The Road to Hope
(Prov.9:1-6; Eph.5:15-20; Jn.6:51-58)
As a young boy growing up in Hue, Vietnam, in the 1930s, Francis-Xavier Nguyên Van Thuân was fascinated by the Holy Eucharist. He knew it was something special.
It led him to the priesthood and to Rome where he studied Canon Law. And in 1975, just before Saigon fell to the communists at the end of the Vietnam War, he arrived as its new archbishop.
There was no-one to greet him, and soon afterwards he was arrested and imprisoned in Nha Trang, the place where he’d earlier served as bishop (1967-75).
He spent the next nine years in solitary confinement.
The archbishop feared he’d never be able to celebrate the Eucharist again. However, when he was allowed to write to his family, he asked for clothes and toiletries, and added, ‘Please send me a little wine as medicine for my stomach ache.’
They understood what he meant, and sent him some wine in a little medicine bottle, and hosts hidden in a torch. He used these things to secretly celebrate Mass in his tiny cell, every day at 3 pm, the hour when Jesus died on the Cross.
Relying on his memory, he consecrated three drops of wine and a drop of water on the palm of his hand, along with some host-crumbs. And as he lapped up the precious Eucharistic blood in his hand, he asked for the grace to drink the bitter chalice and to unite himself to Christ’s shedding of blood.
Extending his arms to form a cross, he joined his sufferings to that of Jesus on the Cross. His hand became his altar, his cell became his cathedral.
He later described these as the most beautiful Masses of his life.
After nine years in solitary confinement, he was sent north to a ‘re-education camp’ for another four years. There he was locked up with fifty prisoners in a crowded room. Each day at 9.30 pm, in the dark, he celebrated Mass over his bed, and under a mosquito net he gave tiny pieces of the sacred host to the other Catholics.
Wrapping tiny particles of the blessed sacrament in cigarette foil, he and the other prisoners took turns adoring Jesus secretly. Their worship not only helped them to survive; it also helped them to heal.
The archbishop’s gentle manner and the Holy Eucharist changed the lives of many of these prisoners. Even the camp guards began to confide in him. But the suspicious authorities changed the warders regularly to avoid them being ‘contaminated.’
During his imprisonment, Nguyên Van Thuân often felt useless and feared losing his mind. He also wondered how he could care for his flock, but God helped him to see how he could offer ‘five loaves and two fish’ of daily prayer for the good of his people.
He also began writing a few words of wisdom on scraps paper from old calendars, and gave them to a brave Catholic boy who passed by. That boy’s parents copied them into a notebook, and eventually his 1,001 thoughts were published in a book called The Road to Hope: A Gospel from Prison.
That book did much to bolster the faith of the Vietnamese people during the worst of the Communist repression.
Not surprisingly, many of his wise words were about the Eucharistic Jesus, nourished by his prison experience. For example, he wrote:
- The whole of the Lord’s life was directed toward Calvary. The whole of our life should be oriented toward the Eucharistic celebration; and
- As the drop of water put into the chalice mingles with the wine, so your life should become one with Christ’s.
In 1991, Archbishop Nguyên Van Thuân was released and allowed to leave Vietnam, but never to return. He travelled to Rome where Pope St John Paul II warmly greeted him. He was made a cardinal in 2001, but died the following year.
In 2007, he was declared ‘Venerable’, the first step on his path to sainthood.
In John’s Gospel today, Jesus says, ‘Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you do not have life within you.’
Nguyên Van Thuân understood this well. He said that the only thing that helped him survive so many years of torture and dehumanisation was the Holy Eucharist. It gave him life and he used it to love his fellow prisoners and even the guards who abused him. Some of these men were so moved by his faith that they, too, became Catholics. [i]
The Eucharist (Greek for ‘thanksgiving’) means so much more than just ‘receiving Communion.’ It’s about consuming Jesus Himself, combining our life with His, so that we might draw life from Him.
And not just eternal life, but also the strength we need to survive – and thrive – here on earth.
[i] https://slmedia.org/blog/cardinal-van-thuan-canonization-cause