Love and Mercy Priest Andre and His Teaching
We can see Priest Andre’s kindness, he picked anyone needing help. They were neither his family nor his friends, but for his love he helped them.
He did not only pick them, but he also took care of them. He gave them enough food everyday and thought about their future.
‘”There are twenty of us,” the little thin girl said. “I am fifteen years old–at sixteen he provides for us.”
“Provides for you?” Madame Wu repeated. The old woman had come in now. “At sixteen he finds them homes
and good husbands,” she said.’ p. 277
There were so many children to be taken care, but it was not a burden for Priest Andre. Even he found them good husbands. They were all girls. At
that time women lacked equality with men, sons were wanted much more than daughters Chang, 1960: 6. Even a wife’s position in her husband’s house
would be secure when she could bear sons Ibid, 160. Priest Andre helped the unwanted ones. He is a Westerner and he did not care about the difference in
gender as happened in China. In West, female and male are equal. They can have the same right, the same right to love, to choose a husbandwife, to study,
to express their thought, and to determine the way of their life. As a priest, he also did Jesus Christ’s teaching as He said in Bible, in Mark 12: 31, to love
other people as we love ourselves. In Christianity, love is the primary law, to love God most and to love other people as we love ourselves.
Chinese people got married because they were matched. Chinese women, especially, did not have right to choose their own husbands. While
Western women even have a right to express their love to the men they love freely. Westerners at that time were considered as Christianity, and they were
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thought to want to influence Chinese people using Christianity teaching since Christianity was spread most by Westerners to all over the world. Priest
Andre’s thought and attitude were formed by his culture as a Westerner and a Catholic priest, appreciating love and applying it in his live. He is a loving
man. ‘He answered her, “You have not considered that man is not entirely
flesh, and that even such a man as your husband must be in communion with God. You have treated him with contempt.”
“You have considered only the filling of his stomach and the softness of his bed,” Priest Andre said plainly. “And even worse than this, you
have bought a young woman as you would buy a pound of pork. But a woman, any woman, is more than that, and of all women you should
know it.”’ p. 264
From what was said by Priest Andre when he was talking with Madame Wu we can see how he viewed love and human’s feeling. For
Chinese people, women were subordinate to men, but for Priest Andre women and men were the same, as Jesus also never differentiates in treating and
loving men and women. Women have feeling as men do. Priest Andre also viewed a marriage not only about satisfying a husband sexually as most
Chinese women did, but also loving him with out heart. Here he reminded Madame Wu for her mistake to satisfy his husband just because of her duty,
but she had to love him and think about his feeling. Since Chinese government permitted to have secondary wives or concubines, having more than one wife
or concubine was common for Chinese people. Priest Andre disagreed with this condition. A concubine is also a human having feeling, no one can buy
her as if they were buying a pound of pork. It is in line with Christianity teaching, as said in Bible that when a man and woman have got married, none
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can separate them, except the death Alkitab, Matius 19: 6. For Christian, having secondary wives or concubines is the same as adultery. It means that
we must be loyal to our husbandwife, no secondary wives or concubines.