1856 - Agnes Cao Guiying

March 4, 1856

Xilin, Guangxi

Agnes Cao Guiying. [CRBC]

Cao Guiying was born in 1821 in the village of Wujiazhai, Guizhou Province. She came from a strong Catholic family from Sichuan, who had migrated southward into Guizhou generations before in search of a better life. When Cao’s parents died she moved to the town of Xingyi, where a kind old Catholic woman allowed her to stay in her home. One day a bishop named Bai came by, and upon hearing that Cao was an orphan he encouraged her to learn as much as she could about Christianity at the local parish. She learned the tenets of the faith quickly, and found her heart hungry for a relationship with Christ.

In 1839, when she was aged just 18, Cao married a local farmer. The man’s family never accepted the young lady as part of their own. Frequently she was left nothing to eat and was treated as an outsider. Just two years after the marriage Cao’s husband suddenly died. She got small jobs around the town in order to survive, while all the time she hungered for more knowledge of God. When Cao was baptized she took the name of Agnes.

After the French missionary Chapdelaine heard about Cao he asked her to consider moving to Guangxi Province where there was a growing church full of women who needed help and teaching. In the winter of 1852, she journeyed to the town of Bajiazhai in Xilin County, Guangxi, where she assisted in teaching the catechism to more than 30 tribal families living there. Agnes bonded with the minority tribeswomen, teaching them how to cook and other simple chores, while she lovingly served them by engaging in menial tasks such as babysitting and cleaning their homes. Agnes Cao Guiying was dearly loved by all who came into contact with her. Philippe Guillemin, the Prefect Apostolic of Guangxi and Guangdong provinces, said Agnes was

“Endowed with a virtue which was superior to every trial, gentle, modest, and always satisfied either with good or evil fortune, she thought of nothing but of winning souls to God, and directing them in the way of salvation. Thus did she prepare herself by the discharge of the duties of her state, for fighting the battle of the Lord with heroic faith.”[1]

In 1856 Agnes visited Yaoshan, when she was arrested along with 14 other believers. A mob of one hundred ruffians, led by two soldiers, descended on the village in search of Auguste Chapdelaine. The mob

“dispersed itself over the village, broke into all the houses, plundering and robbing everything without mercy. Oxen, goats, poultry, and bales of cotton, with which the country abounds, all became the prey of these devastators, who only left the Christians a little maize and rice, that they might not die of hunger.”[2]

The Christians were taken to a local temple where they were tortured and interrogated. Most of the local believers were soon released, but Agnes was taken and held in a filthy prison cell. The magistrate summoned Agnes to appear before him, and attempted to manipulate her with his questions. The corrupt man asked Agnes (who was by all accounts a beautiful woman) if she was married to Chapdelaine, insinuating an immoral connection with the missionary. She indignantly replied, “No, I am not. I did not know the father until I came here.”[3] The judge tried to coerce the young Christian in every way he knew how, but

“Her faith was not to be conquered, for, neither the promises, the threats, nor the curses which the brutal magistrate heaped upon her, nor the sight of the punishments which he barbarously brought before her, were able to weaken even for a moment her resolution to dedicate herself entirely to God, and to remain faithful to Him to the last moment of her life.”[4]

According to a reliable account, on February 27, 1856, the magistrate had Agnes Cao Guiying

“locked in a cage so small that she could only stand up, but her spirit never failed. She prayed repeatedly, ‘God have mercy on me; Jesus, save me!’ Then, on March 4, she cried out with a loud voice: ‘God help me!’ and expired.”[5]

1. The New Glories of the Catholic Church, 141-142.
2. The New Glories of the Catholic Church, 135.
3. The New Glories of the Catholic Church, 143.
4. The New Glories of the Catholic Church, 142.
5. CRBC, The Newly Canonized Martyr-Saints of China, 12.