Brother Marcel Van: a "star has risen in the East"

Summary:

Van was born into a devout Catholic family in the north of Vietnam on March 15, 1928. As a child, he was cheerful and determined, but also very mischievous. At the age of 6, he made his First Communion. Filled with happiness, he confided to his mother his desire to become a priest.

She took him to a parish where the priest took in young boys to train them for the priesthood. But during this training period, Van came up against the malice of the older boys, assigned to be "catechists" to the younger ones, who cruelly mistreated him. Not only was he beaten with a cane, but he was brought before a "people's tribunal" where he was humiliated and made to feel guilty for receiving communion every day. The tyranny of the catechists went so far as to confiscate his rosary, as well as the substitutes Van had invented by tying ten knots in his belt or passing ten beans from one pocket to another.

The winter of 1940-1941 was particularly hard: Van, abandoned by everyone, even his family, remained faithful... Christmas was approaching and, during a confession, the priest said to him: "You can believe that if God has sent you the cross, it is a sign that he has chosen you." During midnight mass, after receiving communion, Van, filled with happiness, realised that God had entrusted him with the mission of "turning suffering into happiness." 

Van had always wanted to become a saint, but it seemed beyond his reach, "because to be a saint, you have to do a lot of difficult and extraordinary things." He instead envisioned holiness in the manner of Saint Augustine, who wrote: "Love and do what you want".

Van decided to read the life of a saint. He put all the books in the library on a table, closed his eyes and asked Mary to guide his hand to the right one. What a disappointment: he had picked St Therese of Lisieux' The Story of a Soul. Van was tempted to try again, but he had promised Mary that he would read the book he had randomly chosen! After two pages, he was crying tears of joy: he recognized his most secret thoughts on those pages written by a great saint. So he chose Saint Therese (d. 1897) as his spiritual sister. A few days later, she appeared to him and spoke to him at length. She told him that God had entrusted her to look after Van, that he was a "Father who only knows how to love and who wants to be loved".

Since childhood, Van had lived and existed only to be a priest. One day, Saint Therese told him that Jesus was not calling him to be a priest, but that his vocation was to be a "hidden apostle of love". Guided by Mary, he joined the Redemptorists.

Father Antonio Boucher, Van's spiritual father, asked him to write down his life and the conversations he had with Jesus, Mary and Therese. Father Boucher copied all Van's letters before he sent them (later published under the title of Correspondence). The writings of this little Redemptorist brother, penned a simple and direct style, open up a sometimes prophetic theological reflection, and reveal to us his great freedom of language with God.

In 1954, Vietnam was split in two. The North was communist. Van asked to return there, "so that there would be someone praying in the midst of the communists". and so on September 14, 1954, he traveled to Hanoi. On May 7, 1955, he was arrested and taken to a re-education camp. From prison, he was able to write a few words, at least in the early years.

The little Redeemer with Jesus that Van had always wanted to be died of exhaustion and illness in an internment camp at noon on July 10, 1959. He had obtained the final grace of dying in the presence of a priest. One day, he had written: "Love cannot die".

Beyond reasons to believe:

Van's wrote of himself:

• God has given me a mission: to change suffering into happiness. I don't get rid of suffering, but I change it into happiness.
• I don't look near or far; I only look at the One my heart loves.
• I am always joyful because I love.

In his preface to Other Writings, Cardinal Ouellet said: "I believe that Marcel Van's writings form a coherent whole that is a witness and a teaching not just for 'little souls'; it is a true ecclesial mission in the sense of a charism intended to build up the community, particularly in the sense of revitalising prayer, shedding light on the painful experience of love and raising the hope of young people. What can we conclude except that a star has risen in the East that belongs to a specific constellation in the Catholic firmament and that offers the Magi of East and West a light that leads to the Messiah of the Nations." 

Going further:

Autobiography, by Marcel Van (Amis de Van Editions; January 1, 2017)

More information:

• Article Marcel Van & the Little Way for Dummies
• Article Footsteps of Thérèse: Brother Marcel Van
• Article Marcel Van: The Littlest Redemptorist
• Marcel Van Association website
• Movie "Marcel Van - Turning Suffering into Joy… The Life of Marcel Van, a Redemptorist Brother" (Amis de Van/ Perles d'Histoire, 2018)