Autobiography

The inspirational life story of the Vietnamese Redemptorist Marcel Van, who was to die in a North Vietnamese prison-camp in 1959. The first steps towards his Beatification were begun in 1984. Born in 1928 into a modest family, against a background of endless personal trials, Marcel Van wished to become a priest. Therese of Lisieux chose him as her disciple par excellence of 'the little way'; "Van, my little brother, just as you consider me as a saint according to your own heart, in the same way also you are truly for me a soul entirely according to my own heart... Your vocation will always be that of the hidden Apostle of Love". If, because of poor health, Therese was unable to go to Hanoi, her heart remained in Vietnam - "the eldest daughter of the Church in the Far East" (Pius XI, 1933). Van was to give up his wish to become a priest and enter the Hanoi monastery as a humble Redemptorist brother; "Jesus confided an mission to me, that of turning suffering into joy ... My joy is to love and to be loved". Combining an extreme sensitivity with an inane but saint-like audacity, his life was spent in silence against a backcloth of political turmoin until his death in the prison-camp. Foreword by Mgr F.-X. NGUYEN VAN THUAN