Saint Thomas Ngô Túc Khuông

He was born in 1780 in the village of Nam Hòa, Tiên Chu parish, Hưng Yên province. His father was a man of standing and wealth in the region. A son of a well-off family like that could choose many paths: sit the examinations, become a mandarin, keep the family estate. But he chose the path of the priesthood.

After his ordination he joined the Dominican Third Order. The rich man’s son lived the life of a poor and devoted shepherd.

People remember him as a man who spoke tactfully, loved his people, and never let the Rosary leave his hands.

In the years of persecution, that very tact allowed him to keep moving among the Catholic communities to give the sacraments. He knew how to talk with non-Christians, how to avoid prying eyes, how to come and go without attracting attention. Each journey could be his last, but he kept going, for decades.

The years caught up with him. His hair turned white, his back bent, his steps slowed. He had to lean on a stick. But the rosary was still in his hand, and his heart still turned toward his flock.

In 1859, French and Spanish forces were attacking Vietnam. Catholics were suspected everywhere. At Cao Xá, a group of faithful were thinking of taking up arms against the attacks on Catholic villages.

Father Khuông did not approve. He did not want the faithful to turn to violence, or the faith to be dragged into politics and war. He left the area and set out for Hải Phòng.

At the head of the bridge of Trần Xá village, he met soldiers. They laid a cross on the ground and told him to step over it. The old man of nearly eighty stood there, leaning on his stick, and did not step.

He was arrested along with those who were traveling with him.

The governor pressed him to name the people of Cao Xá who had taken up arms. He answered:

“The Catholic religion not only forbids the faithful to oppose the court, but also encourages them to pray and to help build a peaceful and prosperous homeland.”

He named no one. But he also made his position clear: Catholics are not enemies of the country.

The mandarin changed tactics. He told him to urge the faithful to give up their religion, and then he would be released. The old man replied:

“I am now 80 years old. As a Catholic priest, I have always urged the faithful to keep God’s holy religion faithfully. If I now urged them to deny their faith, I would be truly unworthy.”

After a whole life of urging people to keep the faith, he could not turn around and teach the opposite at the end of his life. A teacher has only one lesson, and must teach it to the end.

On January 30, 1860, he was led to the execution ground outside the citadel of Hưng Yên. On the way, he tied a crosswise piece of bamboo to his walking stick, turning it into the shape of a cross.

Picture the scene: an eighty-year-old man, back bent, steps slow, leaning on a bamboo cross, walking step by step along his last road, like Jesus carrying his cross up to Calvary.

When he arrived, he knelt to pray, and then was beheaded.

He was beatified on April 29, 1951, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is January 30.

Father Khuông did not choose the sword, nor did he choose silence to be left in peace. He chose the narrow road in between: not opposing the court, yet not denying God. And he walked that road to the end with an old man’s walking stick.

That bamboo stick reminds us of something: a cross does not need to be made of gold or silver. It can be made from whatever we already have in our hands, the walking stick of old age, the pain of illness, the burden of each day, if we know how to offer it to God.