Martyr 111 of 117 · Layperson
Saint Augustine Nguyễn Văn Mới
The hired laborer who found God
1806 – 1839 · Feast day December 19
Layman, from Bồ Trang (Kẻ Bái), Thái Bình province · Vietnamese
Mới was not born into a Catholic family. He was just a hired laborer, living near Catholic families. Seeing how they lived, he wanted to be like them. At thirty-one he asked for baptism. Only a year later he was arrested for that new faith. And he did not step back.
A hired laborer at Kẻ Mốt
Augustine Nguyễn Văn Mới was born in 1806 in the village of Bồ Trang, also called Kẻ Bái, Thái Bình province, into a family that did not follow the faith.
He went to work as a hired laborer in the village of Đức Trai, in the parish of Kẻ Mốt. There he lived near Catholic families. Every day he watched them pray, go to Mass, and live together. Perhaps something in that way of life touched his heart.
At about thirty-one, he asked to become a Catholic. Father Peter Nguyễn Văn Tự baptized him. He also joined the Dominican Third Order.
It was not a faith inherited from his parents. It was the choice of a grown man who sought God out for himself.
The day the village was surrounded
On June 29, 1838, under Emperor Minh Mạng, soldiers surrounded the village of Kẻ Mốt. Father Tự, who had baptized him, was arrested. The soldiers forced the villagers to step over the cross.
Mới, a Catholic of only about a year, refused. He was arrested with the others and taken to Bắc Ninh.
One might think a new convert, without deep roots yet, would give it up easily. But Mới showed that faith is not measured in years.
Kneeling to kiss the cross
On November 24, 1838, the mandarin of Bắc Ninh laid a cross on the ground and ordered him to step over it. He knelt down, bent to kiss the cross, and whispered:
“O my Lord, save me; I commend my soul and my body into Your hands.”
A simple prayer, like a child’s. Perhaps he did not yet know many prayers by heart. But he knew how to entrust himself.
More than a year of waiting
Father Tự was beheaded in September 1838. The man who had baptized him went ahead. Mới remained in prison, with fellow prisoners who prayed with him.
More than a year. A faith only a little over a year old now had to face a trial longer than its whole life so far.
Cổ Mễ, December 19, 1839
On December 19, 1839, Augustine Mới was strangled at the Cổ Mễ execution ground, where a year earlier Father Tự had shed his blood.
His body was taken to Phương Vĩ. Later, when the faithful migrated in 1945, they took part of his remains with them.
He was beatified on May 27, 1900, and canonized on June 19, 1988. His own feast day is December 19.
Faith that came from neighbors
Mới came to the faith not through books or homilies. He came because he saw how his Catholic neighbors lived. That is a reminder to each of us: the way we live every day may be the best sermon for the person next to us.
And Mới also shows that there is no such thing as a “new Catholic” before God. A man baptized only a year before can love God as fully as one who has kept the faith all his life.
Biography on the website of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam ↗