Sai Gon, 6-19-14
(English Gateway)—It
seems that the Vietnamese Province in deep solidarity with its country and
people in these turbulent days has suffered heartbreaking losses.
Early in the morning on June 2, 2014, Friar James Vu Van Hanh
was killed in a car accident in Thailand.
His and the bodies of 11 companion passengers were burned beyond recognition. It took weeks to have DNA test before
bringing him home in Viet Nam for burial this Saturday, June 21, 2014. James is 42.
Late in the afternoon on June 14, 2014, Friar Dominic Hoang
Binh Thuan passed away in Saint Martin de Porres Priory, Dong Nai Province,
Viet Nam. Friar Dominic was born in 1914
and will turn 100 this August 13.
The elder friar will be remembered as the eye witness to the
ups and downs of both the Province and the Country throughout so long a
journey. Not only has the authenticity
of his stories about the pioneers in the building of the Province kept providing
us with a living connection to our Dominican heritage, his youthful and
hardworking life to the last days among his younger brothers surely inspires us
with how to put into real and simple practice the Dominican tradition of “vitam communem unanimiter agentes, in
professione consiliorum evangelicorum fideles, in communi celebratione
liturgiae praesertim vero Eucharistiae et officii divini atque orationis
ferventes, in studio assidui, in
regulari observantia perseverantes” (living up in one accord to community
life, loyal to the profession of evangelical vows, burning with eagerness for
the liturgy, in the first place for the Eucharist, the Divine Office, and
prayer, industrious in study, persevering in observing religious discipline.)[2]
Friar Dominic on his wheelchair
Besides his being all the times with us, even on his
wheelchair, in the chapel, in the dining room, and in other celebrations, his
collection of some hundreds of valuable, rare and beautiful plants for which he
himself has worked hard with his own hands and mind and heart shows a proof,
convincing enough, of his love for his calling as a preacher of the Happy News
of Christ.[3]
A “Cay Sanh” tree stands proudly in Fr.
Dominic’s green garden with
a poem in praise of God the Creator
Visitors can find explanations and comments—totally
God-oriented—on the characteristics and utilities of the plants, which he made
in the form of scholarly poetry and attached to each and one of them. Is this not a new approach to proclaim the
glory of God in His creatures?
The younger friar, James, was sent to Thailand some three
years ago initially for the improving of his English before taking his theology
formation at the University of Santo Tomas in the Philippines. However, after spending a couple of months
paying closer consideration to how the Vietnamese overseas workers the majority
of whom left their home without any proper legal paper and job training yet
with huge sums of debt from “five-six people”[4]—up
to some ten thousand US dollars—to pay for a working permit suffer the hardship
in earning their living in the hands of both abusing employers and corrupt
local police, he changed his mind and decided to go pastoral—playing the good
shepherd—instead of academic—becoming a scholar.
On that fatal morning, he was on a pilgrimage trip with
hundreds of young Vietnamese workers when his bus and a truck collided head-on.
A prayer vigil for the victims in
Bangkok
“He would not have
died, if…”, some would say. But the
French wisdom reminds people of the ambiguity of the word “if”: “Avec un ‘si’
on peut mettre Paris dans une bouteille” (one can put Paris in a bottle with
just an “if”.)
Friar James, 42
Do not speak of supposition but of the reality that James
chose to side with the migrant workers, live with them, and finally die with
them.
And James died for his fellow countrymen having, while
treading unknown paths in a foreign soil, a compassionate pastor whose heart,
similar to that of Christ, “was moved with pity for them, for they were like
sheep without a shepherd.”[5]
