Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever. 
Today we remember a group of 29 Franciscan brothers. 
In the last years of the 1800s, the Boxer Movement formed in China from various secret societies that sought to free their country of foreign influence. They were officially the Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists, where the character translated fists or boxer indicated martial arts. They were recruited from those who had suffered from natural disasters, financial ruin, or other problems that they could be made to believe were the fault of the Westerners. Their anti-foreign sentiments were particularly anti-Christian. In 1899, boxers carried out massacres of Christians in Shandong province. Western powers considered the governor, Yuxian, responsible and had him removed. The new governor was anti-boxer and brought in an army to suppress them. 
At the time, the boxers opposed the Qing government, which they regarded as corrupt, subject to too much Western influence. But Yuxian landed on his feet. Dismissed in December 1899, by January he was in Beijing, where the government legalized the Boxer Movement. The boxers now became supporters of the government. They would only fight foreigners and those influenced by them. 
In March, Yuxian was appointed governor of Shanxi. Despite protests from the West, the boxer threat now grew in this province. Anonymous pamphlets claimed Western missionaries plotted against the Qing government, poisoned wells, and gouged the eyes out of children and the dying to use them for magic spells. The boxers accused missionaries of deceiving the ignorant, but ironically, their propagandists were the ones who were really doing this. To the delight of the devil, the poor dupes who became boxers would kill and be killed. 
The missionaries could see they were in danger. The Franciscan religious brother among today's martyrs, St. Andrew Bauer, had military experience. He and a Mandarin wanted to organize an armed defense, but his superiors wouldn't hear of it. St. Francis Fogolla said, if it be God's will that we should be martyred, we must accept it. He was the coadjutor bishop of St. Gregory Grassi. Bishop Grassi, an Italian Franciscan missionary like St. Francis, was the vicar apostolic of northern Shanxi. He was 68 years old and had been working and praying hard in China for 40 years. His body was worn out, but he kept going. Although as a pastor he couldn't flee because his whole flock couldn't get away, he did try to save as many as possible.
On June 27th, the boxers attacked the Protestant missions in the area. Bishop Grassi decided to close the seminary and send the seminarians home to live with their families for the present. 
All but five managed to escape. Those five, who were also Franciscan tertiaries, were stopped at the city gate where they were arrested. They were jailed and ordered to repudiate Christianity, that evil Western religion. They refused, and after spending some days in jail, they were taken to the courtyard of the governor's house. 
St. Gregory was also worried about the seven Franciscan Missionaries of Mary, who ran an orphanage in the provincial capital. He told them to dress in Chinese clothes to aid in their escape. But they were staying. Don't stop us from dying with you, Monsignor, they said. If we aren't brave enough, God will give us strength. Their superior,  St. Marie-Hermine Grivot, had uncommon prudence for her 34 years. All the sisters were young, between 25 and 35 years old. The strength and courage of the superior helped the others to meet their end boldly. 
If the sisters wouldn't go, St. Gregory would at least try to make sure the orphans were safe, so he rented carts and told the sisters to use them to distribute the orphans among Christian households. Unfortunately, the carts were stopped and sent back to the orphanage. A day or two later, soldiers came and carried off the children. Around midnight on July 3rd, an official came to the episcopal residence to warn the missionaries that they were in great danger. He told them the mandarins had received secret orders to wipe out the European missionaries and their religion.
That very night, a nearby Protestant church was burned by a mob. On July 5th, the Franciscan missionaries were made to go to a building adjoining Governor Yuxian's house. Besides the two Franciscan bishops, the religious brother, and the sisters already mentioned, there were also two Franciscan priests. St. Elias had been a missionary for 33 years and had spent the last 20 as rector of the seminary, while St. Theodore, after working in a difficult and remote mission for about a decade, was chaplain of the sisters and their orphanage. To these were added the five seminarians who had been captured. 
One of them, St. John Wang, spent his time playing in the courtyard of the building where they were being held. He invited his companions to come play with him. St. Elias the rector said to him, now is no time to be having fun. But St. John replied, Father, why? If they kill us, won't we go to paradise? As if to say, we have every reason to be happy.
The place where they were being kept was called the Inn of Heavenly Peace, and that was the peace they awaited. There were also nine other Chinese who worked for the friars. Some were tertiaries. One was a former seminarian who didn't have a vocation, but whom St. Gregory had continued to study to help the Church’s intellectuals. Many of the workers could have easily escaped, perhaps even all of them, but they wanted to remain with the missionaries. 
In fact, some of them didn't even work there regularly. St. Peter Zhang came to help the friars because he saw that other workers had fled. St. James Zhao just happened to be there when the bishops were imprisoned, but once they were, he didn't want to leave them. 
On July 8th, his mother and his wife came in tears to see him because they had heard that the prisoners would be killed the next day. His mother asked him, if you die, who will take care of your little children? Providence, he replied, pointing to heaven. And he was right, as his mother testified in the process of beatification. She proudly said, that after the death of her son, she never cried for him because she knew that he was a martyr. She knew he was in glory. 
On the afternoon of July 9th, the Protestants in the neighboring building were attacked. 33 died there, including women and children of missionaries' families. 
The Catholics knew their end was near. St. Gregory had everyone kneel and gave them absolution. Then the soldiers burst in. At first, they were surprised to see everyone calmly kneeling, but they soon dragged them before the governor.
Yuxian made little pretext of a trial. He interrogated St. Francis Fogolla, trying to get him to admit he'd come to China for some evil purpose. When the bishop replied, we have never harmed anyone. Rather, we have endeavored to do good to many. Yuxian said that he was lying and would die. St. Francis answered, if you kill us, it matters little, but you will not go unpunished. 
The governor then killed the bishops himself and ordered those present to finish the rest. The sisters sang the Te Deum and knelt, pulling their veils back to receive the death blow along their necks. But they were pulled to their feet and their throats were cut. One of the soldiers later told a bishop that it had made a great impression on them to see these European virgins go to their deaths singing. Other victims were beheaded and the corpses were mutilated. 
As St. Francis had said, Yuxian did not go unpunished. He was executed after the Boxer Rebellion was suppressed.
Besides these Franciscan martyrs, thousands or tens of thousands of other Christians died. But the blood of martyrs was once again the seed of Christians, for the church grew rapidly in the decades that followed, more than doubling between 1906 and 1924.
Praised be Jesus and Mary. Now and forever.