Nov 24 – Memorial for St. Andrew Dung-Lac, priest, martyr, and companions, Martyrs of Vietnam
Between the arrival of the first Portuguese missionary in 1533, through the Dominicans and then the Jesuit missions of the 17th century, the politically inspired persecutions of the 19th century, and the Communist-led terrors of the 20th, there have been many thousands of Catholics and other Christians murdered for their faith in Vietnam. Some were priests, nuns, or religious brothers. Some were lay people, some were foreign missionaries, but most were native Vietnamese killed by their own government and people.
Record keeping being what it was, and because the government did not care to keep track of the people it murdered, we have no information on the vast bulk of the victims. In 1988, Pope John Paul II recognized over a hundred of them, including some whose Causes we do have, and in commemoration of those we do not. They are collectively known as the Martyrs of Vietnam.
St. Andrew Dung Lac (1785-1839) was a Vietnamese priest who worked in the missions with the priests of the Foreign Mission Society of Paris (MEP). He was imprisoned and repeatedly tortured in the persecutions of Minh-Meng. He died with St. Peter Thi, beheaded in Hanoi for the offense of being a priest. He was canonized on 19 Jun 1988 by Pope John Paul II. He is one of the Martyrs of Vietnam.
- Patron Saint Index
1 Mac 4:36-37,52-59
Lk 19:45-48
“…my house will be a house of prayer”
The two Books of Maccabees are only found in the Catholic and several Orthodox bibles. The Hebrew and Protestant bibles reject this book as non-canonical scripture.
The Catholic church accepts Maccabees as it is the basis for several key doctrines of faith. These are Purgatory, Intercession of Saints (feast of All Saints Day), Mass for the Dead (All Soul’s Day) and the Resurrection of both Body and Soul.
As a historical document, Maccabees is highly accurate. It details the life of Jews in 1st century BC when Jerusalem was conquered by the Selucid Emperor Antiochus IV (aka the first Antichrist!). He ruled with only one objective — either be Hellenized (worship Greek Gods and accept their culture) or else. Pious Jews who stood firm faced the Olympic standard of repression. Antiochus stripped the Temple of all its treasures, desecrated God’s altar by sacrificing a pig’s head on it, made the temple priest eat pork (or die), massacred women and children by hanging, destroyed all sacred books and forbade Jews from worshipping their faith.
When pushed to such despair and hopelessly, the oppressed fight back as there is nothing to lose. A pious priest, Mattathius and his sons, the protagonists in Maccabees, rose up in rebellion. With God’s grace, they achieved many impressive victories. Eventually, the family liberated Jerusalem and most of Israel to established a short-lived Hasmonean dynasty.
Today’s first reading recounts the actions of Jason Maccabee after the family drove out the Greeks.
He found the temple in Jerusalem utterly desecrated and its altar defiled. Undeterred, he took very detailed and painstaking steps to cleanse the sanctuary, build a new altar, and totally remove all defiled objects in the temple. He restored purity to the house of worship.
The Gospel of Luke 19 continues with this theme of purity and cleansing. Jesus went to the temple and drove out all the money changers and merchants. He said, “my house will a house of prayer. But you turned it into a robber’s den.”
There is no more temple in Jerusalem today. Instead, Jesus teaches that our body is the Temple of God. To ensure that it is worthy for worship, we must make consistent efforts to avoid sin that would stain its purity. Once we inevitably sin, we should then go to confession and seek repentance.
Personally, I think that the practice of regular confession is not so visible anymore in the Catholic Church. As a child growing up in the 1970s and 1980s, I remember how there were always long lines to see the priest before and after Sunday mass. It seemed like a normal and important thing to do as part of attending mass. This is not the case today nor does it seem to be emphasised. Nevertheless, the priest is always available if we approach him for a confession. Christmas day is approaching. I will go to confession soon.
(Today’s OXYGEN by Andrew Sia)
Prayer: Lord, help me to go to confession regularly and encourage others to do the same.
Thanksgiving: Thank you Lord, for giving us the Sacrament of Reconciliation to help us remember our sins.
OXYGEN 
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