Welcome to the Sheng Lu Shan Gong Digital Archive

These two booklets—one from 1931, the other from 1932—are a rare glimpse into the localizing of Catholic devotional practice in early-twentieth-century China. While they bear the same title, they were printed from different dioceses and show contrasting patterns of linguistics, layout style, and spirituality. Both concurrently testify to the creative interplay of indigenous culture with universal faith. Herein you will get access to comparative research and interactive explorations, and we invite you to explore this strange crossing point of history and religion.

Sheng Lu Shan Gong refers quite simply to “Good Works of the Holy Way.” It is the Catholic Stations of the Cross devotional exercise in which Christians meditate on fourteen key events of the Passion of Christ. Using prayer and attention, Christians spiritually experience the sufferings of Jesus. Even the title of the book runs parallel with that of St. Aloysius Gonzaga, but this book cannot be a vita of a saint since it comes as a guidebook teaching the faithful this devotional practice.

During the 1930s individual Catholic publications in China were often locally printed by religious orders or dioceses and therefore exhibited variation of translation and format. Sheng Lu Shan Gong offers a typical example of a process of localization. Its differing versions reveal as much about the vitality of Republican Chinese Catholicism as they do about the resourcefulness of faithful at praying with their own cultural and linguistic context.

Acquisition Note:

Fuzhou Edition (1932)

The Fuzhou edition of the Sheng Lu Shan Gong, 1932, came into this archive through the purchase of a mixed lot of older Chinese books through an online dealer specializing in rare and religious texts. The booklet was found among miscellaneous printed matter without any prior cataloging of its historical significance.

A date, "1950," penned in ink on the cover misled earlier identification of the year of printing. Closer examination of the typography, layout, and ecclesiastical approval marks identified this as the actual 1932 Fuzhou impression, under the authority of the Catholic vicariate at that time. Despite its age and the political turmoil of mid-20th century China—periods in which Catholic devotional texts were frequently destroyed, hidden or dispersed—the volume remains in relatively good condition. This state of preservation enabled a full digital scan, such that the edition can now be studied as part of a long history of Catholic devotional print in China. The object itself testifies not only to the devotional practices of Catholics in the Republican era but also to the survival of religious material culture through decades of upheaval.