Excitement grows at Christ Cathedral for unveiling of Our Lady of La Vang shrine

Publish date: 2024-06-28

When Lan Nguyen visits a new church, she can usually tell if other Vietnamese Catholics are in the community.

The giveaway? A statue of Our Lady of La Vang.

“Our Lady of La Vang symbolizes our beautiful country Vietnam, for we carry her in our hearts and minds,” Nguyen said.

“Wherever we go, we always try to bring the statue of La Vang to our church,” she said.  “As refugees on strange lands, we turn to her like our loving mother to find solace and comfort.”

There are about 100,000 Catholics of Vietnamese descent in Orange County – home to the largest concentration of Vietnamese people outside of Vietnam. About 200,000 Vietnamese Americans live in Little Saigon – which spans Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Santa Ana and Westminster.

And now many of the community are excited to have an Our Lady of La Vang statue included as a beacon to other Vietnamese Americans at the Christ Cathedral, the center of Orange County’s Catholicism.

The Christ Cathedral’s new shrine to Our Lady of La Vang will be unveiled in a public celebration on Saturday with an outdoor mass and a joint performance by 19 choirs from throughout the diocese, project manager Elysabeth Nguyen said.

Catholics say the Virgin Mary appeared in 1798 in the forest of La Vang in Central Vietnam to console Catholics who had taken refuge from persecution. The Our Lady of La Vang apparition continued to serve as a symbol of comfort and hope for the refugees who entered the U.S. during the Vietnam War.

“We want to show our devotion to Our Lady of La Vang because of the intercession she has done for us. We carry that in our hearts,” Lan Nguyen said.

The 12-foot statue of the Virgin Mary, which has been placed in a large shrine built in the northeast corner of the Christ Cathedral campus, was specially made for the diocese with white Carrara marble from Italy and took a year and a half to sculpt. 

Her serene face has the hint of a smile as she lovingly holds the baby Jesus. Dressed in a traditional Vietnamese áo dài dress, she stands on a cloud, the base of which reads “Our Lady of La Vang” and “Pray for us” in Vietnamese and English. Several feet behind the statue are three supporting columns, meant to symbolize the banyan trees in which the Marian apparition appeared, holding a glass roof over her head – ensuring she is kept safe, rain or shine.

More than 5,000 parishioners helped fund the $12.6 million project.

To donor Le Tin Huong of Huntington Beach, Our Lady of La Vang is not just a symbol of hope. Huong believes she saved her father’s life.

Huong’s father, who was not Catholic at the time, was in a car that plunged into the river after a bad accident. When he was found, rescuers had to perform CPR. Regaining consciousness, he said: “Please ask Father for baptism, baptism for the whole family. Our Lady of La Vang has saved me,” according to Huong.

Huong and her husband have already decided they will leave all they have to the Catholic Church when they die, she said. For the shrine, they donated about $200,000.

“Vietnamese Catholics love the Blessed Mother in a very special way. This is a home away from home for us,” Huong said. “This is also a wonderful opportunity for each of us to express our love and gratitude toward the Mother of God and our Mother right here in our own diocese.”

Some Vietnamese Americans, like Paul Trung Quang Bui, are coming from beyond county lines for the shrine’s unveiling. Bui, of Ontario, donated with his entire family to the project.

Though other parishes in the region have statues of Our Lady of La Vang, the large shrine at the Christ Cathedral will be a must-see for Vietnamese tourists visiting Southern California, Bui said.

“A lot of Vietnamese people actually travel to Orange County with families. Building a shrine there allows them to also have a pilgrimage, so they can come and go and pay their respects to Mary,” he said.

Though up to 8,000 people are expected at Saturday’s public unveiling, Auxiliary Bishop Thanh Thai Nguyen is confident future events at the shrine will be even more popular, particularly Marian Days, the annual celebration in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Marian Days are observed by Vietnamese-American Catholics on the first weekend of August – up to 120,000 journey to Missouri for festivities every year. Now, they can honor the Virgin Mary in Orange County, Bishop Nguyen said.

“I say 20,000 people will come for Marian Days because that’s our max capacity,” he said. “If we had more space, I’m sure even 50,000 people would come.”

Christ Cathedral will also hold an outdoor mass at the shrine on the first Saturday of each month, he said.

“This is only the beginning,” he said. “Our celebration will be ongoing. It’ll continue every day because we have so many Vietnamese people here in Little Saigon.”

This post first appeared on ocregister.com

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