TNTT Đoàn Anê Thành

            Among the 117 Vietnamese Martyrs, there is only one woman.  However, she was not a nun, but a mother of six children.  Thánh Anê Lê Thị Thành is also called Bà Đê, or Bà Thánh Đê, because she is named after her oldest son, Đê.

            Anê Lê Thị Thành was born in 1781 at Bá Điển, tỉnh Thánh Hóa.  When she was 17 years old, she married Nguyễn Văn Nhất and they had six children together.  All her life, she raised her loving family with humility and patience.  She was a role model of her Faith and sacrificed in order to help her husband and her children, guiding them to live a faithful life.  Even after her children had grown up and married, she continued to watch over them, encouraging them to live faithfully – going to church and receiving the sacraments, such as the Sacrament of Reconciliation and the Sacrament of Eucharist – just as she lived her life.

            Bà Đê and her husband helped people in need, especially the priests, who were being persecuted for their faith.  They had a special hiding place reserved for the priests alone.  Because of this generosity as well as her care for the priests and her love of their missionary works, Bà Đê was martyred.

            On Easter 1841, Bà Đê was captured while trying to hide Father Lỳ.  Both Father Lỳ and Bà Đê were put in jail.  In the jail, Bà Đê was tortured very badly, but she never cried out in pain.  She believed that Mary is helping her so she felt no pain when the soldiers whipped her, hit her with big pieces of wood, or put poisonous snakes in her clothes.  She received her tortures happily, saying “I happily suffer for Jesus.”

            Her own family cried and begged her to give up.  Her youngest daughter Lucia Nụ cried when she saw all of the blood on her mother’s clothes, but to Bà Đê, the splotches of blood were like flowers on her clothes.  She encouraged her husband and children to continue praying for her and pray the Rosary.

            After 8 months of torture, Bà Đê died on July 12, 1841.  Her last prayer was - “Jesus, Mary, Joseph, I give you my soul and body in God’s hands.”

            Bà Đê was Blessed on May 2, 1909 by Pope Piô X because a miracle occurred when someone prayed to Bà Đê.  She was canonized as St. Anê Lê Thị Thành on June 19, 1988, with 116 other Vietnamese Martyrs.