Saint Joseph Nguyễn Đình Nghi

Joseph Nguyễn Đình Nghi, also called Joseph Kim, was born in 1793 in the village of Hà Hồi, Thượng Phúc district, Thường Tín prefecture, now part of Hà Nội. As a boy he lived at the presbytery of Kẻ Vồi, learning Latin.

At the seminary he had a classmate: Paul Nguyễn Ngân, from Thanh Hóa. Neither seminarian could have known that one day they would walk the last road together.

He became a catechist, and then at about thirty was ordained a priest.

He served in many parishes: Sơn Miêng, Kẻ Bạc, Phúc Nhạc. Then he was parish priest of Đa Phạn for about ten years. People remember him as a grave and devout priest. He had a gift for persuading those who had drifted away from the practice of the faith to come back to God.

Some priests are famous for their stirring sermons. Father Nghi was different. He went looking for each lost sheep, sat with them, talked with them, until they came back.

Then he was sent to Kẻ Báng. There he met his old classmate Father Ngân again. The two worked side by side once more.

In 1840, in the reign of Emperor Minh Mạng, soldiers surrounded the village of Kẻ Báng. Father Nghi and Father Ngân were arrested. Then in the prison of Nam Định, the two met the old Father Martin Tạ Đức Thịnh, already eighty, who had also just given himself up as a priest.

Three priests, the youngest already nearly fifty, sharing one prison cell.

At the beginning of June 1840, the mandarin kept questioning and beating the three priests, ordering them to step over the cross. On June 8, when the mandarin demanded it again, Father Nghi said:

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

Those words ended all bargaining. The mandarin understood that these men could not be moved.

From then until November, the three priests stayed together in prison, praying and getting ready. The man who had helped so many lost people come back was now preparing, with his two brother priests, to go home to the Father.

On November 8, 1840, Father Joseph Nghi was beheaded at the Bảy Mẫu execution ground, together with Father Ngân, Father Thịnh, the headman John the Baptist Cỏn and Martin Thọ, the two Kẻ Báng laymen who had sheltered the priests.

His body was buried in the parish church of Kẻ Báng, beside his classmate Father Ngân.

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

Father Nghi was a grave man of few words. And the last words people remember from him were as brief as the man himself: a stroke of the sword. No explanation, no self-defense. The choice had been clear for a long time.

There are times in our lives when we too need that decisiveness. No beating around the bush, no hesitation. Only a straight answer: I belong to God.