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Who is Marcel Van?

If you don’t already know the answer to that question — and, for that matter, even if you do — you would do well to read , a recently published essay by alumna author  Suzie Andres (’87) on CatholicExchange. In it Mrs. Andres provides readers with a beautiful description of the life of Marcel — the late, Vietnamese Redemptorist brother who now bears the title Servant of God and who is the spiritual little brother of St. Thérèse of Lisieux. (Or, as Mrs. Andres calls him, “the Little Brother of the Little Flower.”)

Mrs. Andres, a Third Order Carmelite who has long had a devotion to St. Thérèse — and even penned a book, The Little Way of Homeschooling, in her honor — has more recently developed a devotion to Marcel as well. So great is this devotion that she has launched what may be the Internet’s first Marcel Van blog, , on her newly published website, .

It turns out that the answer to the question is not easy, because even though he was a humble, simple man, he was also a powerful mystic whose life embodied St. Thérèse’s “Little Way.” Writes Mrs. Andres:

Marcel is … about as little as they come, so little that he compelled Thérèse to come teach him her Little Way personally, though he’d read and re-read Story of a Soul. His forgetfulness and utter simplicity drew Jesus, too, into the picture, not to mention Mary, and between these three (God, the Mother of God, and “the greatest saint of modern times” according to St. Pope Piux X), we get what we might call, “The Little Way for the Rest of Us.” …

I recommend Marcel’s writings because they are the short cut to his big sister’s famous path. Despite our progress, our technology, our libraries of how-to books, we continue to be fairly dumb sheep, and Marcel is the perfectly imperfect dumbest sheep of us all, ready and willing to lead us through this dark valley and into the Father’s arms.

“If I could make the whole world love Marcel Van, I would,” adds Mrs. Andres, and she is already well on her way! A fellow writer at Catholic Exchange, Maura Roan McKeegan, has written about how Mrs. Andres’ introduction to this blessed has helped her to  some longstanding fears and worries.

Thanks be to God for Servant of God Marcel Van and for Mrs. Andres’ sharing of his littlest of ways. Marcel Van, pray for us!