Saint Vincent Đỗ Yến

Vincent Đỗ Yến was born in 1764 in the village of Trà Lũ, Phú Nhai parish, Nam Định province. He was ordained a priest in 1798, and on July 22, 1807, received the Dominican habit.

He served at Kẻ Mốt and then at Kẻ Sặt in Hải Dương province, where for many years he was like a father to the faithful.

In 1838 Emperor Minh Mạng’s persecution reached Kẻ Sặt, and the church was ordered torn down. Many expected him to flee. He stayed. At night he carried on his ministry and gave the sacraments; by day he quietly visited one home after another. The church building was gone, but the Church lived on in every Catholic household.

Then the mandarin threatened to destroy the whole village if the priest was not found. Now he saw that staying no longer protected his flock but put them in danger, so he left Kẻ Sặt to spare the village.

He went to the Catholic community of Lực Điền in Hưng Yên, and it was there that he was arrested and taken to Hải Dương.

The governor of Hải Dương was a kind man who did not want to put such a gentle old man to death. He suggested: just say you are a healer, and you will not be condemned.

Father Yến replied:

“I am willing to die for that reason, rather than lie in order to live.”

He had been a priest all his life. To call himself a healer would be to deny who he was and the whole life he had lived.

The mandarin tried another way. He drew a circle on the ground and told the priest he had only to step out of it, in place of stepping on the cross. No holy image, nothing at all, just a line on the ground. The priest saw through it at once and replied:

“Doing that would be no different from denying my faith.”

Some compromises look harmless at first glance. But Father Yến knew that what mattered was not the line on the ground but what the step meant.

He was held for about three weeks. Because someone spoke up for him, he was spared the cangue and chains, and the faithful were allowed to visit. The mandarin pitied him, but he could not undo a sentence from the royal court on his own.

On June 30, 1838, Father Vincent Yến was beheaded near the Catholic community of Bình Lao, Hải Dương. The mandarin gave cloth for a shroud and let the faithful bury him. His body was later reburied at Thọ Ninh.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is June 30.

Father Yến’s life holds two fine choices, one after the other. First he left Kẻ Sặt, because he did not want the faithful to suffer on his account. Then he refused to lie, because he would not betray himself.

He was willing to step back for the sake of others, but never to back away from the truth. That is the shepherd Father Yến showed us. And in a world where people lie so easily to get what they want, his words have lost none of their weight: better to die than to lie in order to live.