by Rev. M. B. Cothonay, O.P., 1911
When
Father Gil reached Hanoi, in August, 1732, there resided in that city, then as
now the capital of Tonkin, the Chua, or Lord Uy Uong (1) who ruled as king for fourteen
years. Father Lechaude tells us that he was a stupid, vainglorious prince who at
first made use of his power only in the gratification of his pleasures. Surrounded
by flatterers and courtiers he forgot the edicts fulminated against the Christian
religion by his predecessors; but when selfish and long continued enjoyment had
begotten weariness and disgust, the monarch felt within his heart a revival of
the persecuting instincts of his family. (2)
We do
not often find in the history of the church an instance of a confessor of the
faith who was kept seven years in prison, often loaded with chains and submitting
to a thousand vexations at the hands of his jailers, ever expecting to be
condemned to death and yet able during the greater part of this time to exercise
his sacred ministry to souls – to hear confessions, to instruct, to baptize, to
celebrate mass and to give Holy Communion. Yet this was the case with the
Blessed Gil de Federich.
And
what is not less extraordinary is that these magnificent results were due in a
great measure to two pagan women, Ba-Gao and her elder sister. These two good
creatures gave themselves body and soul to the work, first, of making the
prison life of Blessed Gil more tolerable, then, of obtaining for him by degrees
a little more freedom, by distributing judiciously to the jailers and the
soldiers the money collected by the Christians and making use of a thousand
ingenious means to gain their confidence and make them more kindly disposed towards
their prisoner; providing him with food and nourishment by means of the alms of
Christians it is true, but giving generously of their time and their influence.
Both were to reap the reward of their charity by receiving the gift of the
faith. The elder of the two was baptized before her death, and her sister,
Ba-Gao, likewise baptized by the servant of God under the name of Rose,
survived him, was present at his martyrdom and was the tenth witness in the cause
of his beatification. “Once,” she
says, “about the third month of the
Father's captivity, my sister asked one of the keepers to be good enough to pay
her a sum of money which he owed her. The keeper expressed his indignation at
her claim and all the jailers chimed in with him,
and to emphasize his resentment he locked up Father Gil and kept him chained
for a whole day. My sister then telling her debtor that he might pay his debt at some future time, begged him to be so
kind as to release the prisoner. His anger was appeased and he did as she desired.
On another occasion during the same time he was permitted to come into my house.
During the time when he was kept continually in the prison, before the
permission to go outside had been purchased for him, I carried his nourishment
to him; but on certain days the soldiers objected to this until I had given
them the money they demanded.”
One of
the first services of Ba-Gao to the prisoner was to procure writing materials
to enable him to correspond with his superiors and certain Christians who were
unable to reach him. One day when he was writing to his confreres, two soldiers
came up and looked curiously at the pages covered with characters which they
could not understand. They wished to know what he was writing. He gave them an
evasive answer with which these big children were obliged to be satisfied.
He had
been in this prison about two months when Ba-Gao and her sister purchased
permission for him to take his meals in their house. A little later he was able
to remain the whole day there reciting his office and saying his prayers in
peace and receiving the Christians who came to visit him. Then commenced that
grand apostolate which he carried on continuously during seven years. The Pro-Vicar
Apostolic of the Western Vicariate, Msgr. Neez (3) was happy to grant him all
the necessary powers to exercise the sacred ministry. He even wished to name him
pastor of Hanoi, but though he accepted the labor for the good of souls in as far
as he would be free to perform it, he modestly refused the title thinking with
reason that the serious obligations of a pastor were incompatible with his condition
as a prisoner. Msgr. Neez procured for him the holy oils, a ritual, and other
necessaries for the administration of the sacraments, and he resumed his missionary
labors with almost as much freedom as he had enjoyed before falling into the hands
of the infidels.
During
these last months of his first year of captivity he had the consolation of
baptizing several children of Christians and several pagans, whom his fervent
exhortations had converted on their deathbed, and of hearing the confessions of
many Christians.
At the
end of October he was summoned for the first time before the royal tribunal. He
therefore left the prison chained and escorted by jailers and soldiers. In
going and returning he had to submit to many humiliations. Several times his
guards halted to drink a cup of tea, or for other reasons leaving their prisoner
in front of the houses on the street. At such times there was no lack of
idlers; especially children who crowded around to torment, insult and laugh at
him. The uproar and the obstruction which resulted, incommoded and irritated the
peddlers, and the owners of the neighboring houses blamed the confessor of the
faith and treated him brutally, in their turn throwing him into the canal or in
the middle of the street.
That
which gave most pain to the poor Father was to see that crowd of children who
never grew tired of throwing at him little crosses of bamboo in mockery while
he kept picking them up, kissing them and unmaking them. Sometimes absorbed in
prayer he pretended to see nothing hoping thus to put an end to the
sacrilegious sport. One day a big boy, seeing this, silenced the crowd and with
mock gravity cried out: “Look, look! the Father denies his faith to save his
head from being cut off.” In hearing these words the servant of God turned
quickly toward the one who had uttered them and said to him: “No,
my son, no, I have not and never will deny my faith;” then, addressing
all with sweetness and, showing that he was very strongly moved that such a
thing could even be thought of concerning him, even as a joke, he added: “You
are the ones who deny and violate the laws of nature by so cruelly tormenting a
sick prisoner who has done you no harm, by despising the cross and by making a mockery
of this emblem and this sign of salvation for all men.”
He
then collected as well as he could the little crosses, and venerated them by
first kissing and then detaching the cross pieces. This was what the rabble
were waiting for in order to have a laugh at his expense. If these pagan
children thus tormented him, what shall we say of his judges who, as soon as
they became familiar with his case, forced him to drink of a chalice bitter
beyond expression every time that he had to appear before those unworthy magistrates?
We
have already recorded his first appearance on the oath of the mandarin Phu-Don
and the memorial to the king by the bonze Tinh, when there appeared with him
also three Christians of Luc Thuy-Ha and the bonze himself. The sitting opened with
the following question by the president of the tribunal addressed to the
Blessed Gil: “Have you been taken prisoner
in the house of one of these four? In which?” “In the house of Tinh.” He answered, “I have never entered the houses of these three.”
The
judge then sent out the four others and kept Father Gil only, to whom he put
the following questions:
The Judge: “Where do you come from?”
Father Gil: “From the kingdom of Spain.”
The Judge: “How long have you been in Tonkin?”
Father Gil: “About two years.”
The Judge. “Who brought you in?”
Father Gil: “I do not recall his name.”
The Judge: “Where have you been living for the past two
years?”
Father Gil: “I have had no fixed abode; I have travelled
from one place to another.”
The Judge: “Who has taken you and brought you to this
tribunal?”
Father Gil: “The mandarin.”
The Judge: “In what house did he apprehend you?”
Father Gil: “In Tinh's house.”
The Judge: “How many days did you remain in that house?”
Father Gil: “Ten or eleven.”
The Judge: “Have you taught him the Christian law?”
Father Gil. “No.”
The Judge: “What, then, were you doing?”
Father Gil: “I did other things which must be a matter
of indifference to you.”
When
this interrogatory was ended which the secretary falsified on several points,
particularly in that the confessor had remained two years in the house of Thay
Tinh, he was sent back to prison and during the return journey he suffered the
same annoyances as in going. He was cited by the magistrates of the tribunal to
appear on the following day. He was, therefore, led back in chains, his hands manacled,
at ten o'clock in the morning when the heat of the sun is terrible, and
escorted by a crowd of myrmidons and satellites.
On his
arrival at the tribunal, the magistrates sent him back to prison that day
being, as they said, a
holiday. What did these judges care for the annoyance and suffering of their
prisoner? On his way to the tribunal this day he had to endure a new torment.
The prisoner and his attendants were passing in front of a temple dedicated to
the ancestors of the king when the soldiers ordered him to uncover and to make a
profound reverence before the temple. Having refused to perform this act of idolatry,
he was insulted, threatened, and treated with nameless ignominy. On the day
before his irons had inflicted frightful wounds on his legs which the jostling
of this day, the harassing crowds, fatigue and the intense heat made so much
worse that he fell into a state of unconsciousness. They were obliged to carry
him insensible to the prison where, during fifteen days, he was in a critical
condition and suffered excruciating pain. His whole body was covered with
purulent pustules resembling the itch. Nevertheless he was calm, and continued to
bless Our Lord who came to his assistance providentially by means of the two
old ladies, Rose Gao and her sister who, on this occasion were more kind and
devoted than ever.
By
dint of entreaties and of money, and under the pretext that they wished to
effect his cure they obtained permission for him to spend not only his days but
even some of his nights in their house. A little later, in return for a monthly
payment to the jailers, he was allowed to spend as much time as he desired in
the house of his benefactors, both day and night. Once cured of the ills just
described he expected to be called again before the judgment seat. This was his
ardent desire, and he esteemed himself happy to confess the faith of Jesus
Christ in the hope of martyrdom in the near future. But how much longer was he
not to wait for this supreme grace!
---
Notes:
(1) Uy
Uong ended miserably. Thrown to the ground one day by a stroke of lightning, he
lost almost completely the use of his reason. The sound of thunder caused a
convulsive trembling of his limbs, and to escape the wrath of heaven he had a
subterranean dwelling dug in which he lived for fifteen years, while one of his
relatives, Trinh-Danh or Minh-Uong occupied the throne. (1739)
(2) Parochial
Bulletin of Hanoi for February, 1903
(3) Msgr.
Neez of the foreign missions was only Pro-Vicar in 1735. Two years later he
became Vicar Apostolic of Western Tonkin. Up to our Martyr's death he was most
kind to him.
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