Today we celebrate the memorial of the 117 holy martyrs of Vietnam canonised by Pope St John Paul II on 19th June 1988. They were cruelly killed for their faith in Christ during the 18th and 19th centuries. In 1798, the ruling Nguyen Dynasty of Vietnam began a large-scale persecution of Catholics because they were seen as a foreign influence and a threat to the Vietnamese way of life and traditions. May Catholics were captured, tortured and killed in horrific ways as they gave a courageous and unfailing witness to their faith in Jesus Christ. There were 96 Vietnamese, 11 Spanish Dominicans, and 10 French members of the Paris Foreign Missions Society (MEP), including St. Ignatius Delgado, Bishop Vincent Lim and Andrew Dung-lac.
During the persecution, many Catholics fled to the jungles of La Vang in central Vietnam. They lived there in hiding, living their faith. It was here, forgotten and living in fear, that the Mother of God showed heaven’s special love and care. One night, while gathered together to pray the Rosary, they saw a beautiful woman dressed in traditional Vietnamese clothing, holding a baby in her arms with two angels beside them. Those who saw her immediately recognised it as the Mother of God, coming with the infant Jesus. Our Lady appeared to her people several times. The Blessed Mother comforted them and told them to boil leaves from the trees to cure illnesses. News of the heavenly visit soon spread, and a chapel was built in honour of Our Lady of La Vang in 1802. Pope John XXIII elevated the church to the status of a minor basilica in 1961. On June 19, 1998, Pope John Paul II publicly recognised the importance of Our Lady of La Vang and asked the Vietnamese Church to rebuild the La Vang Basilica in time for the 200th anniversary of the first vision of Our Lady. The cornerstone was blessed in 2012.
