Sts Andrew Dũng-Lạc and Companions

Word for the day

“Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?” Romans 8:35

Life

The Gospel reached Vietnam in the sixteenth century, and the Church grew among the people. From the seventeenth to the nineteenth century Christians suffered repeated waves of persecution; historians estimate that well over a hundred thousand were killed for their faith.

On 19 June 1988 Pope St John Paul II canonised 117 of these martyrs, who died between 1745 and 1862: 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans and 10 French missionaries of the Paris Foreign Missions Society. They included 8 bishops, 50 priests and 59 lay people: catechists, soldiers, farmers, fishermen, a physician, and fathers and mothers of families.

Andrew Dũng-Lạc, a Vietnamese diocesan priest, was arrested several times; his parishioners paid ransoms for his release. He was beheaded in Hanoi on 21 December 1839. Another, St Paul Lê Bảo Tịnh, wrote from prison a letter describing his sufferings and his joy in Christ; it is read in the Office of Readings on this day.

Lessons

Faith of ordinary people

Most of these martyrs were lay people: parents, farmers, soldiers and catechists.

The Church of Asia

Their witness reminds Indian Christians that Asia has its own great martyrs.

Courage that encourages

The letters from prison strengthened those still free.

Stories

A letter from prison (history)

In 1843 St Paul Lê Bảo Tịnh wrote that his prison was like an image of hell, with chains, cruelty and hunger, but that in the midst of these torments Christ was with him and filled him with joy. He asked his fellow Christians to pray that he would remain faithful.

Words of the saint

In the midst of these torments, which usually terrify others, I am, by the grace of God, full of joy and gladness, because I am not alone; Christ is with me.
St Paul Lê Bảo Tịnh, letter from prison (1843), Office of Readings, 24 November, in substance

Homily

1. Nothing can separate us

Who will separate us from the love of Christ (Romans 8:35)? Not prison, not torture, not the sword.

2. The faith of ordinary people

Most of the 117 were lay people: farmers, soldiers, catechists, parents.

3. Asia's own martyrs

Their witness reminds Indian Christians that our continent has its own great saints.

Dear friends, St Paul asks: who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword (Romans 8:35)? The martyrs of Vietnam answered with their lives: no one and nothing.

Between 1745 and 1862 tens of thousands of Vietnamese Christians died for the faith; 117 of them were canonised in 1988. Most were not priests or religious but lay people: farmers, fishermen, soldiers, catechists, fathers and mothers. From prison St Paul Lê Bảo Tịnh wrote that in the midst of torments he was full of joy, because Christ was with him.

They are Asia's martyrs, our neighbours in faith. Today let us pray for Christians who are persecuted in Asia and elsewhere, and ask for the courage to be faithful in the small trials of our own lives. Amen.

Prayer

O God, source of all fatherhood, you kept the martyrs Andrew Dũng-Lạc and his companions faithful to the cross of your Son even to the shedding of their blood. Through their prayers, help us to spread your love among our brothers and sisters. Amen.