Saint John Baptist Đinh Văn Thanh

He was born in 1796 in the village of Nộn Khê, Hảo Nho parish, Ninh Bình province, into a family that did not practice the faith. At eighteen, the young man asked on his own to learn the faith and was baptized in the village of Phúc Nhạc. It was his own choice, at a time when becoming a Catholic meant putting oneself in danger.

After that he was trained as a catechist and went to help Father Peter Phạm Khắc Khoan. Father Khoan entrusted him with the care of the Đông Biên hamlet. It was work that needed steadiness and patience: knowing each family, seeing to each hour of prayer, doing the small things few people notice. Father Khoan valued him for that diligence and ability.

His name is often written Thành, but in Chinese characters it is written Thanh, 清, meaning pure and clear. Perhaps that is the best portrait of him.

On August 24, 1837, Father Khoan, the catechist Thanh and a fellow catechist, Peter Nguyễn Văn Hiếu, were arrested at Đông Biên and taken to Ninh Bình. Before the mandarin, Thanh spoke words his biography still keeps:

“I am the priest’s servant; whatever he has decided, I have decided the same. Your Excellency, if you show me mercy, I live; if you want to force me to give up my religion, I am willing to die. As for the faith, I will not give it up.”

Plain, courteous words, without the least defiance. But in them is a clear line: life can be given, but faith cannot.

Then came the beatings, the cangue, the years of imprisonment and the attempts to force him to renounce the faith. When Father Khoan was held apart, Thanh and the catechist Hiếu stayed side by side, enduring together, holding each other up through nearly three years of waiting for the sentence.

On the last night before the execution, the three stayed awake all night praying. On the morning of April 28, 1840, on the way to the execution ground at the foot of Cánh Diều mountain, the three sang a hymn of thanksgiving together. Thanh was beheaded together with his spiritual father and his companion.

The faithful took his body to Yên Mối, and later moved it to Phúc Nhạc, where the eighteen-year-old had once been baptized. He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is April 28.

Thanh began his life of faith at Phúc Nhạc, and in the end came back to rest in that very place. Between the two lay a road that was not very long, but he walked it to the end, beside the teacher he had chosen to follow.