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CHIFENG, CHINA
August 17

Do this in remembrance of me.

Yin Daoming tilted his head back slightly as he raised the sacramental cup toward heaven. It was only a drinking glass, but he held it as reverently as a golden chalice, and on its glossy surface he glimpsed his reflection—a serious young man with a solid, clean-shaven face. Many of the young women in the village near Shanghai where he was raised thought Yin would make a fine husband, only to be disappointed when he accepted his calling to the Catholic priesthood. A humble man, Yin likened himself to the glass he held high, a simple vessel of God’s grace, an instrument for serving God by serving His people.

The glass, with its mixture of water and wine, glinted in the reflected light of candles arranged on a makeshift altar. The sacramental vintage at these clandestine services was typically a few ounces of the locally brewed baijiu—an incendiary 90-proof beverage. No obvious physical change could be detected in the rose-colored liquid, but Yin knew with absolute certainty that the miracle of transubstantiation had occurred—that what he held before him was spiritually the blood of Jesus Christ.

Yin lowered the glass to his lips and took a small sip, the heavily diluted baijiu burning his throat like liquid fire. As a seminarian, Yin had once asked his bishop if using such a potent alcohol for sacramental purposes wasn’t in some way sacrilegious. The bishop assured him that although Rome might find baijiu a bit unorthodox, it would overlook certain local adaptations, especially given the persecution of the Church in Communist China. The Roman Catholic minority in the world’s most populous nation found itself in a Darwinian struggle to survive, and it would either adapt or die.

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