As a young priest and bishop, Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan had great ministerial success, from the formation of seminarians, men and women religious, laity and youth to the constructing of Catholic schools, promotion of lay movements and missions for evangelization. But all this came to an abrupt end with the fall of Saigon in 1975.
Arrested on the pretense of conspiring with the Vatican after Pope Paul VI named him coadjutor archbishop of the capital of South Vietnam a week before it fell into the hands of the communist government, for the next 13 years Archbishop Van Thuan was imprisoned, suffering unspeakable physical and mental torture, nine years of which were in solitary confinement.
In the darkness of his prison cell, at the height of his most grueling humiliation and in complete isolation, when all hope seemed lost, he lamented, “Many times I was tempted, tormented by the fact that I was forty-eight years old, in the prime of my life; I had worked as a bishop for eight years, I had acquired a great deal of pastoral experience, and there I was: isolated, inactive, and separated from my people by 1,700 kilometers (1,056 miles).”
“Do not forget,” exclaims Moses in Sunday’s first reading. “Remember how for forty years now the Lord, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert … .” In other words, Moses is reminding Israel, “Remember, God is in charge. He always was, always is, and always will be. Do not forget.” One can know this intellectually and cognitively, but until it sinks into the depths of one’s soul experientially, until it is wedded to every fiber of one’s being, it remains on the level of theory and not of actuality. Archbishop Van Thuan received this profound realization of faith one night in his cell when he heard a voice encouraging him from the depths of his heart: “Why do you torment yourself so? You must learn to distinguish between God and the works of God … .” It was within that context of verging on complete, total and utter despair that the light of Christ kindled within him a renewal of hope and divine charity: “Francis, everything you have done and desire to continue doing … all of these are excellent works, they are God’s works, but they are not God. Choose God and not the works of God.”
The work of the National Eucharistic Revival, a three-year grassroots movement to rediscover the “Source and Summit” of our Catholic faith, called for by the bishops of the United States, has begun. It encompasses every baptized member of the mystical body of Christ. But while there are many things we can do, the Revival is not a call to ecclesial and spiritual activism — the great modern temptation of the multiplication of programs geared toward productivity and economic efficiency, measurable and affirmed by statistical analyses. Certainly, the fruits of the Revival will come about via practical and concrete initiatives. However, it is more profoundly an invitation to rediscover the primacy of receptivity, the art of being with God and not merely reducing the human person to a being for God, as though God himself needed a revival. It is not God who needs a revival. Rather, it is us.
The key, therefore, lies in the words Jesus speaks in the Gospel, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him.” This act of “remaining with” or “remaining in” is the foundation upon which all activity for an authentic Revival is and should be established. Unbeknownst to the communists, the little bottle of “stomach medicine” and the flashlight they allowed him to have contained the wine and hosts, sealed in the battery compartment, necessary for Mass. The immense joy of celebrating Eucharist every day with three drops of wine and one drop of water in the palm of his hand and reserving the Blessed Sacrament in a small container made from cigarette packages in his shirt pocket became Archbishop Van Thuan’s Revival while in prison. Therein lies the light of hope gleaned from his dark night: The primacy of act, not of activity, and the primacy of being, not of doing, is Corpus Christi, the body of Christ, and it is the Eucharistic Revival.
Father Tran is parochial vicar of St. Stephen in Anoka and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis’ liaison for the National Eucharistic Revival.
Sunday, June 11
Solemnity of the Body and Blood of Christ
