JOURNEY: Godfather-priest was role model

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

As he anticipates his ordination, Deacon Peter Phuong Phi Bui recalls the role that the life – and death – of his godfather played in his journey. He also looks at cultural treasures of his parents’ native Vietnam.
On June 3 Deacon Bui is to become the diocese’s first Vietnamese-American priest. His godfather, Father Phuong Van Nguyen, was one of the first immigrants from Vietnam ordained to serve the Diocese of Worcester as a priest.
“He saw my parents (Chien Bui and Michelle Nguyen) at Our Lady of Fatima” Parish in Worcester, where he was serving as a seminarian, Deacon Bui said. “They had just gone to Mass there by chance.” Mrs. Nguyen was expecting a baby, and the seminarian asked whether he could be the godfather if the child was a boy. Although they didn’t know him, the couple agreed.
“In the Vietnamese culture, it’s an honor to have a religious be a godfather,” Deacon Bui explained.
Young Peter was born in Worcester on March 19, 1992. He said he didn’t have a godmother. But, as planned, the seminarian was his godfather when he was baptized at St. John Parish in Worcester by Father Anthony Dai, who served the Vietnamese Catholic community there at the time.
Father Nguyen, ordained a priest in 1993, was leading that same Vietnamese community when it moved to Our Lady of Vilna Parish in Worcester in 2001.
“After Masses he would give out bubble gum to the kids,” Deacon Bui recalled. “It was just so kind and thoughtful. It gave us a sense of community and belonging. … He cared about the future generations. … He wanted them to remain practicing Catholics. He role-modeled the faith for me. … He did whatever he could for his parishioners, to help them.”
Deacon Bui said he wants to give the children bubble gum after his Mass of Thanksgiving at his home parish, Our Lady of Vilna. It is to be celebrated in Vietnamese at 10 a.m. June 4.
He has a Mass of Thanksgiving in English at 10 a.m. June 11 at St. Joseph Parish in Charlton, where he was a seminarian intern for two summers. During his seminary years he also served at St. George Parish in Worcester and St. Rose of Lima Parish in Northborough and studied the Vietnamese language in Vietnam.
As a youth, he attended May Street School in Worcester, Leicester High School and Assumption College, where he earned his bachelor’s in psychology and master’s in business administration.
He worked as a business analyst for a bank in Boston before preparing for priesthood at Theological College and The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., earning his master’s of divinity degree this spring.
It takes much prayer and sacrifice, examination of conscience and seeking of the truth to discern and pursue the call to priesthood, Deacon Bui maintained. For him, there were many moments when he sensed it, because God continues to reveal himself, he said.
“But I think the seed was planted with the passing of my godfather,” he said. Even though Father Nguyen didn’t live to see the fruit, “the witness we give matters.”
Father Nguyen accidentally drowned when fishing on Good Friday in 2004 when he was temporary administrator of Our Lady of Vilna.
“I was only 12 and I could see what was happening … that we lost someone special in the family; the Vietnamese community lost someone special,” Deacon Bui said.
Sometimes people “take the priests for granted,” he said. “They’re not going to be around forever. The priests are invited into the most intimate part of our lives.”
In Vietnamese culture, “we respect those who are older than us, those who have contributed so much to society,” he said. That includes acknowledging the significant role priests play.
“In Vietnam, it’s quite the honor … to be ordained, and to have a family member ordained to the priesthood,” he said. “It doesn’t just affect the individual, but it affects the whole family, because it takes a family to nurture the faith in the person who’s ordained.” So, his vocation story is not just his; “it belongs to the people of God and the family.”
Deacon Bui said 20 to 30 relatives are coming to his ordination from around the United States and one or two from Vietnam. They plan to stay at his parents’ house in Worcester, where his sister, Angela Bui, 29, also lives. The visitors want to be with the family, even though some will have to sleep on the floor!
His confirmation sponsors – Father Nguyen’s brother and sister-in-law, whom he now calls his godparents – are to come from Pennsylvania, and friends from seminary and parishes where he served are traveling from several states, he said.
As he heads into priesthood, Deacon Bui has advice for other young men: “If you believe that you’re called (to be a priest), be generous in your response. If you’re truly called, it’s all worth it.”
Asked about his goals for his own priestly life, he said, “The only word I have is obedience. I just want to do whatever God’s asking me to do. ‘Lord, help me to do it.’”