3712(III)_The Closing Celebration of the Bicentenary of The Birth of Don Bosco in Viet Nam

By Fr. Peter Chính, SDB

HCM City, Viet Nam, August 16, 2015 - Last Sunday evening at 4:00 PM of August 16 2015, the closing celebration of the Bicentenary of Don Bosco’s birth took place at Don Bosco Ben Cat community, Go Vap dist., HCM city.

Present at the celebration were the Salesian Bishop of Thai Binh diocese, Most Rev. Peter Mary Nguyen Van De SDB, Fr. Joseph Nguyen Van Quang, the provincial of St. John Bosco province, the Vice provincial of FMA, sister Mary Concetta Tran Thi La, the Superiors and many members of the Salesian Family in Viet Nam, the religious of some local congregations, the representatives and the youth of all Salesian parishes of Saigon diocese, friends of Don Bosco and the faithfuls of many parishes nearby. The total number was about 1.800.

Addressing at the closing celebration of the Bicentenary of Don Bosco’s birth, Fr. Joseph talked of the education of the youth according to the Salesian mission to the participants. He said:

“Through this sharing, I would like to introduce the way of fulfilling the Salesian mission to the educators and to the youth present in order to build a promising society with the qualified citizens in future:

• The way which becomes the spirituality, enables Don Bosco a distinguished educator of the world;
• The way Don Bosco used to form the youth to be the holy ones such as Dominic Savio, Laura Vicuna, Namuncura…
• The way enables the Salesians and the educators to be holy in fulfilling their mission of education;
• The way which becomes the guidelines to lead the youth to the holiness and to be the good citizens;

Today, I would like to introduce this to all of you.”

After 45 minute talk to the participants was the solemn mass in honour of Don Bosco. It began with procession from the area of the football ground to the festive platform. Leading the procession was the statue of Don Bosco and the pictures of the Salesian family saints which were the results of Don Bosco’s way of education. Mons. Peter Nguyen Van De presided the mass with over 60 concelebrants of Salesian and diocesan priests.

In his homily, Mons. Peter talked about the importance of education of the youth in today society. He said there was an urgent need to invest all of our energy in educating the youth if we wished to have a better society in future, especially in the real situation of VietNam nowadays. He introduced to everyone Don Bosco’s way of education, a way which enabled many young people to be good and holy during the last 120 years, a way which was recognized and highly appreciated by both civil society and Church.

After the mass, all participants enjoyed the light meal served by Ben Cat community and the music performance of the youth. Fr. Peter Pham Huy Hoàng was the MC and all turns of the program were performed by the youth of the Salesian parishes. There was also a special turn of the youth group coming from Mongolia and led by brother Andrew Tran Le Phuong SDB who have been working in Mongolia for 16 years.

Although it was the closing bicentenary celebration of Don Bosco’s birth in Viet Nam, there will be another celebration on Saturday August 22nd of this month for 5.000 young people of dioceses in the North of Viet Nam. This event will be held at the Bishopric of Thai Binh diocese.