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President of the “Cardinal Van Thuan Foundation”,
Dear Members and Friends,
Grace and Peace from the Lord!
I am glad to greet you and send you this message on the occasion of the important day dedicated to the ninth death anniversary of the Servant of God Cardinal Francois Xavier Van Thuan.
It is only fitting that we recall to our minds the rich legacy which Cardinal Van Thuan has left us. For this reason I would like to invite you to reflect on his spirit of brotherhood, life and teachings.
In the past days, I read afresh the life lived by the Servant of God. I am convinced that with the grace of God everything is possible even in moments of suffering and difficulties. When we encounter darkness in our lives, the only things that can help us is the strength that comes from the Gospel. In the life of every Christian it is the experience of Christ that can help us to live a life in harmony with “his sentiments” (Phil 2, 5).
Dear friends, Cardinal Van Thuan with his life teaches us to look at our life with the eyes of faith. Our belongingness to the community of the Risen Lord illumines, purifies and transforms us, and makes us living instruments of Christ himself and “collaborators with God” in the realization of his Kingdom on earth.
Today, as in the past, we are faced with new situations which demand of us new attitudes that are always evangelical. It is enough to recall the challenges faced by families, by moral values which derive from the incidence of the wars, the denial of human rights, and the poverty of the masses. For us all these are areas where they should resound, without frontiers, the message of the Gospel, the Beatitudes and the commandment of Love.
For the Servant of God the fundamental question was the need for a renewed fervour of the Apostles. He made his own a paragraph in the Encyclical Nuovo Millennio Ineunte, calling for “creativity in charity”, which consists not so much and not only in the efficacy of material help given, but in the ability to make oneself a good neighbor, manifest solidarity with those who suffer, so that the acts of charity are not humiliating handouts but a sharing between brothers and sisters, (NMi, 50). He used to say: “Our present moment is a privileged and wonderful one in history of salvation which we should not be missed because this historical moment is un-repeatable”.
I take this occasion to invite all of you to raise an intense prayer to God praising Him for having given us a great saint and witness of hope in Cardinal Van Thuan. His charism can be compared to the grain of wheat that falls into the ground to bring forth abundant fruit (cfr. Jn 12,24).
Dear friends, brothers and sisters, last October on the occasion of the Public Opening of the Process of Beautification you were informed of the progress made in the Cause of Beautification. On this ninth death anniversary I would like to share with you briefly the progress since then:
a) In the month of November 2010, we initiated the process of gathering the Testimonies of the persons who had known the Servant of God. It has already been carried out in France, Germany, Italy and the United States of America, and those of Australia are scheduled for this December. So far about 120 persons have already given their testimony.
b) In February 2011, the Postulator of the Cause, Lawyer Silvia Correale has been replace by Lawyer Waldery Hilgeman, and the latter has already assumed his office.
c) The Historical Commission is engaged in the significant work of doing research and cataloguing the documents that can be collected and related to the life of the Servant of God. This project has not yet been fully completed.
d) The project of transferring the body of the Servant of God from the cemetery of Verano to the Church of Santa Maria della Scala, the titular Church of the Cardinal, is already underway. The execution of it is entrusted to two architects who are engaged in the steps necessary for making the request and the authorization of realizing it. In spite of the fact that this task is arduous and long, we are determined to proceed with it with courage, faith, joy and hope, the virtues that distinguish Card. Van Thuan.
I would like to conclude by expressing my sincere gratitude to Fr. Peter Do Quang Chau and all the members of the Foundation, USA, for their much appreciated spiritual and financial support offered generously for the Cause (medals, flight tickets to USA, accommodation, etc). It is a sign of their strong spiritual ties with and affection for the Servant of God. It is a chain of actions that together forms a life of love that unites many brothers and sisters – Vietnamese and non-Vietnamese – spread across the whole world.
With prayerful wishes,
Cardinal Peter K.A. Turkson
President
Vatican, September 2011