Editor’s Note: Jimmy Lai, a Catholic free speech advocate in Hong Kong, has been imprisoned since 2020 under the Beijing-imposed national security law. One of his five children, Claire, shares how his imprisonment has spiritually impacted the Lai family. 

 

In the silence of my father’s imprisonment and the intensity of his suffering, he has gained greater knowledge of the sufficiency of God’s grace. Before this trial, I believe that my family, or at least I, never truly understood what St. Paul was told by God: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9)." 

While much of what we have lost in the last few years has been very public, what we have gained — the way our family has grown in faith, at times when physically we felt weak — has been less visible.  

My father did nothing wrong. For decades, he ensured the free flow of information and ideas in Hong Kong. He defended rights most would see as fundamental, and he did so peacefully and lawfully. They were rights promised when China, in the exercise of its sovereignty, signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration (1984) prior to the handover in 1997. Seeing him incarcerated for it, I became extremely emotional when my strong dad was put in chains and prison clothes. When he got weak or frail. When he started being identified using only his 6-digit prisoner number.  

Yet, letter after letter, my dad expressed absolute trust and gratitude for the provisions of Divine Providence. In one, he wrote, “[f]or those who have God, as myself, the sanctity of poverty gets me close to God. In God, all that I left behind, I recover them in greater abundance.”

Shortly thereafter, he wrote: “God alone is sufficient, He will care for you, indeed He does if you believe with absolute trust. … When we have no need of anything, we find that we have everything in God’s care and mercy.”  

An early story from his imprisonment I first shared on EWTN was his experience working in the prison’s mailroom. He would hunch forward for hours, making sure each prisoner’s outgoing envelope was folded perfectly. He would tell me he hadn’t engaged in manual labor for many years, which allowed him to follow the example of St. Paul, and he would continue on with cheer.  

With his advanced age, however, it would lead to severe back pains — on one occasion on May 10, 2021, he could not get up in the showers. The pain was debilitating, even with the guards’ help. So instead, he turned to our Blessed Mother, and through her, he found strength to walk again.   

It was on my 25th birthday that year, May 13, using up my visiting quota that month, that he shared with me that this had happened. It was the feast day of Our Lady of Fatima, and it reminded me and him that the Blessed Mother intercedes for the weakest among us — a sign of hope in turmoil and a reminder that even at our weakest, we can aid in the conversion of souls through her intercession.   

Within the first month of my father’s imprisonment, he started fasting every Friday. I worried about him, but in the prayers that he wrote, he reminded me of the true purpose of fasting: “O Lord, nothing else would support our immortal natures, our frail hearts, but you.”  

Elsewhere, he wrote, “Love of God simply cannot exist without painful renunciation of myself,” ending the letter saying,“Make your grace supply the failures of my nature. Therefore, I come to you in all my necessities. In fear, but in faith.”  

His commitment to fasting has not occurred in easy conditions. When the weather is cold, it makes him shiver. A reminder that the years in his dark cell— never more than 60 square feet -- have taken their toll. The guards still put the food in front of him. It could be out of spite or out of worry. But he has always just sat with his hunger.  

“I was tempted, of course, but I did not yield,” he mentioned. “When I looked at the picture of Christ on the Cross I put on the wall,” he referred to the picture he drew for himself, “I realized how trivial my shivering was compared to what the Lord suffered for our sins.”  

In a recent letter, Dad reminded me “to thank God for all which he has endowed us.” In the same text, he noted that it “sweetens my heart, comforts and lifts up my spirit” hearing that I was going to confession frequently — something which, to my shame, I had stopped doing when I moved back to Hong Kong, a home which no longer felt safe.  

Having been denied the sacraments in his imprisonment, he longs to be able to receive them freely again. In the darkness of his cell, he prayed for continued “fervor to be rid of this fear of man and be filled with the sole intention of serving [Our Lord].”

My father’s ordeal is one that, rightly, often induces outrage and heartbreak. But it is also a story of hope and strength, that which was built on Calvary, which none could crush. An ordeal that shows, continuously, the abundance of God’s grace.  

A quote I often heard from my parents growing up by St Thérèse of Lisieux is that everything that happens “is all grace.” I didn’t fully understand it then; somedays I still struggle to accept it, but I think I understand it better now in large part due to my parents’ example. However painful an experience, it is all grace that leads us closer to God.