The Southeast Asian country is all set to celebrate the Tết or Lunar New Year from Jan. 22 to Jan. 24
Students from Thai Ha Parish in Hanoi make banh chung, a square-shaped pack of sticky rice with meat and bean fillings wrapped in green leaves, to offer their parents to celebrate the Tết festival. (Photo: nhathothaiha.net)
Vietnam is all set to celebrate the Lunar New Year, and the Church in Vietnam has asked Catholic students to display their piety to God, ancestors and the motherland.
Bishop Peter Huynh Van Hai of Vinh Long said that the Tết or Lunar New Year celebrations are a rare opportunity for students to show their filial affection to God, who created them, to their parents, who gave birth to them, and to the land which is their spiritual mother.
Students can never afford to deny these three aspects of filial piety, Bishop Hai said.
“You should remember that families are the safest and most loving environment for you to grow up and mature in all aspects. So, please respect and be indebted and devoted to your families since they are the firm foundation to build up your filial piety,” Bishop Hai, head of the Episcopal Commission for Catholic Education of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Vietnam, told Catholic students across the country in his Tết message on Jan. 14.
Tết, short for Tết Nguyên Đán, is the Vietnamese celebration of the Lunar New Year. This year, the festival falls on Jan. 22 to end on Jan. 24. Schools throughout the country are closed for the festival from Jan. 18 to Jan. 29.
Family is the first school where human values to relate to others, listen to others and share with others are taught, Bishop Hai said.
Noting that many people see the family as an obstacle, the 68-year-old prelate said that it is one of the biggest challenges in the third millennium to return to family values.
The bishop further urged students to always be beneficial to parents so that they can fulfill one of their most important duties – “honor your father and mother.”
He observed that everyone is deeply indebted to his/her motherland, where they are born and brought up, which they inherit from their ancestors. This debt compels them to enrich those precious legacies, he added.
The Church teaches that love and service to the motherland follow from the duty of gratitude, the prelate further noted.
“The old year is slowly coming to an end to make way for a new year. I wish all of you holiness, peace, and good health in the New Year,” Bishop Hai said in the message.
The communist nation of Vietnam houses the fifth largest Catholic population in Asia, after the Philippines, India, China and Indonesia. There are more than seven million Catholics in Vietnam, accounting for seven percent of the country’s 97.3 million population.
During the first three days of the Lunar New Year, Catholics pray for prosperity. On the first day, they do it for their ancestors, on the second day for their livelihood and on the last day, to integrate Christian values into the national tradition.
In Vietnamese tradition, this year is the Year of the Cat, while in other Southeast nations, like Korea and China, it is the Year of the Rabbit.
People born in the Year of the Cat are considered to be sociable, yet they always keep a secret to themselves, which makes them more attractive, according to local tradition.
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