By Marco Ceccarelli
Parish Priest of Our Lady of the Rosary in Doubleview, Father Peter Nguyen OP, recently celebrated the 25th anniversary of his ordination to the priesthood.
In a time he describes as “having flown by because of my great enjoyment of the ministry of priesthood,” Fr Nguyen has tended to parishes in Australia and New Zealand, at one point making history as the first Vietnamese parish priest in Queensland.
Fr Nguyen arrived to Australia from Vietnam (via Malaysia) in 1981 after enduring a perilous journey across the sea as a refugee.
The experience at sea, along with the tragic news he received thereafter of his younger brother’s drowning after a failed attempt to make the same voyage, confirmed Fr Nguyen’s desire to offer his life to God and become a Dominican.
After some contact with the Dominicans in Adelaide, Fr Nguyen was sent to Canberra to study English with a group of novices and then to Melbourne to begin his formation as a Dominican.
“Initially, there were seven postulants in my group, but by the end of our formation I was the only one and received priestly ordination in Melbourne on 5 October, 199. My parents, my two sisters and one brother attended the event. Looking at my history, I decided that ‘God is our refuge’ would be the motto of my ordination.”
Fr Nguyen would go on to serve in St Benedict’s Parish, Auckland (New Zealand), from 1991 to 1993 and then in St Dominic’s Parish, Melbourne, for another two years. In 1995, he was appointed to Our Lady of Graces, in the Brisbane suburb of Carina, where in 1998 he was celebrated as being the very first Vietnamese Parish priest in Queensland.
Fr Nguyen was in 2005 appointed as Parish Priest at St Laurence’s in North Adelaide and at Our Lady of the Rosary in Prospect, South Australia. He eventually arrived to Perth, Western Australia, where he was made Parish Priest at Our Lady of the Rosary in Doubleview in 2009.
Judging by the significant crowd which on Sunday, 9 October, attended the special Morning Mass for Fr Nguyen, his eight years of service at Our Lady of the Rosary have been appreciated by the parishioners.
Fathers Joss Breen and Truc Nguyen also concelebrated the Mass with Fr Nguyen.
The celebrations continued after Mass with a morning tea and the following day at the Perth Catholic Vietnamese Centre where priests, sisters and brothers gathered to celebrate Fr Nguyen.
Looking ahead, Fr Nguyen is convinced that his ministry will be fulfilled by contemplating those words chosen at his ordination
“I have been in Perth for nearly a third of the journey of my priesthood. I don’t know what will happen in the future, but I still hold fast to my conviction: “God is our refuge”.
“I just try my best to accompany people who want to make their journey to wherever God wants them to be. I hope that my next quarter-century will be filled with the same life and hope that I had when I arrived in Australia. Please continue to pray for me,” Fr Nguyen said.