Today, November 24, is the memorial of Saint Andrew Dung-Lac & Companion-Martyrs of Vietnam.
Andrew was born Trần An Dũng in 1795 to pagan parents. He got his Christian name during baptism and learned Chinese and Latin. Before becoming a priest in 1823, he was a catechist.
He was known as a tireless preacher and practiced fasting often. He was one of the many Christians in Vietnam, both religious and lay persons, who fell victims to the anti-Christian persecutions initiated by Emperor Minh-Mang.
The emperor commanded these Christians to renounce their faith, ordered churches to be destroyed and catechism to be forbidden, and expelled and even killed foreign missionaries.
In 1839, Andrew himself was beheaded before Christmas Day. He was not the last to be martyred. More groups of Christians in Vietnam were killed throughout the peninsula between 1625 and 1886.
For not denying their faith, these martyrs were subjected to the worst tortures and deaths in the history of Christian martyrdom: beheading, hacking off of limbs, ripping human flesh with red-hot tongs, suffocation, burning alive, mutilations, and various unspeakable horrors.
Among these martyrs was Saint Théophane Vénard, who was the inspiration of Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus to volunteer for the Carmelite missions in Hanoi, Vietnam.
The members of this group were beatified on four different occasions between 1900 and 1951.
Andrew Dung-Lac and the martyrs of Vietnam were all canonized together by Pope Saint John Paul II in 1988 in Rome.