Seeking Tranquility

Finding Warmth in Faith

Vietnam is a country with a longstanding religious tradition – with both nativist and more recently embraced faiths – in which Catholicism is a central part. Introduced to the country in the early years of the 20th century, Catholicism has become an indispensable part of the Vietnamese people.

In the United States, the first Vietnamese people to arrive were mostly Catholics who left everything behind to seek a new future, a new horizon, in the midst of turmoil (namely war) in their motherland.

In Portland, one of the places where these Vietnamese immigrants were able to settle in the 1970s, these immigrants gathered together, helped each other, and integrated into the new environment and its customs.

It was here that they built community destinations and connected with each other, especially at churches where faith was the glue that bound them together.

One of these churches that, in my personal opinion, is truly warm is Our Lady of La Vang Church, which has two locations in the greater Portland area.

In the La Vang church just off Sandy Boulevard in Northeast Portland, I have felt and observed the unusually gentle and peaceful beauty of the people who gather.

It’s entire families spending weekend time together to attend Mass; it’s the care for each other in the cautious steps of an elderly couple with gray hair; it’s the moments of silence that we take to reflect on ourselves, to look back at the good things we have brought and the mistakes we have made.

There also are the small stories that I saw and heard in the short moments of that day’s Mass.

Through these moments, I personally can feel warmed and rested after enduring all the tryhards and all the heavy burdens in this foreign land.

And I think everyone should have some moments of silence for themselves, so that they can look back and think deeply about what has passed.

After all, it’s hard to find tranquility while holding onto burdens.

Thien Trieu Tran