Celebration of vows and important jubilees for the De La Salle Brothers in Vietnam
The Lasallian District of Vietnam spent the month of June 2026 immersed in spirituality and the profession of temporary and perpetual vows by a number of young Brothers. Through two spiritual retreat sessions – the first in Da Lat (8-14 June) and the second in Mai Thon, Ho Chi Minh City (20–26 June) – the community celebrated the future of the mission and the fidelity of its long-standing members.
At the end of the retreats, there were significant confirmations of vocation:
- Perpetual Vows: On 27 June, Br. Jean Baptiste Nguyen Xuan Lam made his Perpetual Profession, binding himself definitively to the Institute.
- Renewal of Temporary Vows: No fewer than 12 young Brothers confirmed their annual commitment: Br. Pierre Pham Dinh Tien, Br. Joseph Pham Tran Tuan Hoang, Br. Jean Baptiste Bui Van Duc, Br. Antoine Nguyen Ngoc Thuyen, Br. Joseph Pham Van Anh, Brother Paul Nguyen Tuan, Brother Athanasius Nguyen Tan Phong, Brother Vincent Pham Phuoc Hoa, Brother Pierre Phan Van Than, Brother Joseph Vu Quoc Truong, Brother Joseph Nguyen Huynh Bao Loc, Brother Paul Do Thanh Tri.
The celebrations also provided an opportunity to honour the District’s history through five significant milestones:
- 50th anniversary of Perpetual Profession (Golden Jubilee): Br. Thomas Nguyen De Nghi
- 50th anniversary of taking the habit (Golden Jubilee): Br. Jean Tran Van Ba
- 25th anniversary of Perpetual Profession (Silver Jubilee): Br. Joseph Kieu Duy Son and Br. Vincent de Paul Nguyen Thang Long
- 80th Birthday: Br. Simeon Pham Quang Tung
The celebrations during the annual retreats reaffirm Vietnam’s central role within the Lasallian landscape in Asia and worldwide. The milestones reached by the older Brothers and the ‘yes’ of the younger ones thus merge into a single journey, which for 160 years has continued to make education an instrument of hope and social redemption.
The Lasallian presence in Vietnam, in fact, has its roots in 6 January 1866, the date of the arrival of the first six French Brothers in Saigon. Since then, every experience has been an example of extraordinary resilience: from the founding of the school in Adran to the establishment of the Indochina District (1896); from their expulsion from the North in 1954 to the nationalisation of all more than 40 schools by the regime in 1975; through to the confiscation of their assets, despite which the Brothers never left the country, reinventing themselves through evening charity schools, literacy projects and boarding schools, right up to the strong resurgence in vocations over the last twenty years.
