A communion of Christ’s disciples

There is a now well-known image of the Vietnamese Martyrs. I’ve seen it depicted as a painting and as a mosaic. It occurs also in various forms, but usually with the green hills and blue waters of Vietnam in the upper background and the instruments of torture and execution in the lower foreground.

Most of these images also have Christ in glory hovering above the large gathering of the martyred saints, with Andrew Dung-Lac and his companions located at the front and centre of the image.

It is the crowd of saints depicted—representing the 130,000 Christians martyred over three centuries—that is most striking to see in this image. Lay men and women; priests and religious; bishops scattered through the saintly throng.

Each is dressed in a manner appropriate to their state of life, but all are dressed in a distinctly Vietnamese way, even those who did not originate from Vietnam.

For me, it is the image of these martyrs, all mixed in together, and not in rows of ecclesiastical ranking, that is most striking. A bishop, up the back, standing with a married couple; a priest, off to the side, next to a lay woman; a man in the middle, honoured to be with a religious.

The communion of Vietnamese saints is honoured to be seen according to the only rank that matters, their baptismal dignity. It is as the disciples of Christ that they stand before us; they are the ones who, having given up their lives for Christ’s sake, now live in his glory.

As St Paul so powerfully said, we can all see in the named and un-named martyrs of Vietnam—no matter where we are from, or where we are now—the image of our common life in Christ.

Neither death nor life, no angel, no prince, nothing that exists, nothing still to come, not any power, or height or depth, nor any created thing, can ever come between us and the love of God made visible in Christ Jesus our Lord.

You have gathered today to honour a shared heritage. Yet the true value of your gathering is seen in your witnessing to being a communion of Christ’s disciples.

We, too, are a mixture of lay men and women, religious brothers and sisters, clergy and bishops, but we are all Christian disciples. And it is as Christian disciples that we can best be witnesses to Christ’s love for us—given on the cross—that will not be overcome.

For this reason, we do not need to be afraid to walk with Christ, for he walks with us. Like the thousands of Vietnamese saints, Christ will raise up our lives to share in his life. This is our common calling, no matter what walk in life we are taking, what vocation we have been given.

Whether we are troubled or worried, or being persecuted, or lacking what we need, or threatened or attacked, God is on our side.

So, do not be afraid! Christ is our hope.