As I read the lesson from the handbook today about legionaries working for the Mother of God and putting their whole hearts into it, I kept thinking that that description was somehow familiar, that I had read about it somewhere before in a different context and culture. Finally, it occurred to me what I was remembering. My recollections were of the life of Marcel Van, the Vietnamese Redemptorist, who, because of his great devotion to St. Therese of Lisieux, has been called the "Apostle of Love." Van endured terrible abuse from many quarters throughout his life, finally dying in a concentration camp in North Vietnam in the summer of 1959 at the age of 31.
Despite the enormity of the abuse that he endured, he never allowed himself the luxury of slipping into the laziness of resentment and bitterness. On the contrary, his sufferings led him to grow more and more in the virtue of charity. Although regularly beaten by the agents of the North Vietnamese regime, he is remembered by fellow prisoners in the camps as being "radiant with joy." Even though he was exhausted by his treatment and ridden with disease. Outside of the times assigned to forced manual labor, his fellow prisoners came to him in great numbers to be consoled by his words and his presence. Over the course of his years of imprisonment, the witnesses tell us that he worked very hard to build up the faith of those around him. Once, even though he was in a very seriously weakened condition, he escaped, not so that he could run away, but only so that he could obtain the Blessed Sacrament for two priests who were dying in the camp.
In the midst of his sufferings in the camp, the Most Holy Mother of God told Van that she has a special mission for him. She said, "My little Van, I am not asking you for anything extraordinary, but only to offer up your works for the intention of my little apostles– those who later must establish my reign on earth– so that, full of fervor and courage, they may stand up to the world and hell. Van, hear me, As Jesus said to you earlier, at the start of your struggles, my apostles will seem weak, so weak that people will think they are incapable of standing up to hell... Thus my apostles will learn to be more humble... Nevertheless, the more hell shall have been victorious before, the more confounded shall it be later, for it will not be myself in person, who will crush the head of Satan, but my children... Seeing that I use my weak children as feet to crush his head, Satan shall be confounded."
In this last known letter, Van wrote: "To be stabbed by an atheist, to have my body pierced by a bullet, to breathe my last in isolation: that is a last word, a last kiss... Love's gaze of farewell, which leaves the body behind to fly up with the soul and unite itself to the Infinite love of Jesus. Therefore, Love never dies! And I reckon that my body will remain a perfect holocaust until the end of my life. Because Love cannot die, it goes on loving without any limitations in time."
Sparing no effort in working wholeheartedly in the service of the Most Holy Mother of God makes us partakers and conduits of that same love. It is our share in everlasting life. It never dies, because it is God Himself.
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