All the first Augustinian Recollect missionaries that went to Shangqiu (Henan, China) were formed in the convent of Marcilla. In this place, the mortal remains of the venerable Mariano Gazpio are kept. This fact and the celebration of the First Centenary of the Recollect mission in China (1924-2024) moved Pablo Jian to organize a retreat in the Marcilla convent.
From July 29 to August 1, a group of 37 young Chinese men and women living in Spain stayed at the convent of Marcilla (Navarre). They came from Chinese chaplaincies corresponding to different cities in the country: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Palma de Mallorca, Bilbao and Ciudad Real. It was an experience that they were doing for the first time, and Marcilla was chosen as a location in memory of the 100th anniversary of the arrival of the Order in China.
At the head of the group were five priests, including two Augustinian Recollects: Pablo Jian, from the Madrid parish of Santa Rita, and Pablo Meng, in charge of the chaplaincy in Madrid and resident in the St. Augustine de Las Rozas formation house, Madrid.
These five priests have not lacked work since the approach was that of a pure and hard spiritual retreat, with a paused and sung Eucharist every day, plus an hour of adoration with the Blessed Sacrament exposed at night, confessions, etc. They also had moments to relax and enjoy being together.
There have also been private and emotional moments such as the one experienced by the five priests when they met with Fray Javier Pipaon, today an 88-year-old venerable old man, resident in Marcilla. He was one of the protagonists of the reopening of the mission of Shangqiu and, as Prior General of the Order (1986-1998), he played an important mediating role between the Holy See and the Recollects of inner China.
A single way out: not an excursion, but a pilgrimage to St. Francis Xavier’s castle, some 70 kilometers from Marcilla. The patron saint of the Missions, Saint Francis Xavier, was born there more than five centuries ago and died at the gates of China in 1552. It was also July 31, the feast of St. Ignatius of Loyola, with the rank of solemnity in the Jesuit sanctuary. In front of him, in the square, the group of pilgrims, with their cross raised, walked through the stations of the cross before celebrating the Eucharist.
There was no lack of religious formation activities in charge of the accompanying priests. Nor could a conference on the 100 years of presence of the Augustinian Recollects in the mission of Shangqiu (1924-2024) be missing. The person in charge had to be Jose Javier Lizarraga, a resident of the convent of Marcilla, who has several important publications on the subject. All the more so since the young Chinese, many of whom were born in Spain, had no difficulty in understanding Spanish.
Lizarraga himself was also in charge of presenting the last act of this retreat, which took place before the tomb of the venerable Mariano Gazpio in the convent church. Gazpio was part of the first mission to China in 1924 and remained there for 28 years until Mao’s communist regime expelled him. From that moment on, Gazpio worked for years in formation of future Recollect friars, first in Monteagudo and then in Marcilla, where he died in 1989.
This second intervention by Lizarraga, which drew the curtain on this first convivial retreat of the young people of the Chinese chaplaincies, gave rise to a final reflection by the organizers and the culmination of the official prayer of the Centenary of the Mission of Shangqiu. On the lips of these young people, the refrain of the prayer, Thank you, Xie xie, acquired a very special force and richness.
