Second priest ordained for Wellington Archdiocese this year

At the Mass on July 12, Archbishop Paul Martin SM said in his homily that it was a great joy to be celebrating Fr Kinh’s ordination.

“This is the second ordination for our archdiocese this year,” Archbishop Martin said. “We are very blessed to have men responding so generously and with courage to God’s call to be priests.”

Earlier this year, Fr Matthew White was ordained to the presbyterate at the same cathedral.

Archbishop Martin noted that “the call to priesthood is not a career path, chosen from among many others, but a response to a call that originates in the very heart of God”.

“Kinh, your journey from Vietnam to New Zealand, your studies and formation in Auckland, your pastoral year in Upper Hutt, and now your diaconate in Holy Trinity parish, all of this is the unfolding of that divine call,” he said.

The archbishop praised Fr Kinh’s enthusiasm, his being approachable and his carrying “a joy that is unmistakeably rooted in the Gospel. That joy is your witness”.

Archbishop Martin thanked the Vietnamese community for the richness of their faith and for their generosity.

Speaking after the Mass, in Vietnamese and English, Fr Kinh gave thanks to God for “the precious gift of the priesthood that I have just received”.

“I am deeply aware of my unworthiness, but I also know that God’s love is unfathomable,” Fr Kinh said. “It is only because of this love that I have been chosen to share in the priesthood of Christ, his Son and our Lord. Because of this same love, I will wholeheartedly devote my life to the service of Christ’s Gospel and his body, the Church”.

Among those he thanked were the people in his home parish in Vietnam who were watching the Mass live, as were most of the members of his family. He said he would never forget his origins. He also thanked the Vietnamese community in Aotearoa New Zealand for their support.

To the people of the Archdiocese of Wellington, Fr Kinh said that, from this moment on, “I belong entirely to you. As St Augustine said, with you I am a Christian, and for you I am now a priest. So here I am, eagerly looking forward to walking alongside you and serving you. Thank you all for your prayers.”

Fr Kinh is the youngest sibling of a large Catholic family in Vietnam. He spent his early years in the city of Vinh. After leaving school, he worked as a bricklayer, entered the Society of the Divine Word (SVD) and studied sociology at university. After a long period of discernment, he left the Society of the Divine Word novitiate and later became a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Wellington in 2019.

His initial ministry as a priest will be at Holy Trinity Parish, in Wellington’s east.

FULL STORY

ORDINATION TO THE PRIESTHOOD of Deacon KINH VAN NGUYEN on Vimeo (Archdiocese of Wellington/Vimeo)

wellingtonpriests.org (Wellington priests)

Fr Matthew White (Wellington priests)