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At the end of 1999, while everywhere in the world was filled with consternation of the end of the world, I flew back to pay a visit at my homeland.  On this long flight back to the states, there was a question suddenly popped up in my mind, “what is my ultimate goal of life?”  Since I was so busy with so many things, such as studies and work, etc.  This was the first time I found myself unoccupied with achievements, ambitions and dreams, and it was such a long flight of 24 hours.  So much leisure time!  Thus, I kept wondering about this question and many others that related to it, “what is the true goal of my life?”  “What have I been striving for in my daily life?”  “Is it that I am to aspire to a high status in society?”  “Is it to do something that really makes a big difference in my own country?” etc.  For every college student, I thought, always had some dream of being someone, and so had I.  I had my own dreams and ambition, but now, at this very moment I was totally perplexed with this very important question, if not saying that it is the most important question of every rational being.  I couldn’t answer this question until a year later, I was at a one-week retreat with the Congregation of the Mother Co-redemptrix in Missouri in August, 2000.  It was in this place, I received the call from God to religious life.

A few months after my retreat, I spent a lot of time in solitude and prayer, during which I felt so much compulsion to search for a way of religious life.  Under God’s guidance while at my nephew’s baptism ceremony, I met two Dominican friars.  There in my nephew's family’s home parish, the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam Church in Arlington, Virginia, these two friars would become an important part of my life.  After a few times of meeting them, I started to recall my childhood memories , so many amazing stories which played a vital role in my life.  I cherished my childhood memories with the Dominicans back in Vietnam.  These Dominican just kept appearing in my life.  Here were some extraordinary occurrences during my childhood:

1. When my mother was 5 months pregnant with me, she was bleeding so much that she had to go to hospitals and clinics around the area.  All the doctors that she had met repetitively said to her the same thing, “you should get prepared for the miscarriage.” With so much gloom there was only one hope, she placed her hope in the power of God.  She went to St. Martin de Porres Chapel nearby our house to pray for his intercession. God answered her prayer, and then the bleeding suddenly stopped.  After a few months, the “little Bui” was born, and St. Martin became my patron saint.

2. In 1981, I was 8 years old, and I had so much energy.  I was active and robust, but I fell sick with a very bad fever. I was sent for treatment at Thanh Tam hospital, where I stayed under care for more than two weeks, but I did not get better, and I even got worse.  My stomach just expanded bigger and bigger, day by day.  One night, I woke up in the middle of the night and asked my mom to recite a prayer, to ask for St. Martin’s intercession again.  I went back to sleep. The morning after, I felt so much better, and the stomach also gradually deflated.  After a week, I was able to join the other boys in messing-up things in the neighborhood.

3. Also about this time, when my father was imprisoned, I did not do very well in school.  Therefore, my mother asked for the help of my father’s friend, a Dominican priest, who was the Prior at St. Martin’s chapel.  She also enlisted the help of a Dominican hospital chaplain, Fr. Nguyen, who gave me daily lessons at his work place, and sometimes took me for a short visit to the priory. It was a happy time for me, even though my father was kept away from me by the communists.

Thus, after getting to know the two Dominicans I first met in the states, I was asked to have a discernment-in-residence with them.  I moved into the Holy Martyrs of Vietnam rectory in November, 2000.  I stayed there for about six months, during which time I discovered so much that attracted me, especially the prayer life and the charism of preaching of the Dominican Order.  Consequently, I was vested in the Dominican habit and started my novitiate year under the instruction of Novice Master, Fr. Walter Wagner, OP at the Novitiate of the Province of St. Joseph (Eastern Province) in Cincinnati, Ohio in August, 2001.  Throughout the novitiate, the way of living out the gospel in the Dominican Order was deepened in me, and thus I grew up more and more in not only knowledge of the Order, but also in many aspects, such as the common life, the contemplative prayer and the zeal of preaching for salvation of souls, which is the beautiful Dominican way of imitating Jesus Christ who is the chaste, the poor and the obedient.  This way of life has brought me so much joy and happiness.  Consequently, on the feast of the Assumption, August 15^th 2002, I professed my simple vows in the hands of friar Paul Tran, OP, the Vicar-Provincial of the Vietnamese Vicariate of St. Vincent Lim at St. Gertrude Church, Cincinnati, Ohio.

I am now in my formation at St. Albert the Great Convent in Oakland, California.  After my first year of philosophy here, I will move to the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC for the completion of my formation.  I am looking forward to preaching to all people, those who are astray in the murky society and those who have not heard the Good News of Salvation.

My motto: “For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him who sent me." (John 6:38)