Youth and providence
Jean-Charles Cornay was born in 1809 in Loudun, the middle child of five. He entered the seminary of the Paris Foreign Missions Society in 1830. Seven years later, at the age of 28, he was tortured to death in Vietnam.
His parents must have had some inkling of the risk their son was taking: they were very reluctant to let him become a missionary.
For Jean-Charles, it was simple: it was God’s call, which must be trusted absolutely. “The Lord is faithful,” he said: “He expects from us a total confidence in his promises.”
Journey into danger
Cornay was sent to the Far East in 1831, in a hurry since he was to replace another missionary. He was meant to go to Sichuan, but his guides never arrived, so he carried out his ministry in Tonkin, Vietnam. Those who saw him reported a happy, composed individual who kept his inner peace in the middle of fearful trials.
While Cornay was in the area, persecution escalated dramatically: the region, which only a few decades before had officially protected missionaries, was seized with suspicion towards Catholics.
A gruesome death
From 1833 Vietnamese subjects were to be tested by asking them to walk on a wooden cross. In that same year they started killing missionaries.
A police state began to operate. Local officials, who had previously been able to turn a blind eye, faced strict penalties for failing to report Catholic activity. Cornay, ordained secretly in 1834, was the first victim: someone reported him, and he was taken in for torture, then killed.
His martyrdom inspired a young priest called Jean-Théophane Vénard. He too was martyred. And he, in turn, inspired the spirituality of a young woman in the next generation: St Thérèse of Lisieux.
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