John Gabriel Perboyre was born into a peasant family at Peuch, France, and grew up in the midst of the turmoil and excesses of the French revolution. Under the benign influence of his uncle, Fr. James Perboyre, a Vincentian, the young Perboyre joined the Vincentian Congregation (Congregation of the Mission = CM) at the age of eighteen. In the meanwhile he developed an inner urge to be a missionary in China where some of his fellows religious were working under trying circumstances. John had hoped that after his ordination in 1826, his dream of evangelizing China would be fulfilled. But that was not to be. He was assigned first to teach Theology at the Seminary of St. Flour and later to be the Director of a Boarding School. In 1830 his brother Louis was ordained a Vincentian priest and immediately thereafter dispatched to the Chinese Mission. Unfortunately, he met with an untimely death on the way.
John pleaded again and again for an assignment to China, which finally met with a positive response in 1835. After a grueling voyage of about six months, he reached the secret residence of the Vincentian Missionaries in the heart of Honan in northern China. Since foreign nationals were forbidden to enter that country under pain of death, John disguised himself as a Chinese and went about teaching, preaching, catechizing and baptizing the villagers. He encouraged local vocations and recruited talented youngsters to be Vincentians. When things were moving in the right direction, in 1839 a violent persecution broke out and a band of soldiers was dispatched to arrest all the missionaries and their followers. Unfortunately, a catechumen betrayed the whereabouts of Fr. John for 30 ounces of silver. The undaunted missionary was captured, tortured and dragged from prison to prison and from court to court till he was condemned to death by strangulation for unauthorized entry into China and for introducing a foreign religion into that country. After months of inhuman tortures, John’s agonies came to an end on September 11, 1840 when he was tied to a cross and strangled with a rope around his neck. His canonization took place in 1996.
Reflection: John lived and died like Jesus. The parallels are many in number. Both were fearless and zealous missionaries. John too was sold for 30 ounces of silver and suffered ill treatment and tortures silently like Jesus. A Simon of Cyrene, in the guise of a pagan, came to his rescue during his painful journey towards the “Red Mountains.” To cap it all, John died on a cross like his beloved Master. He could easily repeat with St. Paul: “Be ye imitators of me as I am of the Lord.”
,,,,Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great sufferings at the hands of elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised. (Mt. 16:21)
