The Virgin Mary as ‘Mother of Refugees’ is being honored in a new Knights of Columbus prayer program

by Tim S. Hickey (Knights of Columbus: COLUMBIA, May 2005)

    In the Lenten meditations he prepared for Pope John Paul II and Vatican officials in 2000, the late Vietnamese Cardinal Francis Xavier Nguyen Van Thuan described the Blessed Virgin Mary as the “Mother of unity who embraces all of her children dispersed throughout the world.”

    The Mother of Jesus, he said, “reveals the Marian profile of the Church, a family Church, a fraternal Church that is welcoming and solidly united. With Mary, we feel as brothers and sisters among ourselves.”

    On Feb. 11, the feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, the Marian profile of the Church and of the Knights of Columbus was especially evident at Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Parish in Arlington, Va. More than 700 parishioners and members of Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Council 9655 helped launch a new program honoring Mary under her title Our Lady of Bai Dau.

    The centerpiece of the program is a 2-foot-tall statue of Our Lady of Bai Dau. It was welcomed to the parish by Bishop Paul S. Loverde of Arlington, a member of Cathedral Council 6790 in Arlington. Through the remainder of 2005 and into 2006, the statue will make a pilgrimage to several U.S. and Canadian jurisdictions where a Marian prayer service will be led by local Knights and Vietnamese Catholics. A Mass and Marian program in the spring of 2006 in Washington, D.C., will officially conclude the pilgrimage program.

MOTHER OF REFUGEES

    Our Lady of Bai Dau has special meaning to many Vietnamese Catholics. In the coastal city of Vung Tau, near Ho Chi Minh City, there is a shrine dedicated to her. The shrine features a 65-foot-tall statue of Mary holding aloft the Infant Jesus, as if she is presenting him to the world. After the fall of Saigon to the Communists in 1975, as tens of thousands of Vietnamese fled their homeland by boat from Vung Tau, the statue of Our Lady of Bai Dau was the last image many of them had of their homeland. She is honored as “Mother of Refugees.”

    The statue being used in the pilgrimage was given to District of Columbia Knights by the bishops of Vietnam following a November 2003 visit to Washington, where they were special guests at the fall meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. State Deputy Charles H. Gallina, a retired U.S. Marine colonel who served four tours in Vietnam, met with the bishops and arranged for transportation and hospitality during their stay. At the end of their visit, Bishop Paul Nguyen Van Hoa, president of the Vietnamese bishops’ conference, presented the Knights with the statue as a show of gratitude.

     The D.C. Knights presented the statue to Supreme Knight Carl A. Anderson earlier this year for the Knights of Columbus Museum in New Haven. At the conclusion of the pilgrimage, the statue will again be displayed in the museum.

YEAR OF THE EUCHARIST REFLECTION

    Prior to the Feb. 11 Mass, the statue of Our Lady of Bai Dau was placed on a flowered platform and carried aloft by Knights around the parish grounds. A 14-member Fourth Degree honor guard led the procession behind a Knight beating a small Asian hand drum. The Dominican priests who staff Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Parish led the faithful in prayers and songs to Mary. Also taking part was Supreme Treasurer Deacon Kenneth N. Ryan.

    Dominican Father John Baptist Vuong Duc Nguyen, pastor, helped write the prayer book and develop the program. Auxiliary Bishop Dominic Mai Luong of the Diocese of Orange in California, has also contributed to the program’s development. Bishop Luong is the first bishop of Vietnamese descent in the U.S. Church.

    In a message printed in Vietnamese in the booklet, Bishop Luong thanked the Knights for spearheading this program. “The Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Church    in Arlington is doing us a favor by inviting Our Lady of Bai Dau to the various Vietnamese Catholic communities around the country,” he wrote. “May Jesus, through the intercession of Our Lady, grant many blessings to all who participate in this pilgrimage to honor our Lord and Our Lady of Bai Dau.”

    In his homily, Bishop Loverde said Our Lady of Bai Dau shows Mary as the “Mother of God, presenting Jesus to the world.” Her role “is to give us the greatest gift that God the Father could give us: his own Son to be our savior.” 

    During the Year of the Eucharist now under way, Bishop Loverde said, we should listen closely to the words Mary spoke at the wedding feast of Cana when she instructed the wine stewards to follow Jesus’ lead and “Do whatever he tells you” (cf. John 2:1-12).

    “We rejoice that we can listen to our mother’s advice and we pledge that we will truly listen and do what he tells us. He tells us to be united to him in the Eucharist. He tells us to believe in the Good News of the Gospel of salvation. He tells us to go forth in the real world and be his presence for a Church renewed,” Bishop Loverde said.

    As the Our Lady of Bai Dau pilgrimage begins, he said, it is an opportunity for the faithful to walk with Mary on their way to heaven. “One day, at our journey’s end, we will see not a statue of Mary holding out Jesus to us. We will see Mary herself pointing out to us Jesus, our savior.”

A MARIAN MISSION

    Le N. Nguyen, financial secretary of Council 9655, is helping coordinate the Our Lady of Bai Dau pilgrimage. He said that the inaugural Mass and prayer service was a “moving moment” for the Knights and families of the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam community.

    “Our mission has just begun,” said Nguyen. “We want to glorify our beloved mother, Our Lady of Bai Dau.”

    Nguyen said he believed the pilgrimage program “is a great way to introduce the Knights of Columbus to other Vietnamese Catholics in the United States, Canada and in Vietnam.” News about the pilgrimage is being featured on at least two Vietnamese Catholic Web sites.

    State Deputy Gallina agreed. “From my experience the Vietnam-ese are a very spiritual people. The Knights of Columbus can offer these men an opportunity to express further their Catholic faith, and Our Lady of Bai Dau can help us.

    “For me personally, as a Vietnam veteran, I have a very special love and respect for the Vietnamese people. It is important for me to do anything I can do through the Knights to help foster and spread the Catholic faith and the Order through the rosary and prayer.”

MESSENGER OF HOPE AND FREEDOM

    Thu Bui, one of the founding members of Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Council, said he and his wife had recently visited Vietnam and paid their respects to Mary at the Our Lady of Bai Dau Shrine in Vung Tau. “It is an honor to welcome her over here,” he said.

    “As many of us were leaving our homeland, fleeing the Communists in our leaky boats, she was on the hill looking out for us,” said Bui.

    “All immigrants, all boat people, anyone escaping repression can find hope and freedom in Our Lady of Bai Dau. She is the hope for the whole world.”

Tim S. Hickey is editor of Columbia