Marcel Van
Marcel Van (March 15, 1928 – July 10, 1959), was a Vietnamese Redemptorist brother.
Marcel Van
Marcel Van
The Triumph of Love
by Catherine St-Pierre
St. Therese of the Little Flower revealed herself to Marcel Van and guided him in her Little Way of Love. His simple and solid faith was highlighted with submission to God's Providence during persecution and suffering.
This book convinces its readers that the fire of God's Charity burned in the life of this humble and courageous lay Redemptorist Brother.Amidst suffering, first in Hanoi, Vietnam, and consummated with his martyr's death at the age of 31 in a Communist concentration camp (July 10, 1959), Marcel Van's message of love still echoed: "Love cannot die, it goes on loving without any limitations of time. Oh, if I could only die of love! I have already made an act of total offering, and that act has been accepted...."
Forty-three years after the Communist victory in the Republic of Vietnam, Marcel Van is still a voice to raise our heart and mind to our suffering and faithful Saviour. Includes the messages given by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Marcel Van in 1946 regarding what she called "the Apostles of My reign." Though of a different and curious culture, the traditional Catholic faith of this lay brother transforms and overcomes differences in nationality.
Paperback,size 6.75" x 4.5", 192 pages, 20 photographs
The Triumph of Love
by Catherine St-Pierre
St. Therese of the Little Flower revealed herself to Marcel Van and guided him in her Little Way of Love. His simple and solid faith was highlighted with submission to God's Providence during persecution and suffering.
This book convinces its readers that the fire of God's Charity burned in the life of this humble and courageous lay Redemptorist Brother.Amidst suffering, first in Hanoi, Vietnam, and consummated with his martyr's death at the age of 31 in a Communist concentration camp (July 10, 1959), Marcel Van's message of love still echoed: "Love cannot die, it goes on loving without any limitations of time. Oh, if I could only die of love! I have already made an act of total offering, and that act has been accepted...."
Forty-three years after the Communist victory in the Republic of Vietnam, Marcel Van is still a voice to raise our heart and mind to our suffering and faithful Saviour. Includes the messages given by the Blessed Virgin Mary to Marcel Van in 1946 regarding what she called "the Apostles of My reign." Though of a different and curious culture, the traditional Catholic faith of this lay brother transforms and overcomes differences in nationality.
Paperback,size 6.75" x 4.5", 192 pages, 20 photographs
The Triumph of Love
Autobiography of Marcel Van
Autobiography of Marcel Van
by Br Marcel Van
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
Paperback, 357 pages
by Br Marcel Van
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
Paperback, 357 pages
Correspondence of Marcel Van
Correspondence of Marcel Van
by Br Marcel Van
JOACHIM NGUYEN TAN VAN was born on 15 March 1928 in the largely Catholic village of Ngam Giao in Tonkin in the north of Vietnam. On 16 October 1944, he was admitted to the Redemptorist monastery in Hanoi as a postulant lay brother at the age of 16. He took the habit and received the name of Brother Marcel. In July 1954 North Vietnam was taken over by the Communists. There was a mass exodus of Catholics to the South, including Brother Marcel's family. Brother Marcel pleaded with his superiors to be allowed to return to the North as he felt that there should be someone to love God amongst the Communists. His superior, albeit with a certain reluctance, granted his request. Brother Marcel was then arrested in Hanoi on a trumped-up charge on 7 May 1955. His refusal to confess to any crime resulted in a sentence of 15 years imprisonment. He died in a Communist prison in North Vietnam on 10 July 1959, aged 31. Brother Marcel Van wrote many letters. Over 300 were kept or garnered by his novice-master, and then spiritual director, Father Antonio Boucher and translated by him from Vietnamese into French. They provide a cornucopia of insights, experiences and examples of 'the little way of spirituality', first expounded to Marcel by his 'big sister', St Therese, against the backdrop of his daily life in the monastery, as he fulfilled his mission of 'changing suffering into joy'. These letters are now published for the first time in English. Marcel Van's little sister (Sr Anne Marie T, OSsR) remarked: 'The language that Van uses in his letters is, at the same time, simple, frank, warm, friendly, respectful and very realistic.' This springs from the depth in which he lives in the company of his habitual and invisible hosts: Jesus, Mary, Therese and also, without any doubt, with his brothers and sisters, the saints of the heavenly court. It is close to this hearth of light, of wisdom and of strength that Van draws what is appropriate for each of his correspondents, 'as a good and faithful servant of the Gospel who apportions to each one his measure of wheat'.
Paperback, 553 pages
by Br Marcel Van
JOACHIM NGUYEN TAN VAN was born on 15 March 1928 in the largely Catholic village of Ngam Giao in Tonkin in the north of Vietnam. On 16 October 1944, he was admitted to the Redemptorist monastery in Hanoi as a postulant lay brother at the age of 16. He took the habit and received the name of Brother Marcel. In July 1954 North Vietnam was taken over by the Communists. There was a mass exodus of Catholics to the South, including Brother Marcel's family. Brother Marcel pleaded with his superiors to be allowed to return to the North as he felt that there should be someone to love God amongst the Communists. His superior, albeit with a certain reluctance, granted his request. Brother Marcel was then arrested in Hanoi on a trumped-up charge on 7 May 1955. His refusal to confess to any crime resulted in a sentence of 15 years imprisonment. He died in a Communist prison in North Vietnam on 10 July 1959, aged 31. Brother Marcel Van wrote many letters. Over 300 were kept or garnered by his novice-master, and then spiritual director, Father Antonio Boucher and translated by him from Vietnamese into French. They provide a cornucopia of insights, experiences and examples of 'the little way of spirituality', first expounded to Marcel by his 'big sister', St Therese, against the backdrop of his daily life in the monastery, as he fulfilled his mission of 'changing suffering into joy'. These letters are now published for the first time in English. Marcel Van's little sister (Sr Anne Marie T, OSsR) remarked: 'The language that Van uses in his letters is, at the same time, simple, frank, warm, friendly, respectful and very realistic.' This springs from the depth in which he lives in the company of his habitual and invisible hosts: Jesus, Mary, Therese and also, without any doubt, with his brothers and sisters, the saints of the heavenly court. It is close to this hearth of light, of wisdom and of strength that Van draws what is appropriate for each of his correspondents, 'as a good and faithful servant of the Gospel who apportions to each one his measure of wheat'.
Paperback, 553 pages
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