Christ entrusts us to the Blessed Virgin to teach, guide us to become His disciples
(Editor: The Month of October is dedicated to Mary and the Rosary)
For a long time, I have wanted to write and share with my family and dear friends about the love between me and Mother Mary, whom I have always loved. It can be said that my love for the Virgin Mary is passionate and sincere and it has been growing over time in my heart.
When I was a child, I often prayed to Mother Mary because I felt a closeness with her. Whenever I was misunderstood or bullied and could not explain or vindicate myself, I would go to our Blessed Mother and silently confide in her. I told her my sorrows because I knew she could understand what was in my heart, as she could see everything that had happened to me.
Because of this, I put my trust in Mother Mary and often went to her, especially when I needed help. Over time, I felt the Mother of God’s favour and love, especially the maternal love she had for me.
In my teenage years, I became a catechist and consecrated myself to the Blessed Virgin Mary at my Duc My parish church, where my family had lived since 1963. A few of them still live there.
Consecration to Mary and God’s plan
I subsequently joined the consecrated group of Mary with the purpose of asking Our Lady to guide me in my spiritual life, so that I could become the “beloved disciple of Jesus” and lead many lost souls back to the Lord, her Son.
Honestly, at the time, especially during the years from 1975-1979, I had no clue that it was God’s plan to train and prepare me for a future journey. In His own time, when it was ripe, He would call and invite me to commit myself to follow Him and be His disciple as a priest.
Before joining the Lam Bich Seminary – then an underground Catholic institution in the Diocese of Nha Trang in 1979 – I was both a catechist and choir member in my parish. In addition, I was also the leader of the altar servers. Thanks to this job, I was close to the Lord’s altar every day and, perhaps, through this proximity my heart was continuously kindled by the Lord’s sweet fire of love for His Eucharistic table, that is, the Mass.
Two years after I started my studies at the seminary to become a priest I had to escape Vietnam by boat in 1981 because the communist military was hunting me as I refused to join their military training to fight a war (read my story)
I was forced to continue my vocation elsewhere but faced an uncertain future for months in a refugee camp at Pulau Bidong island in Malaysia. Fortunately, in 1982, the Australian government allowed me to resettle in their country. There, I was able to continue to pursue my vocation.
During these trials, I became more aware of God’s will and what He had already planned for me. I was convinced that since I was a child, He had prepared my journey to the priesthood, and with time this fact had increasingly become evident, as He plainly revealed His will to me.
Unworthy of God’s call
At first, when I discovered God’s will for me to become His priest, I was scared and felt unworthy. I was afraid I would not have the ability and intelligence to pursue Seminary studies as I knew it was not easy. Furthermore, I did not think I had the qualifications and piety to be a disciple of the Lord and had countless times rejected His call.
But with God there is nothing that He cannot do, and no one can run away from His hand, if He has chosen a person to make a commitment to follow Him. Those who have experienced God’s will to be priests or religious men and women will testify to this conviction on my behalf.
Whenever I had the opportunity to meet with my brother priests and religious men and women, we exchange notes on our vocation journey. All of us had similar stories: we discovered the will of God and were ultimately convinced of our respective vocations. A common theme among my brother priests is that they initially also tried to refuse the Lord’s invitation, as the vast majority felt unworthy of the great mission God wants to entrust them with.
One among their number remarked, “Running in the sky can’t escape the sun!” We all affirm that no one can escape the hand of the Lord or run away from his sight if God has chosen a person.
Psalm 139:1-14 confirms this:
1 You have searched me, LORD, and you know me.
2 You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3 You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4 Before a word is on my tongue you, LORD, know it completely.
5 You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me.
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
Now, on looking back after being a priest for 28 years, I am evermore convinced that entering a religious life requires a vocation and God’s grace. If He calls and chooses us, then we can faithfully follow Him. Otherwise, even with our own human strength, it will be impossible to remain steadfast in our vocation, be it as a priest or a member of religious life. No matter how strong our will is, or whether it is because our parents or family members wish for us to become a priest or nun, it will not come to pass if God does not call a person. And if it is not His will, no one can go forward and be faithful to the very end. I am convinced of this through personal experience. I don’t think that I would have become priest if God did not call me.
The priesthood is such a great and wonderful gift from God and He has given it to me. This is not something I will ever be able to thank Him enough.
Read also:
The Rosary: A powerful weapon against evil
Hail, Full of Grace
The power of the Hail Mary
Christ entrusts us to Mary
I now want to return and share more deeply the love that Mary has shown me over the past 60 years. I have confided several times to my dear friends that there are two women whom I love the most. One is my beloved biological mother who conceived and gave birth to me. She worked so hard to raise and teach me to respect and love God. She passed on to me her great faith. The other is the Virgin Mary, my spiritual Mother. Mary conceived me in the spiritual life and gave birth to me as a child of God.
Indeed, if we take the time and learn about Mary’s role in God’s work of salvation, it was Jesus who entrusted His beloved Mother to us, when He was hung on the cross (See John 19:25-27).
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.
John 25-27
When Jesus knew that he was about to leave this life to return to the Father, His love for His disciples to the end was evident. He entrusted each of us to His beloved Mother Mary, so that she can continue to teach and guide us on His behalf on how to become “the disciple whom Jesus loved.”
What is unique and very profound about the author of the Fourth Gospel, understood to be Saint John, is that he does not specify the name of “the disciple whom Jesus loved”. So, any of us can become that disciple, provided we have no fear and do not forsake Him in the Passion, but courageously follow the Lord and to dare stand at the foot of the cross. Only, then, can we be worthy of being “the disciple whom Jesus loves.
He wants us, like St John, to take Mary into our home. Which is to welcome her into our hearts, into our family, so that she will become a spiritual mother, the Mother of all Christians and the Disciples who Jesus chose.
Continue to Part 2
