Saint Jean-Théophane Vénard (Ven)

Jean-Théophane Vénard was born on November 21, 1829, in Saint-Loup-sur-Thouet, a small country village in western France.

From childhood he dreamed of a faraway land he knew only from books. He studied Latin, entered the seminary, and then joined the Paris Foreign Missions Society. In 1852 he was ordained a priest.

He was sent to Western Tonkin, the very land the little boy had once dreamed of. The Catholics called him Father Ven.

In 1854 he went to Kẻ Vĩnh to learn Vietnamese and help at the mission house. In 1855 and 1856 he went with the bishop on visits to every Catholic community. Those long journeys helped him get to know each region and its people. They also left him with tuberculosis.

The twenty-six-year-old grew very thin and frail. The Catholics loved him and begged him to rest. He replied:

“While I am still alive, I must work hard; when I am dead, I will rest in heaven.”

A simple saying, almost a joke. But it expresses a whole way of life: this life is for working for God, and true rest lies on the other side.

In 1857 the mission house was searched. In 1858 the seminaries were destroyed one after another. Father Ven had to flee from Bút Đông to Phúc Châu, Kẻ Bèo and Bút Sơn. Every time the soldiers came looking, he moved on.

Even so, he kept visiting distant Catholic communities to celebrate Mass and hear confessions. The young man with tuberculosis did not let illness or fear keep him from his flock.

Once, while out visiting his people, he was arrested at Kẻ Bèo together with his guides. He was taken to Phủ Lý, and then to Hà Nội.

The man who arrested him was a petty officer named Tú, who made a living hunting Catholics for rewards. Father Ven spoke to him frankly, using a line from the Confucian books that every Vietnamese of that time understood:

“Your trade of hunting Catholics is a base one, for the book says: to put righteousness first and profit after is humane; to put profit first and righteousness after is shameful.”

Righteousness before profit. A French missionary used the words of the Eastern sages to remind a Vietnamese man of what is right. Perhaps that shows how deeply he had come to love and understand Vietnamese culture.

On February 2, 1861, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, Father Ven was beheaded. His head was displayed for three days and then thrown into the river. Fishermen recovered it and buried it.

His remains were later taken back to the chapel of the Paris Foreign Missions Society, where he had trained.

He was beatified on May 2, 1909, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is February 2.

Father Ven died at thirty-one. But his story did not end there.

Many years later, a young nun named Thérèse at the convent of Lisieux, in France, read his letters and treasured them as if he were a friend. Today that nun is known as Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus.

The story began with a little boy reading about a missionary who had died at Sơn Tây, and it came full circle, with others going on to read the story of that boy, now a priest and martyr himself. Some flames pass from one person to another, through books and letters, down many generations.