Monthly Archives: November 2022

God’s love in friendships

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The ties we build in charity are forged with the Lord’s grace

“Let all that you do be done in love.” (1 Corinthians 16:14)

God’s love expressed through friendship is a topic I have been wanting to write and share with readers, especially my dear family and friends. It is based on my ties with many people from around the world whom God has gifted me to meet and know them.

These are very real experiences and it is my conviction for many years it was God’s plan for me. Especially from the time when I was forced to leave my homeland, family and all my loved ones behind in Vietnam in 1981 in search of freedom and to pursue my vocation to the priesthood (Read my story). This, I personally felt then, when I had just entered my twenties.

I eventually settled in Perth in Western Australia in 1982, which has been my second home in the last 40 years. During that time, I’ve also lived in many other cities in my adopted country: in Sydney when I joined the Redemptorist Order and then in Melbourne, where I was ordained priest in July 1994. I then returned to Perth to continue my studies in Psychology, while also working in ministry at the Redemptorist Monastery in the north of the city.

In the places and cities I have lived in, I was fortunate to always meet good friends who wholeheartedly supported me spiritually and materially. Among them, some have become my benefactors who have been generous and love me with sincere hearts. I cannot name every single person, but I cherish and engrave deeply in my heart each of them with sincere thanks and deep gratitude for what they have given me. I always remember these wonderful friends and benefactors in my prayers and in the Masses I celebrate. This is my way of expressing gratitude to them.

I have met many of them over the years in places and cities I have visited or studied, particularly when I studied Moral Theology at the Alphonsian Academy in Rome City, Italy (1999-2003). But distances and different time zones have prevented me from doing so since then.

There are times when I think of them and wish for another chance of meeting all of them again. It is for this reason I am writing this article so that if you read it, you will understand how much I want to express my deep gratitude to you. You are always in my heart, and I will keep each one of you in my prayers.

I am no longer in touch with many of these friends and I don’t know where are they now, what they are doing and what their life is like. But even so, in my heart and in mind they are still very much alive, and I will never forget them and all the things they have done for me. I always pray to God and ask Him to act on my behalf to bless and repay them abundantly.

Garden of the Gods

God forges new friendships

I have been in the United States since August to attend the Fall 2022 Sabbatical programme at Mercy Center in Colorado Springs. While here, I have been able to interact with some Vietnamese people I have never met before. It was thanks to my family members and dear friends who have resettled in the United States that I was able to get acquainted with them. But I know it was God who brought us together.

I meet them only on weekends as I have to attend classes from Monday to Friday. These new friends took me and another Vietnamese priest, a close friend from Australia, to visit some of the more well-known attractions in Denver and the State of Colorado.

During my travels, whether far or near, I am always fortunate that God’s grace has always allowed me to have special meals with new friends for us to learn and get to know each other. Thanks to such occasions we develop a deep understanding of one another and eventually become close friends.

In my current visit to the United States, I am extremely grateful to those I’ve met for the first time for what they have done for me, sacrificing their precious time to take me and my friend out to many interesting places in Colorado Springs for an unforgettable experience. The sights were amazing and made me think about God’s wonderful creation in His love for mankind as members of the human family.

God certainly loves each one of us in a uniquely special way. But He created a universe so mysterious and wonderful for everyone to enjoy that I don’t think there are words to adequately describe all the splendour of nature. In the past two months, I have visited and witnessed its beauty from the waterfalls at Seven Falls to mountains and hills covered with tall pines. We also visited “Garden of the Gods” and “Pikes Peak” which rises 4,340m above sea level, and the Rocky Mountain National Park, a famous landmark of not only Colorado but the entire United States.

I also had the chance to see the white snow that was recently formed in the soaring mountains, the “Sprague lake” where water had begun to freeze, and the hot pools of the Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs. All these scenes were so magnificent and vivid that they took my breath away and I could not but raise my voice in praise of God.

From top: Sprague Lake and Pikes Peak 

God’s marvelous creation and love for mankind

The trip to these places was approximately a four-hour drive from Denver and my companions and I were so ecstatic by what we saw that it compelled us to contemplate God’s great work in creating the universe. All of us must sing praises to Him for He made a beautiful universe for all of us to marvel at.

I thank God for His great love for us and also thank each one of you, my dear friends, for permitting me to experience His providence and love through your special friendship, love and affection. I am truly blessed. I am truly grateful and may God unite us as brothers and sisters in His great family so that we may become witnesses of His love in our world today.

May God continue to bless our friendship and the affection that we have for each other. And may God help you, whether priests, religious or lay people, to become God’s witnesses of love and mercy by the way we live, and by the love that we have for each other. Finally, may we do everything for others out of love (1 Cor 16:14). Amen.

Written for my dear friends, past and present. Loving all of you.

Strawberry Park Natural Hot Springs.


Main Image: Thoma Boehi, Pexels
Other Images, Fr Peter and friends, and Mercy Center staff

Saints: What it means to be good and faithful servants

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Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever would save his life shall lose it: and whosoever shall lose his life for my sake shall find it. For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life?

Matthew 16:24-26

There’s a common perception that when it comes to serving God, harder is holier. This is not an entirely surprising perspective because the church celebrates the trials and tribulations of the saints. Not to mention, the Gospel authors make it clear that we should “deny ourselves” and in our hearts, we read that passage and interpret that to mean that Jesus wants us to choose thing that we want to do the least. This is almost heresy when you consider that God, as our Father in Heaven, wants what’s best for us, in accordance to how He has made us to be. What Jesus is referring to in that passage is that when our wills and what we want do not align with the Father’s will and what He wants, then we deny ourselves.

St. Joseph: the holiness in ordinariness

What does it mean to be holy? Being holy means saying “yes” to the Father. It also means saying yes to the personal crosses we encounter in our lives daily as Jesus asks. For someone like St. Joseph, that meant doing the work of a carpenter and raising his son, Our Lord, as an ordinary human boy; though so little is written about him, we celebrated the “Year of Saint Joseph” in 2020 in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Church’s Church’s declaration of Saint Joseph as Patron of the Universal Church.

“We are all called to become saints…be a saint by carrying out your work with honesty and competence and by offering time in the service of your brothers and sisters. But, father, I work in a factory; I work as an accountant, only with numbers; you can’t be a saint there…. yes, yes you can! there, where you work, you can become a saint. God gives you the grace to become holy. God communicates himself to you. Always, in every place, one can become a saint, that is, one can open oneself up to this grace, which works inside us and leads us to holiness.”

Pope Francis

St Joseph was an ordinary man on whom God relied on to do great things. In the Gospel of St Matthew, St Joseph was described as a “just man.” The term “just” or “righteous” means right with God. We read an inner monologue of his thoughts and emotional conflict from the minute Mary tells him of her pregnancy but he continues to do exactly what the Lord wants him to do, in each and every event in his life. St. Joseph’s fidelity to his everyday responsibilities as a husband, father, provider, and protector of his family – is synonymous with his life of holiness.

But all the Saints had these hard lives, I’m definitely sure harder is holier…

Again, it will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted his wealth to them. To one he gave five bags of gold, to another two bags, and to another one bag each according to his ability. Then he went on his journey.

The man who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work and gained five bags more. So also, the one with two bags of gold gained two more. But the man who had received one bag went off, dug a hole in the ground and hid his master’s money.

“After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have gained five more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you entrusted me with two bags of gold; see, I have gained two more.’ His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man, harvesting where you have not sown and gathering where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid and went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’ His master replied, ‘You wicked, lazy servant! So you knew that I harvest where I have not sown and gather where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money on deposit with the bankers, so that when I returned I would have received it back with interest.

Matthew 25:14-28

“Each according to his ability”

When our Lord tells us the Parable of the Bags of Gold, he makes certain to mention that the master in the story has given his servants responsibilities “each according to his ability” – one had received five bags, another had received two and the last received only one. Yet, when the master returns, he is not interested in the quantum of the returns but only that his servants had done their best. The master in the parable, a proxy for Jesus, gives equal praise to the servant who has returned five more bags of gold and the one who has returned only two more bags of gold. In our Lord’s eyes, both accomplishments merit equal praise even though the results are quantifiably unequal: “Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!”

While the first two-thirds of the parable are quite clear in their meaning, many struggle with what happens to the last servant with one bag. In our eyes, he’s a fearful man and he perceives his master as a harsh taskmaster. How many among us will admit that we perceive God as a harsh bean counter who keeps tally of our sins rather than an all merciful, all loving Abba, Father? So, we see and think that the last servant is a proxy for us. However, Jesus gives us quite a few clues, the master had gone on a long journey and so the two servants doubled their holdings had been hard at work and the last servant merely hid his responsibilities in the ground and did nothing for it but offering our Lord a feeble excuse which the master chastises as “wicked and lazy”. Hence, from this passage we can discern that our Lord gives us crosses according to our ability and He is as proud as a Saint’s success with his big crosses (5 bags) as he is of a Saint’s small crosses (2 bags) and all He asks is that you do not set your smallest of crosses (1 bag) aside.

What it actually means to be good and faithful servants

“When the Lord invites us to become saints, he doesn’t call us to something heavy, sad… quite the contrary! it’s an invitation to share in his joy, to live, and to offer with joy every moment of our life, by making it become at the same time a gift of love for the people around us. if we understand this, everything changes and takes on new meaning, a beautiful meaning, a meaning that begins with little everyday things”

Pope Francis, General Audience, November 19, 2014

Man is made to work, not only because it is written in the book of Genesis that he was created to till the earth and care for it, but because it is the way in which God gives us the capacity to transform himself, create new things (just like God does), and also to improve the world. The Catechism of the Catholic Church (no. 2428) teaches that “in work, the person exercises and fulfills in part the potential inscribed in his nature. the primordial value of labor stems from man himself, its author and its beneficiary. Work is for man, not man for work. Everyone should be able to draw from work the means of providing for his life and that of his family, and of serving the human community.”

The sanctification of ordinary work is a living seed, able to yield fruits of holiness in an immense number of souls. When reflecting on St Joseph being a just man, Pope Benedict wrote: “In Joseph, faith is not separated from action. His faith had a decisive effect on his actions. Joseph is a ‘just man’ (Mt 1:19) because his existence is ‘adjusted’ to the word of God.”

St Joseph became the “good and faithful servant” precisely because our Lord’s adoptive father performed his duties as given by God faithfully and to the best of his ability.