NHA TRANG (UCAN): The Carmelite Sisters in Vietnam celebrated the 60th anniversary of the establishment of the Carmel Monastery in the coastal city of Nha Trang on October 1, the feast of St. Therese of the Child Jesus.
Bishop Joseph Vo Duc Minh of Nha Trang concelebrated the Mass, attended by around 400 people, with Cistercian Abbot Mary Peter Khoa Nguyen Thai Binh and 35 priests. A young sister also professed her vows.
Bishop Minh praised local Carmelite nuns for quietly serving the Church as lightning rods receiving all rage, distress, sufferings, disaster, consternation and misfortune from all kinds of people and praying to God to offer them peace, communion and bliss.
He said the Carmelites take on God’s yoke for them and bear witness to the Good News: “First set your hearts on the kingdom of God and all things will be given to you.”
A group of French and Vietnamese Carmelites landed in Nha Trang in 1960 at the invitation of the late French Bishop Marcel Piquet Loi having fled from their monastery in Thanh Hoa, in northern Vietnam, in 1955 to avoid war.
In 1861, four French Carmelites arrived in Saigon (now Ho Chi Minh City) and founded the first monastery in Vietnam. Later they established tens of monasteries in other places in Vietnam and Asia.
