August 5, 2018

My Dear Parishioners,

     Beginning this Thursday, August 2nd to Sunday, August 5th, most of the Vietnamese parishioners and I will be attending the Marian Days in Carthage, Missouri with our Bishop Kemme.  This annual event holds about 60,000 to 80,000 people from all over the world, including hundreds of priests and religious sisters from Vietnam.  I have been attending this conference since I first came to America in 1986.  I enjoy going there to be with my family and to visit with my relatives from New Jersey, Alabama, and Texas.  Also, I want to thank God for my life and my vocation.  It was God who saved my family and I and brought us to this blessed nation.  Of course, I love to profess my faith among thousands of Catholics.  As a priest, I con-celebrate Mass twice a day and hear about four hours of confessions every day.  The most confessions I have ever heard was seven hours, which was not even half of the confessions St. John Vianney, patron saint of priests, heard in one day.  He heard about fourteen to sixteen hours of confessions a day.  Please know that this pilgrimage is important to me for I will help many people reconcile with God.  Of course, I will pray for my parishioners every day at Holy Mass.  I am sure when I am back I will be very tired, but not as tired as those attending Marian Days who sleep outside in tents in hot and wet weather, if it rains.  All the priests share rooms, about six to seven priests in one room.  Some priests snore like a mower and others often wakeup in the middle of the night to use the bathroom.  I hope you know that priests are human like everyone else.  How about women?  Do women snore?  Or talk in their sleep?
     Welcome Rev. Kenneth Van Haverbeke:  Father will be celebrating all weekend Masses while I am in Carthage for the Marian Days.  Father will hear confessions only on Saturday before 4pm Mass and Sunday before 8am Mass.  Those of you who once were a parishioner of Fr. Ken, a member of Church of the Magdalen on Kellogg and Woodlawn, please give Fr. Ken a hard time for me.  Tell him that he is having an easy priestly job for not being a pastor of a parish.  Just kidding!  Please know that Father is very smart and sweet and he will enjoy your greetings after Mass.  Please thank him in person for me.  Due to the many Vietnamese parishioners who will be in Carthage with me, and many of the faithful who will be attending the Midwest Catholic Conference in downtown Wichita this weekend, please sit in the front pews at Mass so that Father doesn’t have to preach to empty pews.  Thank you for your cooperation.
    Finally, parents, if you have not registered your child/children for Catholic education, please do so.  God entrusted them to you so that you may love them and raise them—as Catholics, especially intellectually and spiritually.  All Saints Catholic school is here to help you in your children’s education and the formation of their hearts and souls.  If you want your child/children to be loving, kind, respectful with a positive attitude, wanting to be successful in life and to be faith-filled, then you must give them a Catholic Education when they are young.  Bring your child/children to Jesus for He loves them all. 

      Bring them to Jesus, Fr. Hien
​
P.S: There will be no Daily Mass on Thursday, August 2nd and Friday, August 3rd.
​