Saint Peter Đinh Văn Thuần

Peter Đinh Văn Thuần was born in 1802 in the Catholic community of Đông Phú, Trung Đồng parish, Kẻ Mèn, Thái Bình province, in the Central Vicariate, now the Diocese of Bùi Chu. His family was poor but close. His parents carefully taught him every prayer and every lesson of right and wrong.

When he grew up, he fished to support his family. He was also chosen as village headman, looking after the common affairs of the whole village, Catholic or not. People trusted him, because he was fair and dedicated.

A fisherman, a village headman, a father. His life went on like that for sixty years, as plain as the rising and falling tide.

In August 1861, the edict of dispersal was issued. In the spring of 1862, Thuần was arrested and held in the prison of Ngọc Chí.

They interrogated him, beat him, pressed him to step over the cross. He endured. One day, then many days, then many months. But the body of a sixty-year-old man is not made of iron. At some point, his strength ran out.

And he did as the mandarin ordered. He denied his faith.

We do not know what he thought in that moment. Perhaps he only wanted the pain to stop. Perhaps he thought of his wife and children at home. Perhaps he could no longer think at all. Which of us can be sure we would act differently in his place?

But he was not alone. His fellow prisoners, sharing the same fate, came to his side. They did not scold or despise him. They urged him to look into his own heart again.

And Thuần repented. He wept over his weakness. Then he got up, went back to the court, and professed his faith once more, this time without stepping back.

There is a verse of Scripture that seems written just for people like him:

“The foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” (1 Cor 1:25)

It was in Thuần’s very weakness that the strength of God was revealed.

On June 6, 1862, Thuần was shut in a cramped bamboo cage and burned alive in Nam Định, together with Peter Đinh Văn Dũng, his fellow villager from Đông Phú. Two old men of the fishing village, both named Peter, stepped into the fire together.

The faithful brought his body back to be buried in the grounds of the church of Đông Phú.

He was beatified on April 29, 1951, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 6.

Perhaps it is no accident that he bore the name of Saint Peter. The apostle Peter also denied his Master three times on the night He was arrested. Then he wept bitterly. And afterward he became the rock of the Church, and died on a cross for his Master.

Peter Thuần was the same. The Church does not hide his moment of weakness, because that very moment makes his story precious. It tells each of us: falling is not the end. As long as we still dare to get up, God is waiting.

And do not forget the fellow prisoners who helped him get up. Sometimes what a person who has fallen needs most is not a judgment, but an outstretched hand.