Father Martino BaThong Nguyen's Vocation Story
Fr. Martino always writes his homilies. One exception to this rule was his homily in his first Mass. He had a written homily, but did not use it. Instead, he explained an understanding of the nature of priesthood that came to him during his ordination ceremony. While lying prostrate on the altar floor before the Eucharist with the congregation behind him, he thought that was symbolic of the priesthood. The priest lays down his life to help people get to God.
How did Fr. Martino become a man of God? His story is a particularly heartwarming one.
After the Vietnam War ended, Martino's parents were arrested for being "enemies of the people" and were found guilty of treason to race and country because they were educated. His father had worked for the South Vietnamese government intelligence agency. His mother and father were imprisoned separately. His mother was pregnant when she was arrested. After months of imprisonment, beatings, and starvation she was near death. To avoid being accused of killing a pregnant woman, they released her to her brother. Since their home had been confiscated, it was freedom and the care of her brother that gave her the strength to live and give birth to her son, Martino, on the streets of Saigon.
Because they were Catholics and educated, they were sent to a region near the Cambodian border. This was the area where refugees from the Khmer Rouge death squads also gathered. There were many Catholics in the area among the refugees but they were not allowed to practice their religion.
To attend Mass, they had to walk many miles including spending the night on the way. On some occasions they found a note on the door of the shack used as a church saying the consecration of the bread into the Eucharist had been canceled, because the priest, guilty of his beliefs and Christian actions, had been jailed. It was during this time that Martino, now 7 years old, began to realize that God was calling him.
After 11 years in prison, his father was released, and miraculously found his way back to his family. He, too, had survived. When Martino was fourteen, he started teaching catechism to the other children. There were up to 200 students in his classes. He was arrested and imprisoned four different times for teaching the Catholic faith. Each time he was kept in a cell smaller than a shower stall, with no windows or light. There was no room to lie down to sleep. He was fed a small cup of rice and a cup of water a day. He was regularly taken out and beaten because he would not deny his faith in God.
The beatings were severe and covered his entire body. Each time he was released, he continued to teach the catechism. The last time he was imprisoned, the jailers told him they were going to execute him because he could not prove there was a God. Martino said that he knew there was a God because he could feel it in his heart and soul. The guards said he could not prove that, so Martino hit one of the guards very hard on the shoulder and asked if that hurt. When the guard said yes, Martino said no. The guard said he knew it hurt because he felt it. Martino said the guard could not prove it really hurt. The guard said he could prove it because his shoulder was red. Martino said that did not prove it hurt just because it was red, the sun could have caused the redness. The guard replied, he felt the pain and knew it hurt. Martino said he knew there was a God in the same way. He felt God's presence in his soul. This seemed to convince the guards. They just beat him again and released him.
Thus the mother who was not supposed to live, survived and bore a son, and the father who was separately imprisoned, found his way back to his wife, and the son survived many imprisonments and scheduled executions. They all managed to leave Vietnam and find their way to the United States.
With only $50 and speaking no English, they arrived in Chicago on Feb. 5, 1993. His parents worked very hard at jobs paying the minimum wage and this enabled the 17 year old Martino to receive an education, graduating from high school in 1995 and from college in 1999.
The world tempted him from his noble quest. Blue Cross and Blue Shield offered him a job. He wanted to work for a few years to help his aging parents, who were 56 and 68, and still working for minimum wage. The couple refused to accept their son's choice. If his vocation was calling him to represent our Lord Jesus, they would not be the reason for delaying their son's great passion. The Divine Shepherd should not be delayed. His mother and father refused to be in the Lord's way. As Fr. Martino has said, "Again, the repetition of their sacrifice had been learned from the pages of the Bible, telling all of us about Abraham's example of sacrificing his only son Isaac."
Fr. Martino came to the Diocese of Savannah because it has a very low Catholic population, only 3%, and he wanted to be a missionary priest. He was ordained in 2004 and served two years at St. Mary on the Hill Parish in Augusta and was reassigned to St. Frances Cabrini Parish in June. Increasing Vocations is a major goal in his priesthood so we are particularly blessed to have Fr. Martino as the Chaplain of the Serra Club of Savannah.
Reprinted from Serra Club Newsletter
