Saint Joseph Nguyễn Đình Uyển

Joseph Nguyễn Đình Uyển was born in 1775 in the village of Ninh Cường, Nam Định province. As a boy he entered the House of God, and then joined the Dominican Third Order.

He did not become a priest, but for many years was the assistant of Bishop Domingo Henares (Minh), serving in the parish of Tiên Chu. He taught the catechism, helped the community, and took care of matters large and small at the bishop’s side. Tiên Chu was home to the seminary and the bishop’s house, the heart of the whole mission territory. And Uyển was one of those who kept that heart beating steadily.

On May 29, 1838, soldiers surrounded Tiên Chu to hunt for Bishop Minh. They did not find the bishop. But they came upon Uyển, wearing the habit of the Dominican Third Order. That was reason enough to arrest him.

The mandarin promised to free him if he stepped over the cross. He refused. He was put in the cangue and thrown into prison.

At the court, the soldiers at one point carried him, cangue and all, meaning to drag him across the place where the cross lay. He drew up his feet so they would not touch the image of the Lord. The angry soldiers beat his feet.

It is a scene worth remembering: a man of sixty-three, held fast, beaten, still struggling to draw up his feet. He knew he could not resist. But he wanted to make a clear distinction: what others force upon you is different from what you choose to do yourself.

The mandarin shouted: “If you do not renounce your religion, I will have your head cut off!”

Uyển replied:

“Your Excellency, only by being beheaded can I hope to rise again.”

For him, death was not a threat. It was the door to the resurrection God had promised.

The mandarins drew up the case. The sentence described him as a man who “follows the perverse religion of Jesus” and “stubbornly refuses to cross over”, that is, to step over the cross, “and therefore deserves to die”.

But he did not live to see the day of execution. Old age, illness and hunger in prison had worn him out. On July 4, 1838, the catechist Joseph Uyển died in prison.

In that same year, just a few days earlier, Bishop Minh, whom he had served for so many years, had also been arrested and beheaded. The hunt for the bishop had brought his faithful assistant to the last days of his life. And then both went home to God in the same summer.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is July 4.

Uyển reminds us of something: others can take away our freedom, carry us wherever they like, hurt our bodies. But there is a place no one can violate: the freedom within, what we choose to believe and choose to love.

Just a small movement, drawing up his feet. But in it was a whole soul that would not be broken.