Saint Anthony Nguyễn Tiến Đích

Anthony Nguyễn Tiến Đích was born in Chi Long, Nam Sang district, Nam Định province. His year of birth is recorded differently in different documents, some giving 1769, others 1796. When he was arrested, he was already an old man.

He settled in the village of Kẻ Vĩnh, and the faithful trusted him and chose him as parish elder. Kẻ Vĩnh had a mission house and a seminary; it was a center of the Church in the North. And the elder Đích came to care for the seminarians and priests like his own children and grandchildren.

Once, cholera broke out in the seminary. Cholera in those days was a terror, spreading fast and killing within days. Everyone was afraid to go near the sick.

Đích took the sick seminarians into his home to care for them. He did not fear the sickness or mind the trouble. Young men far from home, burning with fever, lay in his house, and his family tended them with every bowl of rice porridge and every cup of medicine.

Then the years of persecution came. The seminary was no longer safe. Đích let a whole class of seminarians stay in his house for a long time. Feeding them, finding them places to sleep, hiding them from prying eyes. And if they were discovered, his whole family would pay the price.

His house was also a place the bishop often visited. And in 1838, it was where Father James Đỗ Mai Năm was hiding.

These were not acts of passing kindness. They cost rice, sleeping space and silence, and a whole family had to live with the risk, for years.

Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh led troops to surround the village of Kẻ Vĩnh. The soldiers found Father Năm in Đích’s house. The parish elder, his son-in-law the village headman Michael Nguyễn Huy Mỹ, and Father Năm were arrested together.

The mandarin pressed the old man to step over the cross. Just that, and he could go home to live out his old age among his children and grandchildren. He would not.

In prison, his family sent food in for him. He did not keep it for himself. He shared it with his fellow prisoners, including those who were not Catholics.

The man who had opened his home to seminarians kept opening his heart to those around him, even behind bars. A lifelong habit of sharing was not lost in the dark prison.

And once, when soldiers were about to beat him, his son-in-law asked to take the beating in his place. Father-in-law and son-in-law, going through their last days together.

On August 12, 1838, Anthony Đích was beheaded at the Bảy Mẫu execution ground, together with his son-in-law Michael Mỹ and Father James Năm. Their bodies were taken to Vĩnh Trị.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is August 12.

Many Vietnamese priests of that time grew up, were cared for, and were hidden in homes like the elder Đích’s. Without families daring to open their doors like that, the Church in Vietnam could not have survived those brutal years.

Today, when you see a priest, remember that behind every vocation there are always families quietly supporting it. And the elder Đích was one such father.