a comfort that divine Sacramental Presence would be to us!” (Mother Elizabeth, Leaving for, Living in, & Farewell to China, pp. 69-71).
As the earth trembled beneath her, she turned her gaze to Christ—scourged, climbing the road to Calvary. She prayed for those on the front lines, for peace in China and in Europe. Her calling as a Carmelite was clear: to “keep in our hearts and in community the peace, hope, and joy of the Beatitudes” (Mother Elizabeth, Leaving for, Living in, & Farewell to China, p. 71). Yes, not only peace and hope, but even joy was to be preserved in the midst of suffering.
There were even moments of laughter in the shelter. One night, in the darkness of their cramped refuge, Mother Elizabeth records that her mother superior, overcome by exhaustion, fell backward off her small bench—straight into a pool of water. On other nights, she dozed off, only to launch forward unexpectedly. Even in the midst of great sufferings, these faithful sisters still found reasons to giggle.
Through the trials of war, the deaths of fellow sisters, and countless other difficulties, Mother Elizabeth maintained her capacity for joy, not because the suffering was insignificant, but because her Christian hope was not dependent on the circumstances. Her strength did not come from sheer willpower, but from her deep faith in the Eucharistic Lord and her total reliance on His grace. “In the Eucharist,” she wrote, “we communicate in the glorified Body of the Risen Christ; we receive the Pentecostal gift, from the Spirit sprung from Christ the Lord. Should we not then be in the world bearers of Christ and bearers of the Spirit, sowers of love and joy?” (Mother Elizabeth, Leaving for, Living in, & Farewell to China, p. xv).
If Mother Elizabeth could hold fast to Christian hope and joy while bombs rained down around her, so can we. The question is: do we truly believe in the sacramental presence of the Risen Lord, made so tangibly available to us each day? Do we carve out the silence necessary to hear Him, or do we allow the noise of the world to toss us around constantly, to steal our awareness of His nearness?
Concluding Reflection: During this Third Week of Lent, may our travels enable us to learn from Mother Elizabeth and from many more missionaries to China who have lived out peace, hope, and joy in the midst of suffering. May we pass through these forty days as a desert, a time to consume the world’s voices less and to sit in the Eucharistic presence of God more, to meditate on the way of the cross, and to die with Christ so that we may truly rise with Him, smiling in the Light.
References and further reading:
Mother Elizabeth (Mère Élízabeth), Leaving for, Living in, & Farewell to China – the Life Experiences of a Carmelite Nun. (Eastern Christian Publications, 2010).
Jinrong Li and Xiao Yang. Fenghuo Suiyue Chongqing Dahongzha. (Chongqing Press, 2005).
Yiyi Zhang is a PhD student in Theology at Boston College. Her decision to study theology was inspired by John C.H. Wu and his example of striving to be both fully Chinese and fully Catholic. In her Ph.D. work, she seeks to draw on the wisdom of Chinese religious traditions to inform her theological—and especially Christological—reflections.
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