Saint Jean-Louis Bonnard (Hương)

Jean-Louis Bonnard was born in 1824 in a village in the region of Lyon, France. At twenty-two he entered the Paris Foreign Missions Society. After his ordination he was sent to Western Tonkin and took the Vietnamese name Hương.

From May 1850 he studied Vietnamese under the guidance of Bishop Retord, whose Vietnamese name was Liêu. Then he was entrusted with the care of Kẻ Báng and Kẻ Trình. Everything was new: the language, the food, the village paths, the way of life. A missionary has to learn it all before he can really serve anyone. He learned it all and lived among the people like a son of that land.

In 1851 a new edict against the faith was issued, and traveling became even harder. In Lent of 1852, just after celebrating Mass in the village of Bối Xuyên, he was arrested with two helpers and taken to Nam Định.

The mandarin questioned him about which villages he had passed through and who had helped him. He replied:

“I have been to so many places that I cannot remember them all, and even if I did remember, I would not tell.”

The mandarin threatened to beat him. He answered calmly:

“If you want to beat me, then beat me, but do not think I will say anything that would harm the faithful.”

When the mandarin urged him to step over the cross, the twenty-eight-year-old missionary said something he had perhaps thought through since the day he left home:

“I am not afraid of beatings, nor am I afraid of death. Surely I did not come to preach the faith in Annam only to step over the cross and give up my religion, setting a bad example for the faithful.”

In the days of waiting for his sentence, he wrote to his parents in France, trying to comfort them before the news that their son was about to die. Far away, a mother and a father would read that letter. He thought of their pain, just as he had thought of the safety of the faithful who had helped him.

On May 1, 1852, Father Hương was beheaded. The mandarin had his body thrown into the river. Fishermen quietly recovered his body, brought it to Vĩnh Trị, and buried it in secret.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is May 1.

Father Hương was in Vietnam for less than three years. Not long enough to accomplish great works, but long enough to learn a new language, love new people, and keep their names secret to his last breath.