The shores of the Gulf of Tonkin in northern Vietnam contain the sites of martyrdom of 22 canonized Dominican friars who laid down their lives between 1745 and 1861. These men—11 from Spain and 11 from Vietnam—are among the most recent of the Order’s canonized saints to have lived and died. One of the youngest of these martyrs, Saint Valentine Berrio-Ochoa, offers to people today an attractive example of accepting responsibility and hardship with prayerful trust and panache.
Born on Valentine’s Day 1827 a native of Ellorio in Spain’s Basque Country, St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa was ordained a priest in 1851, clothed in the Dominican habit in 1853, and sent to the Philippines and then to Vietnam in 1858 amid the brutal anti-Catholic persecution of Emperor Tự Đức. With the Catholic mission in a precarious state, St. Valentine was consecrated a bishop almost immediately upon his arrival. A month later, his predecessor as vicar apostolic was captured and executed by dismemberment, only a year after his predecessor was beheaded. Saint Valentine spent the next three years as bishop living in muddy caves and the cellars of Catholic homes; from these hideouts, he secretly trained seminarians, governed his vicariate through letters, and administered the sacraments to the faithful.
Amid the dangers and sorrows of persecution, St. Valentine retained a cheerful flair that shines through in the letters that he wrote to his dear mother. With playful, almost boyish charm, he wrote to her in one of his letters that it delighted him to hear “that you are now a spirited elderly lady, and that you now go about with grace and style.” While describing his long nighttime treks between hideouts, which left him soaked by rain and filthy with mud, he notes that he made these trips with agility, as if he were a dancer or athlete: “I move about with ease in these mud pits.” Both nimble-footed and lighthearted, he likely made his mother laugh out loud when he announced with bravado that “Valentine is now a man of the mountains, and the beard on his face would make the devils in hell tremble.”
After reassuring his mother that he was happy and that “God consoles us in our work,” St. Valentine implored her to pray for him to Jesus. He exhorted her to have courage, to “carry the trials of the world with patience,” and to ask Jesus for the grace of perseverance, since “the grace of Jesus has more powers than the flesh and hell.” Not long afterwards, St. Valentine was betrayed by an apostate, abducted, caged, and tortured by imperial officials, before being beheaded on All Saints Day 1861 along with two other Dominican friars, St. Jerome Hermosilla and Blessed Peter Amato. He was 34 years old.
With his buoyant charm and his earnest reliance on the grace of Jesus, St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa offers people today an attractive and approachable example of courage amid life’s hardships. His cheerful self-sacrifice can be a model especially for young people taking on new responsibility for souls—as new priests, new pastors of parishes, new spouses and parents—inviting them to lay down their lives with hope and style and to persevere in the great tasks before them.
Love,
Matthew
Summa Catechetica, "Neque enim quaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelligam." – St Anselm, "“Si comprehendus, non est Deus.” -St Augustine, "Let your religion be less of a theory, and more of a love affair." -G.K. Chesterton, “When we pray we speak to God; but when we read, God speaks to us.” -St Jerome, "As the reading of bad books fills the mind with worldly and poisonous sentiments; so, on the other hand, the reading of pious works fills the soul with holy thoughts and good desires." -St. Alphonsus Liguori, "And above all, be on your guard not to want to get anything done by force, because God has given free will to everyone and wants to force no one, but only proposes, invites and counsels." –St. Angela Merici, “Yet such are the pity and compassion of this Lord of ours, so desirous is He that we should seek Him and enjoy His company, that in one way or another He never ceases calling us to Him . . . God here speaks to souls through words uttered by pious people, by sermons or good books, and in many other such ways.” —St. Teresa of Avila, "I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious, but men and women who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, and who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it. I want an intelligent, well-instructed laity… I wish you to enlarge your knowledge, to cultivate your reason, to get an insight into the relation of truth to truth, to learn to view things as they are, to understand how faith and reason stand to each other, what are the bases and principles of Catholicism, and where lie the main inconsistences and absurdities of the Protestant theory.” (St. John Henry Newman, “Duties of Catholics Towards the Protestant View,” Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England), "We cannot always have access to a spiritual Father for counsel in our actions and in our doubts, but reading will abundantly supply his place by giving us directions to escape the illusions of the devil and of our own self-love, and at the same time to submit to the divine will.” —St. Alphonsus Ligouri, "The harm that comes to souls from the lack of reading holy books makes me shudder . . . What power spiritual reading has to lead to a change of course, and to make even worldly people enter into the way of perfection." –St. Padre Pio, "Screens may grab our attention, but books change our lives!" – Word on Fire, "Reading has made many saints!" -St Josemaría Escrivá, "Do you pray? You speak to the Bridegroom. Do you read? He speaks to you." —St. Jerome, from his Letter 22 to Eustochium, "Encounter, not confrontation; attraction, not promotion; dialogue, not debate." -cf Pope Francis, "God here speaks to souls through…good books“ – St Teresa of Avila, Interior Castle, "You will not see anyone who is really striving after his advancement who is not given to spiritual reading. And as to him who neglects it, the fact will soon be observed by his progress.” -St Athanasius, "To convert someone, go and take them by the hand and guide them." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP. 1 saint ruins ALL the cynicism in Hell & on Earth. “When we pray we talk to God; when we read God talks to us…All spiritual growth comes from reading and reflection.” -St Isidore of Seville, “Also in some meditations today I earnestly asked our Lord to watch over my compositions that they might do me no harm through the enmity or imprudence of any man or my own; that He would have them as His own and employ or not employ them as He should see fit. And this I believe is heard.” -GM Hopkins, SJ, "Only God knows the good that can come about by reading one good Catholic book." — St. John Bosco, "Why don't you try explaining it to them?" – cf St Peter Canisius, SJ, Doctor of the Church, Doctor of the Catechism, "Already I was coming to appreciate that often apologetics consists of offering theological eye glasses of varying prescriptions to an inquirer. Only one prescription will give him clear sight; all the others will give him at best indistinct sight. What you want him to see—some particular truth of the Faith—will remain fuzzy to him until you come across theological eye glasses that precisely compensate for his particular defect of vision." -Karl Keating, "The more perfectly we know God, the more perfectly we love Him." -St Thomas Aquinas, OP, ST, I-II,67,6 ad 3, “But always when I was without a book, my soul would at once become disturbed, and my thoughts wandered." —St. Teresa of Avila, "Let those who think I have said too little and those who think I have said too much, forgive me; and let those who think I have said just enough thank God with me." –St. Augustine, "Without good books and spiritual reading, it will be morally impossible to save our souls." —St. Alphonsus Liguori "Never read books you aren't sure about. . . even supposing that these bad books are very well written from a literary point of view. Let me ask you this: Would you drink something you knew was poisoned just because it was offered to you in a golden cup?" -St. John Bosco " To teach in order to lead others to faith is the task of every preacher and of each believer." —St. Thomas Aquinas, OP. "Prayer purifies us, reading instructs us. Both are good when both are possible. Otherwise, prayer is better than reading." –St. Isidore of Seville “The aid of spiritual books is for you a necessity.… You, who are in the midst of battle, must protect yourself with the buckler of holy thoughts drawn from good books.” -St. John Chrysostom
