Saint Paul Vũ Văn Đổng

Paul Vũ Văn Đổng was born in 1802 in the parish of Lê Xá, Central Vicariate, in what is now the Hưng Yên area. He lived as an ordinary layman until the community entrusted him with the post of parish registrar.

The registrar kept the books and looked after the parish’s property. Every coin offered, every length of cloth, every candle, every sacred object had to be clearly recorded and carefully kept. It was not a grand job. But it needed an upright, careful man who would not covet a single coin of the common funds.

Đổng did this work for six years. No one wrote down the evenings he spent over the ledger, but there must have been many of them, long and faithful.

In 1861, Emperor Tự Đức’s ban on the faith reached every Catholic village. Soldiers came to inspect each village, forcing Catholics to step over the cross.

On November 25, 1861, it was Đổng’s turn. He declared that he was a Christian and refused to step on the cross. He was arrested at once, taken to Ân Thi district, and then to the court of Hưng Yên.

In prison he wore a heavy cangue, his feet were shackled, and he was starved. At times he was so hungry that he chewed a scrap of his own shirt just to keep going. A man of nearly sixty, who had spent his life keeping the common goods for others, now did not have even a bowl of rice.

The mandarin wanted to humiliate him and had the words “Tả Đạo” carved on his cheek. He resisted. But they carved them all the same.

Then he did something that leaves anyone who hears it speechless. He found a way to erase those two words, and asked a fellow prisoner to carve two others: “Chính Đạo”. The right religion. The true religion.

Think of the pain of having the skin of his face cut once again. He accepted more pain, just so his face would tell the truth. The man who had never let a false line into his ledger all his life now would not let a false line stand on his own face.

The mandarin was furious. Đổng answered with a single sentence, calm as a prayer:

“In life or in death, may I keep one heart that loves my God.”

The mandarin requested the death sentence. On June 3, 1862, Paul Đổng was led to the execution ground of Nam Định. Before the sword fell, he called the name of Jesus three times.

He was beatified on April 29, 1951, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 3.

When people tell Đổng’s story, they often mention the words “Chính Đạo” on his cheek. That is right, and very beautiful. But do not forget the six years he sat with the parish ledger.

Jesus once said: “He who is faithful in a very little is faithful also in much.” Đổng was like that. A man used to guarding every coin of the common funds honestly kept the faith just as honestly, to the end.