Kinh Nguyen and Matthew White at their graduation from the Te Kupenga Catholic Theological College, 26 May 2023.
By Mark Bond, CTC Network, May 2023
Kinh Nguyen is Valedictorian in this year’s graduating class, and he attributes his success to God’s grace and the “hard work of so many people.” Indeed, both grace and people have abounded in Kinh’s journey, which has spanned over the last fourteen years.
The youngest of a “big Catholic family with seven siblings,” Kinh lived out his early years in the city of Vinh, Vietnam. After leaving high school in 2009, he spent two years working as a bricklayer before joining the Society of the Divine Word (SVD). From 2011 to 2015, he studied Sociology at a university in Saigon, and after “a long time of discernment,” he left the SVD novitiate community in 2016. He thought it was the end of his priestly vocational journey, but just two years later, God called him to New Zealand, and he became a diocesan seminarian for the Archdiocese of Wellington in 2019. “God’s work is always a surprise,” he said, reflecting on the challenges and blessings of his calling. “[Being far from home], I often felt homesick, especially during my first year. But I have also experienced many blessings, the biggest one [being] that I am a member of the Archdiocese of Wellington. Whenever I’m back in my diocese, I always feel loved by the people.”
Kinh is currently in his fifth year of formation at Holy Cross Seminary, and as such, he is in his “pastoral year,” a period in which a seminarian stays in a parish and immerses himself in the day-to-day life of its community. Kinh relayed that the experience has been “dynamic,” and that his CTC education has been a “big help” in his ministry. “Having a strong theological background is helpful when you’re asked to give a talk to children or adults, or when you’re asked questions about liturgy,” he said. Having had a taste of the administrative, liturgical, and pastoral demands of parish life, Kinh expressed gratitude for the joint support of Te Kupenga and Holy Cross Seminary, and encouraged other students to seek this support if and when they need it. “If you don’t understand something, just be brave and ask your lecturers for help, as I did frequently. Sometimes I was afraid to bother them too much, but out of my love for knowledge, I always overcame that fear. And whenever I did, I always received wonderful assistance from my lecturers. After a while, I realised that they like students coming to them for help!”
Kinh’s reflections come from a place of humility and thankfulness, and out of a desire to grow. His goal is to conform himself to Christ as he continues his pastoral placement, and as such, when I asked him which saint he would like to be trapped in an elevator with, he said he’d like to be stuck with the Blessed Mother. “I admire all the Saints, especially John the Baptist, my patron,” he said. “But I think Mother Mary knows Jesus better than anyone else, so having time with her would lead me closer to Jesus.”