The closing of the Jubilee Year honouring St. Clement Maria Hofbauer was held in Saigon on March 15, 2021, by the Redemptorist Province of Vietnam. This celebration was to commemorate the 200th anniversary of St. Clement’s death. On this feast day, the Province of Vietnam has organized some meaningful gathering activities. These aimed to foster the apostolic zeal and to encourage the burning missionary spirit of the young confreres in the Province.
See below: St. Clement Jubilee Closing Celebration in Saigon. Credit: Redemptorist Communication Office – VNRNews, Vietnam. A video in Vietnamese with English subtitles.
200 attendees, including priests and students who are studying and doing mission in Saigon, shared a fraternal lunch. After that, a seminar was held and broadcast online so that other confreres could participate and communion.
After film screenings of St. Clement’s life, the highlight of the seminar was the presentation of Fr J.B. Nguyen Thanh Bich. He gave a presentation on how dynamic and creative when St. Clemente doing mission according to the Redemptorist charism. He helped the participants to realize more deeply that: despite living more than two hundred years ago from us, in a different social and ecclesial situation, St. Clement continued to be a vivid model of missionary zeal. He inspired us by his diverse apostolic methods in response to the pressing needs of the time and the concrete circumstances in which he lived.
After listening to the presentation, the participants shared their insights that St. Clement has touched and inspired them in religious life, community life and ministry.
The program continued with the publication of the book The Collection of Writings on St. Clement. Father Provincial gave each participant this book as an invitation to continue deepening their spirituality and apostolic zeal of St. Clement, who honoured as the Second Founder of the Congregation. In his concluding speech, Father Provincial said: “For me, this conference was very fruitful so that we could experience the richness and powerful energy of life in our Congregation. This conference also marked the strong enthusiasm of our Province.”
After the conference, the participants proceeded to the Shrine of Mother of Perpetual Help to pray with St. Clement together with friends of the Redemptorist.
Then the thanksgiving Mass to celebrate St. Clement commenced at 18:00. In his homily, Father John Nguyen Ngoc Hai, CSsR, portrayed the face of St. Clement as a courageous and confident missionary on a thorny path of vocation and apostolic mission.
“We can synthesize in a sentence about St. Clement: Amid all the ups and downs St. Clement faced in his life, he has always lived as a missionary full of courage and confidence.”
The feast day closed with a concert on the life of St. Clement held with the theme “Clemente Hofbauer – A missionary of the times.” The concert was performed by the professed students together with the RYM.
The feast day has ended with deep and sacred impressions. May the Lord bless the Congregation and the entire Redemptorist family in doing mission in today’s wounded world so that every Redemptorist will always be the authentic witness and prophet of the Redeemer.
Fr. Dominic
