On May 30, Archbishop José H. Gomez will ordain three new priests for the Archdiocese of Los Angeles at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels.
In the days leading up to their ordination, we’ll be introducing them all. Los Angeles, meet your new priests!
Age: 28
Hometown: Wenzhou, Zhejiang, China
Home parish: St. Thomas Aquinas Church, Monterey Park
Parish assignment: St. John Vianney Church, Hacienda Heights
A Catholic in China is rare. A cradle Catholic in China is even rarer.
So what do you call a cradle Catholic from China who’s being ordained a priest thousands of miles away in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles?
That’s Shengda “Martin” Zhu.
Zhu, 28, came to the United States at age 12, largely because his father wanted him to have a better life, a better education, and religious freedom.
But when he was a senior in high school, the world got to him — mostly fueled through what he was seeing on social media — and he began questioning the meaning of life. A close friend told him, “You’re no longer the Martin I remember.”
“That’s when I started really realizing, OK, those ideologies have shaped me, made me become someone I don’t want to be,” Zhu said. “Then I tried to kind of reshape myself and reorient myself. And then I have to ask a very serious question: Why am I Catholic?”
He was a cradle Catholic, his family had been persecuted in China for their faith, yet Zhu had to know for himself.
So he dove into learning as much as he could about his Catholic faith, including reading the Catechism of the Catholic Church cover to cover, studying the Second Vatican Council, and examining papal encyclicals.
After satisfying himself that, yes, he wanted to still be Catholic, he asked himself another question: “Lord, what do you want me to do for the Church?”
The answer was to go to the seminary.
No, he thought, I can’t do that. I’m an only child. My mom wants grandchildren. It’s important in his culture to carry on the last name. He didn’t think his dad would approve.
So he asked God for a sign. He got it.
Still not believing, he asked God for a second sign. He got it.
Foolishly thinking this was all still coincidence, he asked for a third sign.
“In Chinese, we have a saying, which means you cannot pass the third time. It’s like, final. It’s like if you make a mistake the third time, that’s it. And surely, the Lord gave me the third sign. OK, here I am, Lord.”
Now he had to somehow convince his father.
He wrote a list of about 25 to 30 reasons why he had to try going to the seminary, but he said if his dad said no, he wouldn’t go to the seminary.
Yet when the moment came, his dad was calm. Zhu never had to use his list of reasons.
“My parents generally are not like typical Asian parents who are very strict, very demanding, or plan everything for you,” Zhu said. “My family’s philosophy is always that as long as you try your best, we will support you. And with that being said, going to seminary is a part of doing your best and if you fail, you fail. It’s OK. We’ll be there for you.”
In college, he had earned an associate’s degree in computer science, but found that he liked the seminary better.
What was difficult for Zhu was saying goodbye to seminarians who he admired but discerned they weren’t called to the priesthood. Bidding farewell to them brought yet another question for him: Why am I still here?
“Is it because I’m smarter than them? Surely not,” Zhu said. “Am I better than them? Surely not.”
“With the help of close friends in the seminary and my spiritual director, they guided me to see where the Lord really calls me and really calls them too. And to overcome that, I think that’s probably the most challenging part in my formation.”
Zhu is looking forward to the priesthood in Los Angeles, especially because of the very freedom of religion his father was seeking.
“A culture shock for me is I didn’t know it’s so easy to go to a Catholic church here,” Zhu said. “Basically every block, there’s a church, no matter if it’s a Catholic church or our Protestant brothers and sisters.
“For us to go to church [in China], you have to change a few buses to get to the church. And we don’t have that many Masses. A church here can have seven Sunday Masses. That was not a reality for me.”
As he prepares to begin his priesthood, whether he’s successful or not will depend on asking himself yet another question.
“The same question I asked the Lord from the very beginning, when I asked him, Lord, what do you need me to do? And I think that’s the first question to get me started and that question will keep me going for the rest of my priesthood.”
