Five Loaves and Two Fishes, by Franois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan
FIVE LOAVES AND TWO FISHES
Author: Cardinal François Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan
PREFACE
Dear young people:
Seeing a beautiful panorama, the hills and the blue sea with white waves, makes me think of Jess in the middle of the crowd. Looking you in the face, with the eyes of Jesus, I tell you with all my heart: Young people, I love you! I love them!.
I want to be inspired by the Gospel of Saint John, chapter 6, to speak to you today. Stand up, listen to the word of Jesus:
When Jesus saw that many people came to him, he said to Philip: Where could we buy bread to feed all these? He said this to see his reaction, for he knew what he was going to do. Felipe answered him: with two hundred denarii we would not buy enough for each one to drink. a little. Then another of his disciples, Andrew, the brother of Simon Peter, intervened, saying: Here is a boy who has five loaves and two fish; but what is this for so many people? Jesus ordered everyone to sit down, because there was a lot of grass in that place. There were about five thousand men. Then he took the loaves, and after having given thanks to God, he distributed them among all. He did the same with the fish and gave them whatever they wanted (Jn 6, 5-11).
On the way to the Jubilee of 2000, we seek who Jesus is, why we love him, how to allow ourselves to be loved by Jesus, to the point of following him in the radicalism of our decisions, without thinking about the length of the journey, the weariness of walking under the summer sun, nor in the distant from all relief.
The Holy Father wrote: In communication with all the people of God who are walking towards the Jubilee of the year 2000, I would like to invite you this year to fix your gaze on Jesus, Master and Lord of our lives, through the words contained in the Gospel of John: Master, where do you live? Come and see it (Jn 1, 38-39); (Message for the XII World Youth Day, 1997).
As a young man, priest and bishop, I have already traveled part of the way, sometimes with joy, sometimes in suffering, in prison, but always carrying an overflowing hope in my heart.
I felt uncomfortable when I was asked to recount my experience following Jesus. It’s not nice to talk about yourself. But I remember that the lamented Cardinal Suenens, in his writing, asked Veronica: You let me talk about your life only from today, why hadn’t you allowed it before? Because now I understand that my life does not belong to me, but all of it belongs to God; God can dispose of it as he wants for the good of souls. John Paul II has condensed this thought in the title of his autobiography: Gift and mystery, as Mary did in the Magnificat.
So, dear young people, I do as the Gospel passage says in which Jesus gives five loaves and two fish: that is nothing before a crowd of thousands of people, but it is all yours and Jesus does everything, it is a gift and a mystery. Like the boy in the Gospel, I summarize my experience in seven points: five loaves and two fish. It’s nothing, but it’s all I have. Jesus will do the rest.
Many times I suffer internally because the media want to make me tell sensational things, accuse, denounce, stir up a fight, revenge… This is not my intention. My greatest desire is to convey to you my message of Love, in serenity and in truth, in forgiveness and reconciliation. I want to share my experiences: how I have encountered Jesus in every moment of my daily existence, in the discernment between God and the works of God, in prayer, in the Eucharist, in my brothers and sisters, in the Virgin Mary, guide my way Together with you I want to shout: We live the testament of Jesus! We cross the lintel of hope!
Rome, February 2, 1997, Feast of the Purification of Mary.
Chapter I
First Bread: Living in the Present Moment
Along the paths of daily existence is where you will be able to find the Lord!… This is the fundamental dimension of the encounter; it is not about doing something, but with Someone, with the Living One.
(John Paul II, Message for the XII World Youth Day, 1997, n. 1).
My name is Franois Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan and I am Vietnamese. In Tanzania and Nigeria young people call me Uncle Francis; it’s easier to call me Uncle Francisco or simply Francisco.
Until April 23, 1975, I was, for eight years, Bishop of Nhatrang, in the center of Vietnam, the first diocese entrusted to me, where I felt happy, and for which I always keep my predilection. On April 23, 1975, Paul VI appointed me Coadjutor Archbishop of Saigon. When the communists arrived in Saigon, they told me that my appointment was the result of a plot between the Vatican and the imperialists to organize the fight against the communist regime. Three months later, I was called to the presidential palace to be arrested: it was the day of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, August 15, 1975.
I don’t wait. I will live the present moment, filling it with love
That night, on a 450 km road that took me to the place of my compulsory residence, many confused thoughts came to mind: sadness, abandonment, tiredness, after three months of tension… But in my One word clearly came into my mind to dispel all the darkness, the word that Monsignor John Walsh, a missionary bishop in China, spoke when he was released after twelve years of captivity: I have spent half my life waiting. It is very true: all the prisoners, including myself, wait every minute for their release. But then I decided: I will not wait. I will live the present moment, filling it with love.
It is not an improvised inspiration, but a conviction that I have matured throughout my life. If I spend my time waiting, maybe the things I hope for will never come. The only thing that will surely come to me is death.
In the village of Cy Vng, where my compulsory residence was appointed, under open and hidden surveillance by the police mixed among the people, day and night I was haunted by the thought: My people! My people that I love so much: flock without a shepherd! How can I get in touch with my people, at this time when they most need a shepherd? Catholic bookstores were confiscated, schools closed; the nuns and the religious who taught were sent to work in the rice fields. Separation is a shock that destroys my heart.
I don’t wait. I am going to live the present moment, filling it with love; but how?
One night the light came: Francisco, it is very simple, do as Saint Paul did when he was in prison: write letters to various communities. The next morning, in October 1975, I made a sign to a seven-year-old boy, Quang, who was returning from Mass at 5, still dark: Tell your mother to buy me old blocks of calendars. Late in the afternoon, also in the dark, Quang brought me the calendars, and every night in October and November 1975 I wrote my message from captivity to my people. Every morning the boy came to collect the leaves to take home and have his brothers and sisters copy the message. This is how the book The Path of Hope was written, which has been published in eight languages: Vietnamese, English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Korean and Chinese.
The grace of God gave me the energy to work and continue, even in the most hopeless moments. I wrote the book at night in a month and a half, I was afraid that I would not be able to finish it: I was afraid of being transferred to another place. When I got to number 1001 I decided to stop: it was like a thousand and one nights…
In 1980, in the compulsory residence of Gian-gx, in North Vietnam, always at night and in secret, I wrote my second book, The Path of Hope in the Light of the Word of God and the Second Vatican Council, after my third book, The pilgrims of the path of hope: I do not wait. I live the present moment, filling it with love.
The Apostles would have wanted to choose the easy path: Lord, let the crowd go so that they can get food…. But Jesus wants to act in the present moment: You give them something to eat (Lk 9:13). On the Cross, when the thief said to him: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come to your Kingdom’. Jesus told him: ‘I assure you that today you will be with me in paradise’ (Lk 23, 42-43). In the word today we feel all the forgiveness, all the love of Jesus.
Father Maximilian Kolbe lived this radicalism when he repeated to his novices: Everything, absolutely, without condition. I heard Dom Helder Camara say: Life is to learn to love. Once Mother Teresa of Calcutta wrote to me: The important thing is not the number of actions we do, but the intensity of love that we put into each action.
How to reach this intensity of love in the present moment? I think that I should live each day, each minute, as the last of my life. Leave everything that is accessory, concentrate only on the essential. Every word, every gesture, every phone call, every decision is the most beautiful thing in my life, I reserve for everyone my love, my smile; I’m afraid of wasting a second living without meaning…
I wrote in the book The Path of Hope: For you the most beautiful moment is the present moment (cf. Mt 6, 34; Jas 4, 13-15). Live it in the fullness of God’s love. Your life will be wonderfully beautiful if it is like a crystal made up of millions of those moments. See how easy it is? (The path of hope, 997).
Dear young people, at the present moment Jesus needs you. John Paul II insistently calls them to face the challenges of today’s world: We live in a time of great transformations, in which ideologies that seemed able to withstand the wear of time are rapidly declining and the boundaries and boundaries of the planet are changing. borders. Humanity is often in uncertainty, confused and worried (Mt 9, 36), but the Word of God does not pass away; it runs through history and, with the change of events, it remains stable and luminous (Mt 24, 35). The faith of the Church is founded on Jesus Christ, the only Savior of the world: yesterday, today and forever (Heb 13, 8) (John Paul II, Message for the XII World Youth Day, 1997, n. 2).
prayer
imprisoned for christ
Jesus, yesterday afternoon, feast of the Assumption of Mary, I was arrested.
transported overnight
From Saigon to Nhatrang,
four hundred and fifty kilometers away,
in the middle of two policemen,
I have begun the experience of a life of a prisoner.
so many confusing feelings
there is in my head: sadness, fear, tension,
my heart is torn for having been removed from my people.
Humiliated, I remember the words of Holy Scripture:
They counted him among the criminals (Lk 22, 37).
By car I have crossed my three dioceses:
Saigon, Phanthiet, Nhatrang.
With so much love to my faithful, but none of them know that their pastor is going through the first stage of his way of the cross.
But in this sea of extreme bitterness I feel freer than ever.
I have nothing, not a single penny, except my rosary
and the company of Jesus and Mary. On the way of captivity I have prayed:
You are my God and my everything.
Jesus,
now I can say like Saint Paul: I, Francis, prisoner of Christ, ego Franciscus, vinctud Jesu Guisa pro vobis (Eph 3, 1).
In the darkness of the night,
in the middle of this ocean of anxiety, of nightmare,
little by little I wake up:
I must face reality. I am in jail.
If I wait for the right moment to do something truly great, how many times in my life have I been presented with such opportunities?
No, I take advantage of the opportunities that arise every day
to carry out ordinary actions
in an extraordinary way.
Jesus,
don’t wait, I live the…