Feast Day of Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc and Companions
MartyrsOur information for today's feast comes from Vatican News.
"One man, a priest, gives his name to today’s feast, but the one stands for many: 117 Vietnamese faithful. They were bishops, priests, and many laypeople, a mother of six and even a nine-year-old child, who gave their lives for Christ between the 17th and the 19th centuries. 96 were native Vietnamese and 21 were Spanish or French missionaries who had embraced that land and culture. The group of 117, canonized together by Pope John Paul II in 1988, in turn stands for a nameless multitude estimated at between 100,000 and 300,000 martyrs, the 'great cloud of witnesses' whose blood was the seed of a thriving Church in the land of Vietnam."
Saint Andrew Dũng-Lạc and Companions, pray for us.