When Deacon Yen Van Tran is ordained a priest, he will be following in the footsteps of three of his siblings and hundreds of parishioners from his boyhood parish in Vinh, Vietnam.
Archbishop Shelton J. Fabre will ordain Deacon Tran along with Deacons Matthew Millay, Kenneth Nauert, Michael Schultz and Van Tran at 10 a.m. on the first day of June at St. Michael Church, 3705 Stone Lakes Drive.
“I’m very excited to start another chapter of my life,” said Deacon Tran during a recent interview. “It’s my 11th year in formation. … I’m very excited to apply what I learned in the seminary. I want to live more closely with the people of God to serve them and do the best work of priesthood.”
Deacon Tran is the son of Luu Tran and Loi Thi Tran, who will travel from Vietnam to attend his ordination.
Deacon Tran grew up in rural Vinh and attended Thanh Da Church, where his family is among 18,000 parishioners, he said. At least 600 men and women from that parish have answered calls to religious life or the priesthood, Deacon Tran noted.
Growing up, his family attended daily Mass, which filled up “like Sunday” and prayed the rosary daily, he said. That devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary remains today.
“I pray the rosary every day,” he said. “Mary is my closest friend. She’s a companion in my vocation journey.”
Growing up, he admired the priests and how they “served the people without concern for money. I love the way they serve the people with care and compassion. It was my first impression of what a priest is,” Deacon Tran said. “I wanted to be like them.”
Deacon Tran is the third of six children. Two of his sisters and a brother also pursued a call to religious life.
His calling to the priesthood came in middle school, when he joined a parish youth group that allowed him to serve in a variety of ways, from visiting the poor to cleaning the church, he said.
Today he is looking forward to starting his ministry as a priest.
“I’m very excited to celebrate Mass, work with the people and care for them. I want to accompany them through life,” said Deacon Tran. “I’m still learning and it’ll be a change from the seminary to the reality of priesthood but I know I am not alone.”
Following ordination, Deacon Tran will travel to Vietnam to visit the rest of his family. He has been assigned as associate pastor at St. Margaret Mary Church.
