How can a life of great suffering produce a man of great joy? Van Thuan told us how, leaving 10 rules of life he lived by \u2014 rules that can be incarnated in every Christian life, just like they were in the life of Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton.<\/p>\n
Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was a member of the Vatican curia as the third millennium began. \u201cHe was almost always smiling or laughing, but never in a superficial or happy-go-lucky way,\u201d said Kishore Jayabalan, who worked with him, in the Registro Cat\u00f3lico Nacional<\/em>. \u201cYou could tell his joy came through his suffering and identification with Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n Behind the smile were a dozen years as a prisoner in communist Vietnam \u2014 more than two thirds of that time in solitary confinement. He died in Rome at age 74 in 2002, and his cause for canonization began soon after. He was declared venerable by Pope Francis in 2017.<\/p>\n Van Thuan\u2019s rules began with the Catholic community that nurtured him.<\/strong><\/p>\n When he was born as the eldest child to his parents in Hue, Vietnam, on April 17, 1928, Francis Xavier represented the fourteenth Catholic generation of the Thuan family. His family was not insignificant: His uncle was Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of South Vietnam.<\/p>\n He started at a young age on the path to the priesthood, becoming ordained at age 25 in 1953, and then entered the fast track to the episcopacy, earning a canon law doctorate from the Gregorian in Rome before returning to Nha Trang seminary as a faculty member, then rector.<\/p>\n The Viet Cong assassinated his uncle in 1963, and Communist extremism was at its height when he was made bishop of Nha Trang in 1967.<\/p>\n As a young bishop, Van Thuan had attended the Second Vatican Council and met another young bishop, Karol Wojtyla from Poland, the future Pope John Paul II, who warned him about the ways of Communist opponents.<\/p>\n Van Thuan had the opportunity to put that advice in action in 1975. Pope Paul VI named Van Thuan the new leader of the Church in Saigon. Soon, he was arrested and taken to a prison at Cay Vong, 250 miles away from his cathedral.<\/p>\n The rules became especially important when the young bishop was taken to prison. <\/strong><\/p>\n En route, the cardinal made a decision not to waste his years in prison, and he prayed to God to show him the way.<\/p>\n God made it clear to Bishop Van Thuan that the gold standard for not wasting your time in prison was St. Paul, who wrote four New Testament epistles while incarcerated.<\/p>\n Van Thuan began following in the Apostle\u2019s footsteps by ripping pages from his calendar and penciling thoughts in Italian on the back. He tossed his thoughts to children playing near the prison, who brought them to local Catholics. They responded by sending food to the cardinal, wrapped in banned Vatican \u201cpropaganda\u201d: L\u2019Osservatore Romano, <\/em>the Vatican newspaper.<\/p>\n Eventually, when Van Thuan asked for wine and crackers to help his stomach, his Catholic benefactors knew what he was after, and provided what he needed to say daily Mass in his cell. He would use his hand as a chalice and cigarette wrappers as a tabernacle for consecrated hosts.<\/p>\n His prison ministry was hugely successful: Van Thuan converted prison guards with such regularity that authorities began to rotate personnel regularly to limit contact.<\/p>\n The messages Van Thuan wrote were printed into a book, The Road to Hope, <\/em>which was distributed worldwide while he was still in prison. A second book written in prison, Prayers of Hope, <\/em>is mentioned in Pope Benedict XVI\u2019s encyclical, Spe Salvi. <\/em><\/p>\n The lessons Van Thuan learned are timeless, and applicable to every Christian\u2019s life.<\/strong><\/p>\n In prison, Van Thuan developed 10 \u201crules of life\u201d that can transform anyone\u2019s life. Here they are, with elaboration from the life of Elizabeth Ann Seton.<\/p>\n \u201cI will live the present moment to the fullest.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n This is great advice that is hard to consistently put into practice. But St. Elizabeth Ann said that for her, living each moment to the full was a matter of applying a principle we all already know. We all know that God is everywhere, filling all things, governing all things. What we need to remember, then, Elizabeth said, is that we live in him. <\/em>She wrote: \u201cHe is more intimately present to us than we are to ourselves, and whatever we do is done in him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will discern between God and God\u2019s works.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann\u2019s advice in this regard is: Read the Bible. Her Bible reading habit started in lay life and lasted to the end of her life. She wrote in her Scripture notes: \u201cOh my God! \u2026 From break of day, I seek thee, till the dead of night. All is solitary where thou are not, and where thou art is fullness of joy.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI will hold firmly to one secret: prayer.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cSecret\u201d prayer was a special charism of Elizabeth Seton, too. She tried to \u201cmake my very breathing a continual thanksgiving,\u201d and counseled that simply repeating \u201cJesus Jesus Jesus Jesus Jesus\u201d as a prayer was sustaining.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cI will see in the holy Eucharist my only power.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Mother Seton agreed, and so regularly visited the Blessed Sacrament. \u201cI sit or stand opposite his tabernacle all day,” she said, “and keep the heart to it as the needle to the pole.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will have only one wisdom: the science of the cross.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann Seton\u2019s story of lifelong loss helped her learn that simply putting one foot in front of another in painful times is enough. \u201cIt is the cross which carries us,\u201d she said. \u201cThe weakest become strong by its virtue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI will seek the peace the world cannot give.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n St. Elizabeth Ann found the peace the world wouldn\u2019t give by seeking it in fidelity,<\/em> not success.<\/em><\/p>\n \u201cIf it succeeds, I bless God. If it does not succeed \u2026 I bless God, because then it will be right that it should not succeed.\u201d<\/p>\n Two of Van Thuan\u2019s rules were: \u201cI will speak one language and wear one uniform: charity;\u201d and \u201cI will have one very special love: the Blessed Virgin Mary.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n Elizabeth might have seen these two as one.<\/p>\n She called Mary \u201cthe first Sister of Charity on earth\u201d and said she lived her life \u201cto honor by imitation her life as a model for all conditions of life, her poverty, humility, purity, love and sufferings.\u201d<\/p>\n Two final Van Thuan rules are: \u201cI will carry out a revolution by renewal in the Holy Spirit;\u201d<\/em> y \u201cI will remain faithful to my mission in the Church and for the Church as a witness of Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n What Cardinal Van Thuan teaches us is that the key to a faithful Christian life is living your state in life regardless of your circumstances. Elizabeth Ann Seton did that again and again, from childhood to married life, and as foundress of the Sisters of Charity of St. Joseph\u2019s to her deathbed.<\/p>\n So, learn from this humble Vatican cardinal.<\/strong><\/p>\n His life had been shaped by pain and sacrifice, but he joked and laughed. What was said of him could be said of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton and every Christian: Suffering, in Christ, is transformed into joy.<\/p>\n TOM HOOPES<\/strong>,\u00a0autor m\u00e1s reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitri\u00f3n de La extraordinaria Stor<\/a>y podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco<\/a> ya est\u00e1 disponible en Audible<\/a>. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comit\u00e9 de Medios y Arbitrios de la C\u00e1mara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pas\u00f3 10 a\u00f1os como editor del peri\u00f3dico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.<\/em><\/p>\n