SAINT HERNERES MINH, Bishop, OP

Saint Dominic HENARES MINH (XUÂN)

Dominican Bishop

(1765-1838)

 

* Prayer and Dream.

 

“Most gentle Jesus and father of my heart, through the Holy Passion and the intercession and work of Our Lady, please show compassion to my uncle, Bishop Dominic. Please keep him from evils, increase his love of God, and help him loyally serve God forever. And if needed to honor and glorify God’s name, give him the grace to shed blood and to sacrifice his life for God’s love to give witness to faith. Amen.”[1] (www.gpnt.net/diendan/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote...)

 

That was a prayer that Bishop Henares Minh had composed from the evangelization land of Vietnam for his five-year-old niece who recited it daily even though she knew very little about her uncle. When asked about her bishop uncle, she could only reply: “My uncle’s name is Dominic, of the Dominican Order. He is evangelizing at a far, very far place where people are killing Christians.” And God had answered the prayers of the uncle and niece from those distant places.

 

* Answering the Call of Evangelization.

 

Dominic Henares Minh was born on 12/19/1765 in the village of Baoena of the diocese of Cordoba, Spain. A few years later his family relocated to Granada where he grew up and attended schools. Inherited the spirituality from his mother, Henares developed into a virtuous person and became a model that other parents used to show their children. At 16, Henares joined the Dominican Order in Granada, but did not receive the religious habits until 8/30/1783 at Guadix monastery. The following year, he professed solemn vows and started philosophy study. Henares was an outstanding student since the very first semester, so when he asked his superiors at the end of the year to let him transfer to the Holy Rosary Province to train for missionary work in Vietnam, they let him go with reluctance. Henares recognized God’s call through urgent exhortation of Bishop Obelar Khâm, bishop of the vicariate of East Tonkin (North), who had not received any missionary in 15 years.

 

Together with a group of young religious led by the religious Delgado, Henares embarked on a journey to the Philippines. Hence the lives of Delgado and Henares were bound together. After more than a year traversing the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, on 7/9/1786 the group docked at Manila where Henares continued his theology formation while teaching Literature at Santo Tomas. On 9/20/1789 Henares was ordained a priest and sent to North Vietnam. When his ship reached Macao, Fr. Henares again linked up with Fr. Delgado who had started his journey a year earlier without reaching Vietnam. Nevertheless, together with two other missionaries, Fr. Vidal and Fr. Gatillepa, on 10/29/1790 the four missionaries arrived at the vicariate of East Tonkin where remained only three old missionaries.

 

Fr. Henares, at 25, took on the Vietnamese name Minh and quickly learned the Vietnamese language. After 6 months in Vietnam, he was given responsibility of directing Tiên Chu Seminary where for many years he taught Latin and helped seminarians grow in virtues. In 1798, amidst King Cảnh Thịnh’s persecution, he was named the superior of the Dominican Order in Vietnam. The following year, after Bishop Alonzo Phê passed away and succeeded by Bishop Delgado Y, Fr. Henares Minh was named vicar of the diocese. On 9/91800 Pope Pius VII assigned him titular bishop of Fez and Coadjutor bishop assisting Bishop Delgado Y. However, due to difficult conditions in Vietnam, the apostolic letter of appointment did not reach Vietnam until two years later.

 

* The Benevolent Shepherd.

 

On 1/9/1803 was a day of festivity of the entire vicariate of East Tonkin. Foreign missionaries, more than 30 Vietnamese priests, and tens of thousands of lay Catholics poured into Phú Nhai to participate in the consecration of the Coadjutor bishop Henares Minh, commencing a 20-year-long period of peace. Together the two bishops, Delgado Y and Henares Minh, also called the “twin” by some, who had the same dreams, trained at the same institution, and arrived in Vietnam at the same time... began to lead the diocese to its most prosperous period. They took turn going to the smallest parish; Bishop Henares Minh often chose to visit the more remote parishes, especially those in the city of Kinh Bắc, an isolated and primitive place where Bishop Alonzo Phê had succumbed to malaria.

 

Fr. Hermosilla Vọng had written about Bishop Henares Minh as followed:

 

“He was a leader with an austere live, a dedicated shepherd who was never tired of salvation of souls, and a person in thirst of martyrdom. He was always ready to go wherever his service was needed even in the dark of night. His piety was marvelous as shown in his nonstop meditations and his frequent researches on the patriarchs of the Church. He led the live of poverty as prescribed in the Gospels, and like a gentle father, he was generous to the most destitute. Those were the main virtues that he wanted to demonstrate.”

 

With humility and charity, Bishop Henares Minh was austere with himself but generous to others. He often made his own clothes and mended old ones to give to the poor. Even with the limited medical knowledge, he was the benefactor of many sick persons. He always carried a box of medicine with him wherever he went to give to the sick. At times a person with an incurable illness was cured, the bishop‘s prayers and blessing was more often credited than medicine.

 

* If The Time Was Not Right...

 

The bishop’s life was once saved by his own sack of charitable medicine. He was visiting the community of Thượng Hộ in the city of Sơn Nam Hạ when he was kidnapped in the thick of night by a gang of robbers who were trying to extract ransom money. As they took the bishop into the forest, the person holding the box of medicine tripped and fell spilling the contents of the box, including some metallic tools that reflected light in the night. As the robbers fought over twinkling metals that they mistook for gold pieces, the bishop sneaked away and hid in a dense brush nearby until dawn when the robbers ran away as parishioners sounded alerts and went searching for him.

The governor of Hà Nội, Mr. Nguyễn Văn Thành, wanted to set up a public discussion on religions. Bishop Henares Minh together with Bishop Longer Gia of the vicariate of West Tonkin agreed to be panelists with the topic: “No person can force practices of superstition on Catholics.” However, the governor did not agree with that subject of discussion, the discussion was scuttled, causing Bishop Henares Minh to say: “As long as there is a lack of light from Heaven, any amount of discussions would be futile.”

 

A few years after King Minh Mạng was enthroned, many rebellions were started in the North: Lê Duy Lương, Nùng Văn Vân..., and particularly in the provinces of Nam Định and Hải Dương, Phan Bá Vành. In general, Northerners still longed for the Lê dynasty not the Nguyễn, even King Gia Long had to use the deception of supporting the Lê to unify the country. At the time, the influence of the Phan Bá Vành insurgency was spreading so fast that in 1826 King Minh Mạng had to send Viceroy Lê Văn Duyệt and Nguyễn Công Trứ to crush the rebellion. The Phan Bá Vành insurgents retreated to the village of Trà Lũ where they held on for three months until they were all captured. This victory had the contributions of more than 300 Catholics, however, among those arrested there were also some Catholics, and they testified that they knew Bishop Henares Minh, 10 Vietnamese religious priests; Henceforth, the bishop was blacklisted by the king.

On 5/13/1827 the governor of Nam Định led 800 soldiers along with battle elephants to Trà Lũ to arrest the bishop, but the bishop was able to escape. Even though he really desired to spill his blood to bear witness to God’s love, the bishop often confided that martyrdom was a great honor which nobody should be careless with outside God’s will. Following the raid was 10 years of service, often more perilous and secret, by the bishop; but in general, the diocese of East Tonkin was relatively calm until the discovery on April of 1838 of the six letters of Fr. Viên addressed to the two bishops and four priests made their presence known to the king. The King censured Governor Trịnh Quang Khanh severely and ordered a reinforcement of 2000 soldiers from the royal capital in a campaign to arrest all the clerics. Bishop Henares Minh and the catechist Chiểu had to leave Tiên Chu village to take refuge in Kiên Lao, close to the hiding place of Bishop Delgado Y and two other missionaries. On May 28, 1838, when Bishop Delgado Y was arrested, Bishop Henares Minh was hiding in Mrs. Tư’s home pretending to deshell rice on a grinder; each time soldiers walked past, Mrs. Tư shielded the bishop’s face with a screen.

 

* The Sentenced Must Be Revised.

 

That night, Bishop Henares Minh left Mrs. Tư’s home for the village of Trung Thành, then on to Quần Anh and finally Xương Điền. Noticing that royal soldiers were still following them, the bishop and the catechist Chiểu boarded a boat and sailed for the sea. A pagan fisherman told other Christians: “Look at that boat sailing against the wind, I think that a missionary is aimlessly fleeing the persecution. You try to bring him here, I will arrange sanctuary and hide him.” Trusting the fisherman, Christians sailed out to convince the bishop to come ashore. Unfortunately, the deceitful fisherman then went to the authorities that came to arrest the bishop and the catechist Chiểu at his house.

 

The mandarin of Xuân Trường prefecture treated the bishop with respect, but fearful of the king, the mandarin had a cage built and sent him to the provincial capital of Nam Định on June 11, 1838. Many times at the governor’s residence, the two cages holding Bishop Henares Ming and Bishop Y was placed next to each other and the two were able to converse in Spanish. Nobody knew what the two were talking about, but the consolation they felt had to be overwhelming because of the circumstance and their friendship. Close to half a century working side-by-side serving Christians, they were now next to each other on their road to Heaven. The joy on their faces was evident.

 

When the justice mandarin demanded his signature on the sentence, Bishop Henares Minh requested his sentence read aloud before he signed. When he heard the words “perverse religion,” he interrupted: “I request that Your Honor change those words to the faith of God of Heaven and Earth.” The mandarin agreed. Then as the reading came to: “... defraud naive people,” the bishop again interrupted: “Not true, we do not defraud anyone. We came here only to preach a just religion.” The bishop refused to sign until his objections were corrected. The death sentence was sent to the royal court for approval. On June 25, 1838, the sentence came back to Nam Định with the royal approval and the bishop was scheduled to be executed the following day.

 

* The Last Witness.

 

A number of Catholic soldiers, who had practiced their faith in secret, used bribery to have the honor to carry the bishop’s cage. Before departing for the place of execution, many soldiers, who due to weakness had trampled on the cross, knelt before the cage asking the bishop to pray and forgive them. The bishop counseled and helped them preparing their contrition. On the road to the execution site, the cheerful Bishop Henares Minh quietly prayed in the cage while blessing the crowd grieving for him by the sides of the road. Following the cage was the catechist Chiểu carrying a yoke and five soldiers who refused to walk over the cross. However, half way to execution site, the five soldiers were taken back to jail; among them were three men, Augustine Huy, Nicholas Thể and Dominic Đạt were executed at a later date[2] (www.gpnt.net/diendan/newreply.php?do=newreply&noquote...).

 

At the place of execution, wishing to witness the martyrdom of his beloved disciple, the catechist Francis Chiểu, Bishop Henares Minh asked the mandarin to execute the catechist first. As agreed to by the commanding mandarin, the executioner cut the catechist’s head and handed it to the bishop who received the head then looked toward the heaven to pray. As his turn came, he bowed his head allowing the executioner an easy cut. It was June 26, 1838, the day God called Bishop Henares Minh home to receive the palm of martyrdom ending his 73 years on earth with 18 years serving in Vietnam and 38 years as bishop.

 

The bishop’s remains was buried at the execution site then brought back to Lục Thuỷ parish a month later. The bishop’s head was hung at the city gate for three days then thrown into Nị Hoàng River; it was found a few days later by a fisherman and buried together with the body. After the persecution ended, his relics were moved to the chancery of Bùi Chu.

Pope Leo XIII beatified Bishop Henares Minh on May 27, 1900

Done