Ho Chi Minh City: Thanh Đa parishioners’ love for Mother Teresa
The blessed visited twice the parish in the 1990s. In her memory the faithful built a monument in the churchyard. Twice a month the priest celebrates a Mass for Mother Teresa and all the Christians in procession kiss a relic. The parish Caritas supports projects for AIDS patients and poor people. For the superior of the Missionaries of Charity of Christ, “the seeds planted by Mother Teresa are beginning to grow."
Ho Chi Minh City (AsiaNews) – In Thanh Đa Parish, on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City, the faithful and the local priest celebrate a Mass for Mother Teresa twice a month. At the end of the celebration, all go in procession to kiss the relics of the blessed, granted by the Missionaries of Charity to the parish in 2013. The parishioners then sing religious songs composed by Vietnamese authors.
The link between the parish and Mother Teresa, who will be canonised on 4 September 4, is very strong. Fr Dominique Nguyễn Đình Tân, vicar priest, noted that the missionary visited the church twice in the course of her travels in Vietnam.
"The first time she came I was surprised a lot because I met a gentle nun in a simple habit. She was followed by an Indian and two Vietnamese nuns. Mother Teresa asked me for permission to visit the church and pray to the Blessed Sacrament ".
The second meeting was on 21 April 1994. "We were doing the Eucharistic adoration,” Fr Dominique remember, “and the blessed came into the church with two Vietnamese sisters. With a gentle voice, she said to me: 'I have to make a visit to a place near here, and I know that you are about to say Mass, so I came with my sisters to participate'.”
The parishioners of Thanh Đa built a monument in the church courtyard dedicated to Mother Teresa. It depicts the missionary holding up a sleeping child with one hand, whilst, with the other, she holds the hand of a young woman kneeling and dressed with a traditional Vietnamese conical hat.
Mother Teresa left a deep trace in the parish. "Now we are carrying out many social charitable activities. We help the poor, orphans, women in need, lonely seniors and people living with HIV/AIDS," said Thu, a member of the parish Caritas.
Relations between Mother Teresa and Vietnam began in July 1973 when the then archbishop of Saigon, Mgr Paul Nguyen Van Binh, called on the nun to send seven Indian seminarians to help and serve local poor.
On 30 April 1975, when Saigon (later renamed Ho Chi Minh City) fell to Communist forces, the nuns had to leave Vietnam, but the archbishop set up a permanent group of local nuns to follow Mother Teresa’s spirituality, the "Missionaries of the charity of Christ". Between 1991 and 1995, the ethnic Albanian nun went to Vietnam five times.
"The seeds of love and hope buried by Mother Teresa on her arrival in Vietnam are emerging and growing in the country,” said Sister Mary Frances, superior of the Missionaries of Charity of Christ.
“Thanks to her spirituality, all Vietnamese nuns have felt God’s blessing, and we are having more and more vocations. We serve the poor with Christ’s love."
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