| Every year, John Paul chooses someone to preach a course of spiritual exercises for himself and the Roman Curia at the Vatican. In the Jubilee Year 2000, he asked Vietnamese Archbishop Nguyen van Thuan.
Testimony of Hope is the complete text of those Spiritual Exercises. In this moving work, the Archbishop addresses our need for hope at the beginning of the Third Christian Millennium. As a prisoner in a communist concentration camp for 13 years, 9 of them in solitary confinement, Archbishop Nguyen van Thuan faced what he describes as the "agonizing pain of isolation and abandonment."
Recounting the details of those long years, he reveals the secret which allowed him to cling to hope in the midst of despair. Nguyen van Thuan 's message to John Paul II and to us is this: the same hope that he found in imprisonment is also the hope for the world at this momentous point in history. Faced with any darkness, we have reason for confidence: Christ, Hope of the World.
[Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan was made the bishop of Nha Trang in 1967, and in 1974, coadjutor of bishop of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City). Arrested only a few months after his appointment, Archbishop Van Thuan was imprisoned by the Vietnamese government for thirteen years and then "released" to house arrest. In 1991, Van Thuan was expelled from Vietnam. He went to Rome and began his work in the Roman Curia as Vice President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace. Since 1998, Archbishop Van Thuan has served as the Council's President.] 5.25" x 8"
See also:
Prayers of Hope - Words of Courage
Road of Hope - A Gospel from Prison
Miracle of Hope
Five Loaves and Two Fish
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