Saint Joseph Phạm Quang Túc

Joseph Phạm Quang Túc was born in 1843 in the village of Hoàng Xá, Ngọc Đồng parish, Hưng Yên province. His family farmed rice. But his father dreamed that his son would not have to spend his life in the mud as he had, so he brought a teacher into the house to teach Túc Chinese characters.

You can picture it: the father setting aside rice, measure by measure, to pay the teacher, and the boy at the writing desk carefully shaping each stroke. The father hoped Túc would one day sit the imperial examinations, pass, and bring honor to the family. So many Vietnamese fathers had that same dream.

In 1861 Emperor Tự Đức’s ban on the faith swept through the Catholic villages of Hưng Yên. Catholics were taken away and scattered. Their fields, gardens, buffaloes and houses were seized and divided up. Túc’s family did not escape.

The dream of the examinations went with them. Brushes and ink, books, lessons with the teacher: all of it came to an end.

In the spring of 1862, Túc was arrested. He was only nineteen.

They held him alone in a cell in the prison of Đông Khê, Khoái Châu prefecture, for four months, then moved him to Hưng Yên. The mandarins took turns threatening and coaxing him, hoping the young man would give up his faith.

At home his family could not bear it. They had lost their house and fields, and they could not lose their son too. They scraped money together and looked for a way to get him out of prison.

It was the chance anyone would have hoped for. But Túc answered:

“I will not escape by any means, because if I escape, others will suffer for it. Whatever God wants, I accept!”

He knew that if a prisoner escaped, the guards and everyone involved would be punished, and his family and anyone who helped him could be dragged in. A nineteen-year-old with every right to live and to dream chose to stay so that no one would suffer because of him.

No fuss, no complaint. Only a “yes,” like Our Lady’s long ago.

The mandarin asked for the death sentence by beheading. On June 1, 1862, Túc was led to the execution ground.

A man named Hưng, who walked with him the whole way, later testified:

“I followed Túc all the way to the execution ground. He prayed fervently the whole time, and his lips never stopped calling on the most holy name of the Lord Jesus.”

Hưng also said: “Then Túc was beheaded, and I gave his body a proper burial.” His body was later taken home to Ngọc Đồng.

He was beatified on April 29, 1951, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 1.

When you read about Túc, do not see only a young man who died at nineteen. See the father who brought a teacher home for his son and dreamed of his success. See the family who had lost everything and still scraped money together to save him.

The father’s dream of the examinations never came true. But his son passed a greater test than any in this world, and today the whole Church remembers his name, which is more than any honor roll could give.