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| Venerable
Marcel
Van
March 2002 Short
History of Van Reviewed by Rev. Fr Clement Mary, C.SS.R.
This small book is the first English life of Brother Marcel Van, a Vietnamese Redemptorist who died in 1959. His eventful life and his friendship with St Thérèse have stirred up a lot of interest with one large biography and his quite sizable autobiography available in French, and now the English-speaking world will be able to read the pocket-sized biographical account written by his own novice master of this “pocket sized saint.” The book is unfortunately too short to give the full flavour of Van’s remarkable life, and tends also to downplay both his atrocious sufferings at the hands of others as well as his naive simplicity. As a result, whilst scandal of the weak is well guarded against, the real power, charm and hence edification of his life is to a certain degree blunted. Nevertheless the book remains a very useful introduction to a quite unusual figure. Childhood He was born Joachim Nguyen Tan Van on March 15th, 1928 (feast of the Redemptorist saint, St Clement Hofbauer) in the area of Hanoi, North Vietnam. His parents were pious Catholics and taught him to make the Sign of the Cross before he spoke his first words, “Jesus, Mary, Joseph”. His early years were happy ones and he grew up exceptionally pious – so much so that he was nicknamed the “pocket-sized saint” when only four years old. From the moment he could clearly reason he wanted to be a priest even though he had as yet only hazy notions of what that was. His idyllic childhood was soon to finish, however, as the first of many sufferings crossed his path. His first unpleasant experience, a prelude to a life of suffering, was at the local school with a severe and generally unpleasant teacher. After two months he fell sick and was forced to give up his studies. The doctor diagnosed weak nerves as the cause – which makes you wonder all the more at the sufferings and emotional distress he was later to bear. In 1935 his mother and aunt took him to the priory in Huu Bang where he was allowed to stay and begin preparations for the priesthood. After one week he was able to serve Mass daily so that it seemed everything was going according to plan. Trials There were a number of aspirants to the priesthood at the priory, but Van became an instant favourite with the parish priest who called him his “Benjamin”. He was held up as model of fervour and regularity to the others, even receiving specially prepared food. Favouritism is never a wise move and seven-year-old Van didn’t help matters by a little joke. When the Sisters asked where he came from he said, “My native land is heaven” and from that day they called him the “little angel”. As might be expected others became jealous and one especially, a former catechist now a teacher, decided to clip the little angel’s wings. This strange person’s tepid life had drawn down on him many rebukes but now he was about to outdo himself. As a teacher he could invite students to his room, so he compelled Van to come to his room three times a day for lessons on “the perfect life.” Under this pretext, Van was beaten with a cane, eighteen blows a day, while the teacher to cover up the noise, sang at the top of his voice. After a week of his course his back and sides were a mass of wounds but he dared not say anything for fear of even greater punishment. The wounds were so painful that he could neither sit down nor lie on his back. Despite this the priest noticed nothing until the servant found the tell-tale signs in the laundry. The teacher was forbidden to continue his course on “the perfect life”, but, incredibly, no further action was taken against him. The priest soon went on retreat leaving the teacher free to take vengeance on Van in the form of continued beatings. Moreover in order to avoid being starved to death by his evil nemesis, he was forced to agree to forego Holy Communion. The priest on returning noticed that Van no longer approached the Holy Table and stopped calling him “Benjamin”, making no further enquiries. The professor eventually had a dispute with the parish priest on something else and left on his own accord. The rest of his time in the priory was far from satisfactory for the priest, absorbed in his building works, neglected the formation of his former Benjamin so that by the time Van was 12 years old he had nothing more to show for his labours than a primary school certificate. The priest would neither let him study nor permit him to go elsewhere to do so. Eventually when Van became sick the priest consented to let him try out at another priory, but there it was no better. In his desperation Van ran away only to find a very angry reception from his parents, who did not know all the circumstances behind his flight. After three days of crying his mother softened but the only available solution, as they were now in straightened circumstances, was to take him back to the priory in Huu Bang. Soon he again met trouble. An older boy started beating him whilst threatening to bring false accusations against him, but for Van the really distressing factor was that it was still absolutely impossible to study for the priesthood. Once more he decided to run away and for two weeks lived on the run, including one week begging on the streets. Eventually he found his way back home to another cold welcome, but this time the mother’s heart was not softened by his tears. A few weeks later somebody from the priory came and told lies about Van, saying amongst other things he had stolen Mass stipends. The boy said nothing in his defence but said to himself: “God knows the truth. I accept the contempt and am putting up with it in silence.” Still, the contempt from all sides precipitated a spiritual crisis. “If people can not put up with me, can God put up with me any more?” His very strong trust in the Blessed Virgin Mary pulled him through this temptation to despair and on Christmas night 1940 he was given to see clearly that suffering is a gift of the love of God and he understood his mission: to transform suffering into joy. Soon afterwards he was taken back again to the priory at Huu Bang and there resolved to improve the spiritual condition of the other young folk. For this purpose he devoted three months to intense prayer and mortification which culminated in a vision of the sins of the world, especially those against purity. Inspired by this frightful scene he went before a picture of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour where he took a vow of perpetual virginity. The following day he set about organising six young people into an association for observance of the rule, spiritual progress - and mutual defence. If the other members of the group perhaps wondered at the last named end of the association, its necessity soon became apparent. Once more others took offence at having their laxity put to shame and started harassing and caning the “Troop of the Angels of the Resistance” as they called themselves, and Van bore the brunt of their malice. St Thérèse Eventually, Van was allowed to go to a minor seminary and start studies for the priesthood. Having taken up the quest for sanctity with ever greater thoroughness he suddenly felt quite discouraged. The lives of the saints he was reading seemed to be hinting that sanctity was essentially a matter of exotic penances. How could a child with weak health emulate these saints? From this dilemma he was freed by the autobiography of St Thérèse of the Child Jesus. Immediately after reading it he felt he had found a kindred soul, and from that day St Thérèse was like a spiritual guide and an older sister to him. One morning he heard a voice. “Van! Van! My dear little brother!” “My sister, Saint Thérèse?” said Van. “Yes, it is I indeed, your sister Thérèse, who is here...God wishes that the lessons of love which he taught me in the secret of my soul should be perpetuated in this world. That is why he has deigned to choose you as a little secretary to carry out the work he wishes to confide to you.” St Thérèse was to be Van’s faithful guide for the rest of his life but the glorious simplicity, affection and even humour of their conversations is barely touched on in the brief and sobre account of his novice master. Priesthood? “God has made known to me that you will not be a priest.... The Blessed Virgin will let you know what Congregation you are to join.” In these words St Thérèse broke the saddest news of Van’s life but the ensuing conversation, although absent from this book, is one of the most poignant but also humorous episodes in Van’s life. St Thérèse pointed out that she too had wanted to be a priest, to which the distraught Van replied that being a girl it was hardly the same thing. In a few seconds, though, the situation had been reversed as Van in all seriousness declared enthusiastically his intention of entering the Carmel like her. Now it was Thérèse’s turn to laugh. She said: “A boy in the Carmel! Very well then go before the Blessed Sacrament and tell Jesus that, asking Him to change you into a girl so as to be admitted.” In his autobiography Van writes of how stupid he later felt about having actually made that request. “O Van, you are too naive,” said Thérèse afterwards. Redemptorist Two weeks later Van, unable to sleep, was saying his rosary in bed. He had just started the sorrowful mysteries when he fell asleep. He dreamt he was still awake saying the rosary when he noticed someone coming towards his bed. This person, who had a pleasant and gentle face was dressed in black, habit, cloak and skullcap. He wore a white collar and a rosary with large beads hung from his cincture. He smiled with affection at Van and as if to make him feel at ease he caressed his head. Van did not dare to ask who it was but without introducing himself the person said: “My child, do you want...” Before knowing what was meant Van replied, “Yes, I want.” At that, the person smiled with great affection, saluted him and went away leaving Van with a feeling of great joy. Later when Van became a Redemptorist he realised that it had been St Alphonsus who had appeared in his dream. Soon after Van came across some magazines produced by the Redemptorists which made him want to enter their congregation. This desire was confirmed by St Thérèse. “You wish to enter the Redemptorists. Very well. This is precisely the Congregation to which the Blessed Virgin wants to bring you.” That however was not to be the end of his troubles, she assured him, finishing off with the prophecy: “You want to become a Redemptorist, so you must accept to be badly treated as Jesus, the Redeemer was.” Nothing in Van’s life ran smoothly and his vocation proved to be no exception. His trials were sweetened, however, by Our Lord Himself who during his postulancy started to speak to Van, now called Brother Marcel. This intimacy with Our Redeemer was only the beginning of what turned out to be an another almost constant feature of his life. In 1954 North Vietnam was taken over by the Communists. This led to a great evacuation of Catholics to the South, but Brother Marcel volunteered to go to the house at Hanoi which still had to serve such Christians as remained in the parish. The superiors, knowing him to be an exemplary religious, allowed him to go and bear witness to the Faith in a Communist area. He was arrested on 7 May 1955. He was 27 and had been almost 10 years in religion. Confounded by his resloute spirit the Communists gave up trying to interrogate him but kept him imprisoned. Weakened by disease and suffering from beriberi and tuberculosis he died in a prison camp on 10 July 1959 at midday, assisted by Fr Vinh, Vicar General of Hanoi. †
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