Saint Paul Nguyễn Ngân

Paul Nguyễn Ngân was born around 1790 in the Catholic community of Cự Khanh, Kẻ Bền parish, Thanh Hóa province. He entered the seminary, and there he had a classmate: Joseph Nguyễn Đình Nghi.

After his ordination as a priest, he served in many places. Then a serious illness forced him to go back to the mission house at Kẻ Vĩnh to recover. For many years he could not work. For a priest, nothing is sadder than having to sit still while the flock needs him.

When he recovered, he helped in the parish of Trình Xuyên, and then went to Kẻ Báng, working alongside his old classmate Father Nghi. The two friends were together again, as in their days as young seminarians.

Those were the years of persecution under Emperor Minh Mạng. Father Ngân had no fixed home. Today he slept in one Catholic’s house, tomorrow in another. He was sad, not because he suffered, but because the faithful could hardly find a priest when they needed one. He confided:

“With the king banning the faith so strictly, the faithful cannot come to the priest, and the priest cannot go out to help in the various places.”

That is a shepherd’s heartache: the flock is in need, and he cannot reach them.

In 1840, soldiers came to surround the village of Kẻ Báng, searching for three priests. Father Ngân and Father Nghi were arrested first. Then the elderly Father Martin Tạ Đức Thịnh also gave himself up. Arrested too were the headman John Baptist Trần Ngọc Cỏn and Martin Trần Ngọc Thọ, who had sheltered the priests.

All were taken to Nam Định.

Throughout the first week of June 1840, the mandarin repeatedly questioned and beat the three priests, pressing them to step over the cross. None would. On June 8, Father Nghi, Father Ngân’s classmate, spoke for the priests in one brief sentence to the mandarin:

“Your Excellency, we ask Your Excellency for a stroke of the sword.”

No need for long explanations. Only one request: a stroke of the sword, not a pardon.

In the months that followed, the three priests stayed together in prison, praying and waiting for the sentence from the capital. The friendship between Father Ngân and Father Nghi, from the days when they shared a seminary bench, had become companionship in their last days.

On November 8, 1840, Father Ngân, Father Nghi and Father Thịnh, together with the headman Cỏn and Thọ, were beheaded at the Bảy Mẫu execution ground, Nam Định.

Father Ngân’s body was taken to Kẻ Báng and buried beside his classmate Father Nghi, on either side of the altar of the church.

He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is November 8.

Father Ngân’s priestly life did not turn out as he would have wished: many years of illness, many years of hiding, many sad days when he could not reach the faithful. But he had a friend, and the two walked together to the end of the road.

Perhaps one of the most beautiful gifts God gives is a friend who shares the same ideals. And the two graves on either side of the altar at Kẻ Báng are a quiet witness to a friendship nothing could break.