SISTER MARIE EMMANUEL VU (VU THI KHUE MINH)

Sister Marie Emmanuel was born in Hanoi, Vietnam on May 30 1925. She was the second child in a family of eight children – 4 girls and 4 boys! Her parents insisted on a good education for their children and Marie Emmanuel did her primary and secondary education before working for a few years. The sister who came after her in the family, Thê Minh, heard the call to religious life and joined the Sisters of Our Lady of the Missions in Thanh Hoa in 1951. Sister Marie Eugenie’s example inspired Marie Emmanuel to follow in her sister’s footsteps and she too entered the postulancy in 1953 and began her novitiate in January 1954.

However, the situation in the country became more and more difficult after the defeat of the French army in 1954. Thanh Hoa became cut off from the outside world and the Superiors began moving the sisters in secret from Thanh Hoa, under Communist rule, to Hanoi that was still in the hands of the French. But after all the foreign sisters were forced to leave Vietnam, it was decided that the novices and TPs would also be evacuated to France. Sister Marie Emmanuel has left us a long account of the clandestine trip these sisters took – leaving in pairs – from Hanoi to Phat Dièm, – a long walk of over 60 kilometres only to arrive to find that the there were no longer sisters at Phat Dièm. Meeting up with her own sister, Marie Eugénie, they went to their family village only to find they too had all left. Soon, the two sisters were included in a group of 14 sisters to be sent to France. A technical problem delayed their plane and another sister came with the good news that the Vu family were in Saigon and could come to the airport to farewell them!

Marie Emmanuel made her first profession in Lyon in 1956 and was able to begin studies there. After only 3 years in France Marie Emmanuel returned to Vietnam and taught in the school at Thu Duc. After her final Vows in 1962, she taught in schools in Nga Trang,Thu Duc and Phan Thiet. However, a second exodus for Marie Emmanuel was soon to begin. Her eldest sister was married to an American involved in the organisation for refugees. With his help, 14 members of the Vu family were able to leave Vietnam – only to land in Guam where they were in a refugee camp for a week before flying to the States where they were held in a camp for a further 3 weeks before being able to go to the home of their eldest sister. In February 1976 the two sisters left America to become members of the French province.

Marie Emmanuel helped in the kitchen in Lyon and Toulon before coming to Charenton in 1981. It was there that she spent the next 30 years of her religious life, finding a new mission in helping in the school cantine and, before and after school, looking after the children whose parents left them early at school because of their work commitments. Marie Emmanuel had a special rapport with these young children and their parents. She was part of the community moving from the old part of the school to the apartment on the 4^th floor of the new primary school building in 1994 and enjoyed her new more spacious room. Marie Emmanuel was a talented artist – she was often asked by different school bodies to prepare posters or printed signs for them. Her photography skills were excellent, and she loved keeping albums of the many photos she took over the years. She loved gardening- orchids were her favourite flower- and had very green fingers. She was nearly 85 when she learnt how to use the computer and was able to keep up an email correspondence with her family members in America and Australia as well as enjoying the many Power points she was sent. While she never went back to Vietnam, she did visit her family in America and her family from Australia regularly came to see her and Marie Eugenius. They were a close -knit family who had lived through much suffering.

In 2012, Marie Emmanuel was once again faced with suffering. Admitted to hospital late February she had to submit to the amputation of the lower part of her right leg. After the operation, she was confronted with 3 months of rehabilitation. Her doctors were amazed at her resilience, at her courage, as she agreed to have a protheses fitted and began to learn to walk with her new ‘leg’. At the end of this period it was decided that she would be more comfortable in our Lyon community while at the same time waiting for a place in the Buers Rest Home. This place became available very quickly and in July 2012 Marie Emmanuel, at the age of 87, began what we all called ‘a second life’. She thrived in the community of the rest home, was always busy with craft work – from woollen chickens for Easter, woolly hats for the homeless at Christmas, decorations for TET, paper flowers for all the sisters… her beautiful smile lit up the room and she loved the different visits from the sisters, her Vietnamese friends and especially the visits from her family who loved her very much.

In the early months of this year, 2020, her health began to fade, and she moved quietly into death in much the same way as she had moved through her religious life. This time it was our turn to suffer for her as she died during our very strict lockdown time in France. We were not able to have a requiem mass for her and she was taken directly from the rest home to the cemetery where a Vietnamese priest presided over the prayers and blessings, in the presence of the Lyon community, only 4 people allowed to be present. Marie Emmanuel is buried with her sister at the Loyasse cemetery on the Fourvière Hill. May they rest in peace.

At the end of her account of her two ‘exodus’ events, Marie Emmanuel concluded with these lines from Psalm 66:

Now the ordeal by fire and water is over,

You have led us out to breathe again.

It is you, God who has put us to the test,

Refined us like silver;

You have led us out to breathe again.

Glory be to the father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit.