Saint James Đỗ Mai Năm

James Đỗ Mai Năm was born in 1781 in the village of Đông Biên, Vĩnh Lộc district, Thanh Hóa province. As a boy he lived at the mission house, and then studied at the seminary of Vĩnh Trị.

As a catechist, he spent his days caring for the sick and his evenings teaching children to read and to know their catechism. He kept no time for himself; all of it went to others.

At about thirty-two he was ordained a priest. He served many parishes, and carried on what he had done as a catechist: helping the poor with food, clothing and medicine. People remember him as a priest with a heart for the poor.

Under Emperor Minh Mạng, the persecutions forced him into hiding. At one point he stayed for many years in the house of a parish elder. When things calmed down, he went back to the mission house.

In 1838, he was hiding in the house of the parish elder Anthony Nguyễn Tiến Đích in the village of Kẻ Vĩnh.

On May 11, 1838, two men named Tỉ and Xuân informed on him. Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh led troops to surround the village.

Father Năm tried to blend in with the people busy preparing food, hoping the soldiers would not recognize him. But the informer pointed him out by name. He did not deny it. He admitted that he was a priest.

The elder Đích and his son-in-law, the village headman Michael Nguyễn Huy Mỹ, were also arrested for having sheltered him.

The mandarin asked him:

“The court strictly forbids the religion of Jesus; why do you not go home and earn a living, instead of preaching the religion?”

To the mandarin, preaching the faith was folly: it defied the king’s orders and brought disaster on oneself. But for Father Năm, it was his whole life. The mandarin ordered him to step over the cross. He would not.

August 12, 1838, was the day of execution. Before leaving, he turned to the fellow prisoners who remained:

“Brothers, you stay here; I am going home first, but later we will meet again.”

A farewell as light as a traveler’s greeting. Going home first. For him, the execution ground was only the village gate of his true home.

Father James Năm was beheaded at the Bảy Mẫu execution ground, together with the elder Đích and the headman Mỹ, the two men who had sheltered him to the end.

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

Father Năm’s life was a life of service: teaching children, caring for the sick, helping the poor. But he too needed others to look after him. Without families like the elder Đích’s who dared to shelter him, he could not have survived the years of persecution.

And in the end, three men, a priest, a parish elder and a village headman, went out to the execution ground together. The sheltering and the sheltered went home on the same day. Perhaps that is how God repaid the kindness of those who opened their homes to Him.