Saint Peter Nguyễn Khắc Tự

Peter Nguyễn Khắc Tự was born in Ninh Bình, around 1808 (some documents say 1811). At twenty he became a catechist in the Vicariate of Western Tonkin.

He worked beside Father Pierre Dumoulin Borie, a French missionary whose Vietnamese name was Cao, who was later chosen to be a bishop. Tự taught the catechism, went with the priest to the Catholic communities and helped the faithful in remote places. Over the years a deep bond grew between them, like that of teacher and disciple, or father and son.

In 1838, under Emperor Minh Mạng, Bishop Cao was surrounded and arrested at Bố Chính. Tự asked to go with him.

He was taken to Đồng Hới. The mandarin promised to free him if he denied his faith, or even if he just named the villages they had passed through and the people who had helped them. He answered:

“Your Excellency, I would rather die than deny my faith.”

He was given twenty strokes of the rod and left out in the sun. At one point they shut him in a pit full of venomous snakes, hoping fear would break him. He did not give in.

In the prison of Đồng Hới, Tự was held near Bishop Cao. Other priests were there too, and Father Ngân heard his confession.

The parish elder Anthony Nguyễn Hữu Quỳnh, a healer from Mỹ Hương, was imprisoned with them as well. A bishop, a few priests, a catechist and a parish elder: a small community living together within four prison walls.

The bond between teacher and disciple did not end when the prison door closed. It carried on through the long nights of waiting for the sentence and through the prayers they said together.

Bishop Cao was executed first, in November 1838. Tự stayed in prison for more than a year and a half after that, without his teacher beside him.

On July 10, 1840, under Emperor Minh Mạng, the catechist Peter Tự was strangled at the execution ground of Đồng Hới, together with the parish elder Anthony Quỳnh.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is July 10.

Some bonds are tested not in good times but in the worst of times. Tự could have turned away, but he chose to stay. He had followed Father Cao along the mission roads, and he followed him into prison and on to the execution ground.

On the night Jesus was arrested, His disciples deserted Him and fled. Tự, the Vietnamese disciple, did not flee. And so he learned his teacher’s last lesson: faithfulness.