Saint Nicholas Bùi Đức Thể

Nicholas Bùi Đức Thể was born in 1792 in the village of Kiên Trung, Xuân Trường prefecture, Nam Định province. He joined the army and lived the life of a soldier under Emperor Minh Mạng, with discipline, orders and days far from home.

A soldier of that time had to obey absolutely. But in the heart of a Catholic soldier there was another, deeper command, from the One he had worshiped since childhood.

In the autumn of 1837, Emperor Minh Mạng ordered the soldiers to be assembled to check their religion. Two passages were set up. In one, a holy image lay on the ground: whoever stepped over it was free to go home. The other led to the cangue and a dark prison.

Hundreds of soldiers passed through. Most stepped over the image. Only fifteen refused. Thể was one of them.

He was imprisoned for eight months. They beat him, at times even on his fingertips, a pain that pierces to the bone. He still did not deny his faith.

But time is the most fearsome enemy. Eight months, then longer still. Strength wore away, hope wore thin. Then one day, Thể and two other soldiers, Augustine Phan Viết Huy and Đinh Văn Đạt, accepted a reward and made the gesture of renouncing the faith.

They were released. They had money. They went home.

But they had no peace. Perhaps Thể tossed and turned every night. The soldier who had withstood the rod now could not withstand the voice of his conscience.

Thể and his friends sought out the priests and asked for advice. Then they went back to the court, returned the money, and asked to keep the faith as before.

That was not all. Thể and Huy decided to walk all the way to the capital, Huế. They waited for the day Emperor Minh Mạng would pass by, knelt by the road and presented a petition. In that petition were the words:

“We now ask to continue keeping our religion, to fulfill our filial duty to our forefathers.”

Filial duty to their forefathers. They could not let the faith handed down by their parents and grandparents be lost in their own hands.

They knew exactly what awaited them. The first time it had been prison; this time it would be death. But they chose to return by a public act, before the king himself, so that no one would doubt their hearts any longer.

Emperor Minh Mạng was enraged and ordered their execution. On June 13, 1839, at the Thuận An estuary, Huế, Thể and Huy were cut in two at the waist. Their bodies were thrown into the sea.

The soldier from Nam Định died amid the waves of central Vietnam, far from home. No grave, no headstone.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 13.

There is a kind of courage harder than enduring beatings: the courage to admit one has been wrong. Thể had both. He endured eight months of beatings, and when he had fallen, he had the courage to stand before the king and say: I was wrong, I ask to come back.

If anyone carries in their heart a betrayal, a moment of weakness, remember the soldier who walked to the capital. The road back may be long and costly. But it is never too late.