Servant of God Marcel Van (1928-1959)

Birth at Ngăm Giáo (1928)

Joachim Nguyễn Tân Văn was born on 15 March 1928 at Ngăm Giáo, in Bắc Ninh province, Tonkin (North Vietnam), and was baptized the following day.^[11][12] He grew up in a "deeply Christian" family; very early, according to the biographical tradition, the child expressed the desire to become a saint.^[13] A sister, Anne-Marie Tê, was born in 1932.^[14]

But Van's childhood quickly entered hardship. From 1932, he spent some time with his aunt Khan, eight kilometers from the village; he made his first Communion and confirmation while still very young.^[15] In May 1935, his mother took him to the rectory of Hữu Bằng and entrusted him to Father Nha with a view to future priestly formation: like many devout children, the little boy dreamed of becoming a priest.^[16][17]

Hữu Bằng rectory: the mistreated child-servant

Hữu Bằng rectory turned out to be a place of suffering — Cardinal Schönborn speaks of "the painful experience of the Hữu Bang rectory".^[18] According to biographical notices, a catechist named Vinh is said to have harshly mistreated the child there (beatings, deprivation of food); these details, reported by the English-language notice alone, remain to be cross-checked against the Autobiography (vol. 1 of the Complete Works).^[19] Then, around 1937-1938, floods and famine ruined Van's family, which could no longer pay his board. Instead of being formed, the child became the priest's "boy" — his little domestic servant — and his training for the priesthood was interrupted.^[20][21]

This early dispossession — hunger, blows, humiliation, the hoped-for priesthood slipping away — is not merely a miserable background. It forms the soil of Van's entire spirituality: he is a child who, very young, knows from within the suffering that Christ will one day ask him not to abolish, but to transfigure.

The flights of a wounded child

Driven to the limit, the boy ran away several times. In 1938, he first tried to leave Hữu Bằng rectory; in the summer of 1940, sent to Thái Nguyên, he escaped again and returned to his parents, though his mother brought him back to Hữu Bằng; a third flight left him wandering for about two weeks in the Bắc Ninh region.^[22] In May 1940, he nevertheless obtained his primary school certificate — at the age of twelve.^[23]

These wanderings of a wounded child show the precariousness of a life without stable support. And yet it was in the very heart of this distress, in the autumn of 1940, that the grace occurred which would turn everything upside down.

In the autumn of 1940, after a stay with his aunt and a return to Ngăm Giáo, Van experienced a decisive interior illumination, which he would later associate with Christmas 1940.^[24] In his Autobiography, he would describe it with moving simplicity:

"At that moment I found the most precious treasure of my life... In an instant my soul was transformed. I was no longer afraid of suffering. God entrusted me with a mission: to change suffering into joy. I was not to suppress it, but to change it into joy." — Marcel Van, Autobiography^[25]

All of Van is already there. Not an escape from pain — he knows its weight too well — but its transformation from within, by love. He will not hold this program as a theory: he will test it even in a labor camp. Years later, he would summarize its secret in his own way:

"To be a saint, to strive for perfection, I once thought meant a charming life, like a wonderful springtime... I thought holiness was perpetual joy, without the shadow of sadness. But with time, the more I advance, the more I see that holiness is a life in which sadness must be changed into joy." — Marcel Van, Correspondence, 28 January 1951^[26]

Story of a Soul and the Little Way

In January 1942, Van entered the minor seminary of Lạng Sơn, run by Dominicans; but the school closed after a few months because of the Japanese military occupation.^[27][28] He was then received at the Saint Therese of the Child Jesus rectory in Quảng Yên.^[29] There, in the summer of 1942, he discovered Therese of Lisieux's Story of a Soul — a reading he would describe as a turning point in his spiritual life.^[30]

Van recounts far more than a reading. According to his testimony, Therese appeared to him and spoke familiarly with him: she became his heavenly "sister" and taught him her "Little Way" of spiritual childhood, confidence and abandonment.^[31][32] The first encounter is dated October 1942.^[33] From this mystical fraternity, Van would receive his nickname: "the little brother of Therese".

"Pray for France"

Among the requests Van received from Therese, one is striking: the saint of Lisieux asked him to pray for France, the homeland of the missionary — even though France was an "enemy" in the eyes of a colonized Vietnam.^[34] This prayer for France, like the prayer for priests, immediately expands the adolescent's heart far beyond his village: his vocation will not be turned inward, but apostolic and universal.

From this period, Van also made a vow of virginity (1941) and founded with friends an association of children he called the "Angels of the Resistance" — a first sketch of his apostolic zeal.^[35]

Gardener's helper, then novice (1944-1945)

Since the priesthood was closed to him, Van knocked at the door of the Redemptorists of Hanoi. On 2 August 1944, he was admitted there as a gardener's helper; he entered the community on 17 October 1944 and received his religious name, Marcel.^[36][37] On 8 September 1945, he received the habit and began his novitiate; he pronounced his temporary vows on 8 September 1946.^[38]

His path continued southward: departure for the monastery of Saigon in 1950, second novitiate at Đà Lạt in 1952, and perpetual vows on 8 September 1952.^[39] Brother Marcel Van was now a Redemptorist forever.

The sacrifice of not being a priest

Van had dreamed of becoming a priest; he had to accept remaining a lay brother, without access to sacred orders. This renunciation — lived against the background of the wounds of Hữu Bằng rectory — is not anecdotal: it gives his vocation its own form. Where he could not offer Mass, he would offer his life; where he could not preach, he would love. Christ himself, in the Colloquies, places this mission in relation to unfaithful priests:

"Many priests use my name to lead a great number of souls to perdition... Pray for these unhappy priests... I still love them and I am waiting for them... My child! Love me in their place..." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 10^[40]

Father Antonio Boucher, "the bearded Jesus"

The providential man in Van's life was Father Antonio Boucher, a French-Canadian Redemptorist, master of novices in Hanoi and Van's spiritual director.^[41][42] With his usual tenderness, the brother affectionately nicknamed him "the bearded Jesus".^[43] It was at his request that Van wrote his Autobiography, then wrote down his colloquies on small sheets handed over each week.

Boucher, prudent, attested that he had lived day by day alongside the brother and very early discerned the authenticity of his soul, while reserving final judgment to the Church:

"I humbly acknowledge that Brother Marcel taught me far more about the spiritual life than I was able to teach him myself." — Father Antonio Boucher, C.Ss.R., attestation^[44]

Here are the main landmarks of his religious life and cause:

A "dictation from heaven" like Sister Benigna Consolata

From 1945 onward, in the silence of the novitiate, Van wrote colloquies: interior dialogues in which Christ, the Virgin and Therese speak to him, and he responds. The first of these colloquies presents Christ's call, inviting Van to do as the Italian religious Sister Benigna Consolata Ferrero (1885-1916), Jesus' "little secretary", had done:

"Marcel! Humble child of my love, listen to the words I address to you here and write them down... I want you to serve as intermediary of my love among your Vietnamese compatriots." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 1^[45]

Van, docile, hesitated to accept before referring the matter to his director — a sign of his obedience and a safeguard against illusion. Christ himself encouraged him to do so. The surviving manuscripts — hundreds of sheets of poor paper, written in turquoise or violet ink — would be translated from Vietnamese by Father Boucher after his return to Canada.^[46]

"Little apostle of my love"

The word Jesus uses to designate the message entrusted to Van is "Love of Jesus"; and the brother is called "little apostle of my love".^[47][48] His mission is not to reason, but to let himself be used:

"Little apostle of my love, be for me like a pencil at my service. Whether I wish to use it for writing or leave it in a corner, it is all the same to it." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 20^[49]

This image of the pencil in God's hand — which Therese had already used for herself — expresses all of Van's humility: he is not the author of his message, only the instrument. Cardinal Schönborn would speak here of an instrumentum animatum, a living instrument freely yielding to the hand that uses it.^[50]

Spouse of Christ and mother of souls

Two surprising terms, applied to a young religious man, structure the Colloquies: Van is called to be "spouse" of Christ and "mother of souls".^[51] Far from being an oddity, these images are rooted in the whole spiritual tradition — the sponsality of the soul since Origen and the commentaries on the Song of Songs, the spiritual motherhood of Saint Paul toward his communities.^[52] Jesus takes care to specify that this applies to every soul, man or woman:

"I have already said these things very clearly in the Gospel. I did not speak especially for women, but for all souls..." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 638^[53]

This double vocation — spouse and mother — comes at a price, which Christ does not conceal:

"Very little spouse of my love, do you want to lead a great number of souls to my love? Do not forget that it will be at the cost of great sufferings. I have chosen you to be the mother of souls; now it is by dint of suffering that a mother succeeds in making her children into persons of worth." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 5^[54]

"My love can never be measured"

The heart of Van's message is the measureless love of Christ, revealed to a soul that knows itself poor and fragile:

"Little child of my love. My love can never be measured." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 40^[55]

To Van, discouraged by his weaknesses, Jesus answers in the exact line of Therese:

"Little brother, always remember that you are a truly poor and needy soul. Do not be troubled by your weaknesses, as your sister Therese has told you and as I myself have told you several times. It is in knowing your nothingness that your confidence in me will become truly firm." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 652^[56]

The confidence that disarms hell

The central theme of the Colloquies is confidence — the same confidence Therese asked for, and that Saint Faustina would ask for at the same time.^[57] Jesus goes so far as to speak with startling boldness about the power of this confidence:

"Pray that great numbers of men may be animated by unshakable confidence in my love. If, in a sinner, I still find the word confidence, that sinner already belongs to me." — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 35^[58]

These pages, however, preach no false assurance. The Christ of the Colloquies himself warns that such words must not be spread without discernment, "lest certain souls, knowing this, harden themselves in evil".^[59] Van's confidence abolishes neither the reality of sin nor that of hell: it proclaims that nothing offends Love "except the lack of confidence in [that] Love", and that God does not easily resign himself to the loss of a soul.^[60] It is Christian hope carried to incandescence, not naive universalism.

Praying for priests and suffering with joy

Faithful to the mission he received, Van made prayer for priests and the offering of suffering the fabric of his days. His interior rule is contained in a sentence whispered to him from heaven:

"That is everything, little brother: continue to accept suffering with patience. That is what it means to love; why worry?" — Jesus to Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 655^[61]

And his own prayer, addressed to Mary, summarizes his program of holiness:

"O Mother, I love you; give me the grace to suffer with joy." — Marcel Van to the Virgin Mary, Colloquies, col. 695^[62]

Van's vocation joins the great Catholic tradition of victim souls: believers who, following Christ, offer their sufferings in union with the Cross for the salvation of others.^[63] Van offered himself for his Vietnamese compatriots, for priests, for France, for the whole Church. As early as April 1946, he offered in advance a death "in suffering" so as to be accepted "as a victim of Merciful Love":

"I know that I am a little victim offered to your Love and that, to die consumed in Love, I shall have to die in suffering. I am not afraid to suffer, for if I die in suffering, I shall have the certainty that you have accepted me as a victim of Merciful Love, following the example of my sister, little Therese…" — Marcel Van to Jesus, Colloquies, col. 525 (April 1946)^[64]

Van shares this theology of offering with other figures in the same Ignispedia series — it appears in Servant of God Jacques Fesch, who offered his death in prison — and it is developed in the Ignispedia article on victim souls. In Van, it takes on a thoroughly Theresian color: not suffering sought for its own sake, but unavoidable suffering changed into love and joy.

The choice to remain in the North (1954)

After the French defeat at Điện Biên Phủ and the Geneva Accords of 1954, Vietnam was divided in two: a Communist North and a non-Communist South. The Redemptorists in the South could have kept Van safe; but on 14 September 1954, Van returned north — to Hanoi — on "the last plane connecting the South to the North".^[65] This deliberate return to the most perilous zone was an act of fidelity to his mission: to remain with his compatriots, at the risk of everything.

Sentenced to fifteen years

In Hanoi, Van was soon arrested by the Communist regime, on 7 May 1955.^[66] In May 1956, he was tried and sentenced to fifteen years of reeducation; according to biographical notices, his refusal to deny his faith and denounce his superiors weighed heavily in the sentence.^[67][68] Thus began the long ordeal of the North Vietnamese camps.

The "pastor" of the Yên Bình camp

According to biographical notices, Brother Marcel was transferred in August 1957 to camp no. 2 at Yên Bình, about 150 kilometers northwest of Hanoi, in Yên Bái province — a point to be cross-checked against the camp register or a fellow prisoner's testimony.^[69][70] Exhausted, hungry and ill, he nevertheless continued to radiate. Witnesses describe a man "radiant with faith, peace and joy", who comforted his fellow prisoners, shared the little he had and prayed without ceasing.^[71] Aleteia would present him as "the inspiring pastor of a reeducation camp".^[72] The grace of Christmas 1940 — changing suffering into joy — finds here its ultimate verification, in the most extreme conditions.

Death, 10 July 1959

According to those same notices, worn down by tuberculosis, beriberi and exhaustion, Brother Marcel Van died on 10 July 1959 — a date confirmed by the chronology of the Complete Works —, at thirty-one.^[73][74][75] His body is said to rest today beneath the waters of the Thác Bà reservoir, in Yên Bái province, the area having later been flooded: here again, only the English-language notice affirms this.^[76] Faithful to what he wrote as early as April 1946, he died offering his suffering out of love.^[77]

Four volumes of Complete Works

Van's posterity rests on his writings, which long remained little known. After returning to Canada in 1964, Father Boucher devoted much of the rest of his life to translating and establishing the brother's Vietnamese manuscripts.^[78] These texts now form the Complete Works in four volumes, published by Amis de Van Editions:

• the Autobiography, written at the request of the master of novices;
• the Colloquies with Jesus, Mary and Therese — the present edition of which is prefaced by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, archbishop emeritus of Vienna;
• the Correspondence (letters to his director, his sister, his superiors and friends);
• a volume of other writings (poems, letters to Jesus).^[79][80]

These works have been translated into many languages — French, English, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, German, Croatian and Russian.^[81]

"Les Amis de Van"

The spread of his message is now carried by the association "Les Amis de Van" (Amis de Van Editions, Versailles), which works to make his spirituality known and to support his cause.^[82] Through it, a brother who died in the anonymity of a Communist camp has become a figure read and prayed to on several continents.

Servant of God since 1997

The diocesan inquiry into Marcel Van's life and virtues was opened on 26 March 1997, in the diocese of Belley-Ars, France — the diocese of the holy Curé of Ars —, "as Confessor of the faith", the actor of the cause being the association Les Amis de Van.^[83] Biographical notices give Venerable Cardinal François-Xavier Nguyễn Văn Thuận (1928-2002) as the first postulator of the cause, himself a figure of spiritual resistance to Communist persecution in Vietnam.^[84] Marcel Van thus received the title Servant of God, the first step on the path that can lead to beatification.

Precision matters here, because confusion is common: Marcel Van is currently Servant of God. He is neither "Venerable", nor "Blessed", nor "Saint". Recognition of the heroicity of his virtues (which would make him Venerable), then of a miracle (for beatification), remains to come. His case brings together two traditions — that of the mystic and that of the confessor of the faith who died in detention for fidelity to the Church.^[85]

Cardinal Schönborn's judgment

The theologian who has done most to make Van known is Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Dominican and archbishop emeritus of Vienna, who prefaced his Colloquies. His judgment, formulated by one of the major contemporary theologians, sets aside the easy objection — that of a mere overflow of popular piety:

"The message the little Van transmits to us has a theological and spiritual exactness that far surpasses his own intellectual knowledge." — Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, preface to the Colloquies^[86]

Schönborn signed this preface at Bayeux, on 10 July 2001, the 42nd anniversary of Van's death — a sign of a prince of the Church's personal attachment to this little Vietnamese brother.^[87]

Marcel Van is now hailed as "the little brother of Therese" and "the little apostle of love". His witness extends, in twentieth-century Asia, the "Little Way" of Lisieux: holiness offered to the smallest, made of confidence, humility and love in the most ordinary things. He also belongs to the line of martyrs of faith under atheist regimes, of which the history of the Church in Vietnam offers so many examples.

He himself situated his mission in eternity more than in time, with his characteristic humility:

"O Mary, my mission is to be the apostle of souls, and the particular apostle of children... But my modest condition as a Brother in the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer does not allow me to fulfill this mission immediately. Only later, in heaven, will I be able to fulfill it perfectly." — Marcel Van, Colloquies, col. 347^[88]

A beaten child-servant, rejected seminarian, brother without rank, prisoner who died of hunger and fever: nothing in Van's life looks like a career. And yet, from this broken life, heaven made, in Schönborn's words, a message of rare exactness — living proof that no suffering offered in love is lost.

• Read Servant of God Jacques Fesch, Venerable Jérôme Lejeune, Venerable Marthe Robin and Servant of God Léonie Martin: other figures in the same Ignispedia series of venerables and servants of God.
• Go deeper into the spirituality of offering with the Ignispedia article on victim souls, which clarifies the meaning of the "death consumed by love" claimed by Marcel Van.
• Situate his life within the history of the Church in Vietnam and its persecution.
• Remember the essential point: Marcel Van (1928-1959), a Vietnamese Redemptorist brother, endured a childhood of poverty and mistreatment before receiving at Christmas 1940 the grace of "changing suffering into joy". Guided by Saint Therese of Lisieux, who taught him her "Little Way", he became in Hanoi the "little apostle of love" and, under the direction of Father Antonio Boucher, wrote hundreds of sheets of mystical colloquies with Jesus, Mary and Therese. Having remained in the North out of fidelity, arrested in 1955 and then sentenced to fifteen years of reeducation in 1956, he died of exhaustion on 10 July 1959 at the age of thirty-one, after radiating peace even in his camp. His cause of beatification has been open since 1997: he is Servant of God.