Lunar New Year is a time of celebration for many across Asia and the Divine Word Missionaries in Bangkok helped Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand to mark the occasion with prayer and fellowship.

Fr Anthony Le Duc SVD says there are tens of thousands of Vietnamese migrant workers in Thailand, but many of them return to Vietnam to celebrate Lunar New Year because it is close and easy to do so.

“However, every year there is a number of Vietnamese workers who do not go home for different reasons,” he says.

“As a SVD missionary serving overseas, I myself do not get to go home for Lunar New Year, and haven’t for the last 20 years. As a person who is deeply rooted in my cultural background, despite having grown up in the US, I decide every year, wherever I am, to celebrate the Lunar New year with the Vietnamese people around me. I do so to make myself happy and also to help bring happiness to fellow Vietnamese as well.”

Fr Anthony says the New Year celebration began at the SVD community house in Bangkok the day before the actual celebration, when some people got together to make New Year cakes.

“This activity takes the whole day, because the wrapping alone takes three to four hours,” he says. “The cooking takes up to eight hours to finish.”

Then, on New Year’s Day, Fr Anthony celebrated Mass at the SVD community house which had been decorated with yellow apricot blossoms and other flowers that Vietnamese use for Lunar New Year.

“More than 100 people attended, which is really crowded, because our residence is a normal family house, without any proper facilities to accommodate such a large number,” he says.

“At the end of Mass, as is tradition for Vietnamese Catholics, posters with various Scriptural quotes were given out. The people lined up to pick posters from a stack, so they wouldn’t know what Scriptural quote they would get.

“Non-Catholics, in accordance with the culture, go to temples to pray and pick buds from a tree as good luck charms for the New Year. For Vietnamese Catholics, the Word of God is supposed to be their ‘good luck charm’, which they will keep and try to live out in their life for the year.

“Beside the Word of God quotations, I also gave red envelopes to children and some of the younger youth. The older ones received Franciscan crosses that I got while in Rome for the General Chapter.

“Afterward, we lit firecrackers to celebrate the New Year. Unlike in Vietnam, lighting firecrackers is still legal in Thailand.”

The guests also enjoyed some sweets and the ‘banh chung’ cake that was wrapped the day before.