HAPPY BIRTHDATE TO FR. DOMINIC BẢO.

On this very special day, the Feast of St. Martin de Porres, "the VSL
Patriarch" Fr. Dominic Phạm Văn Bảo turns to his age of seventy. It is the age of
wonder, for it is inevitably marked with the blessing from God. May the Almighty
God continue blessing this humble friar long life of witnessing His Love in the rest of
his journey of imitating the good Shepherd to serve the Church and the Order of Friar
Preachers.
The age of seventy marks a significant turning-point of one's life. For the
Vietnamese as well as the Chinese, a man living up to his seventieth is very rare and
thus a blessing from God. The famous poet Đỗ Phủ once said, "Nhân sinh thất thập
cổ lai hy" (Since the advent of time, it has been rare for a man to live up to the age of seventy). In the words of
the Bible being placed in the mouth of Moses, "Seventy is the sum of our years, or eighty, if we are strong;
Most of them are sorrow and toil; they pass quickly, we are all but gone." (Ps. 90:10) According to the famous
Vietnamese composer Y Vân, the whole span of one's life is wrapped merely in 60 years, as written in his
famous song "Sáu Mươi Năm Cuộc Đời" (60 Years of Life). According to the composer, the span of 60 years is
divided into three 20-year parts; the first is of short happiness, the second of sorrow, and the last of merely
counting few days left. Simply a short span of life is sentimentally expressed in suspiration, "Anh ơi, ta sống là
bao!" (How short it is of our life!) How many years one's life having been lasting no longer becomes a question
when one's engaged in pondering its meaning. For it is short, why lamenting and blaming? If death is an
inevitably unavoidable step of human life, let not the course of one's life be wasted but rather becomes
meaningful. There was a famous scholar-general Văn Thiên Tường in the last years of the Southern Song
Dynasty. He was very famous for his patriotism and righteousness, who courageously resisted and indomitably
fought against the (Hốt Tất Liệt) Kublai Khan's invasion of China, once said: "None since the advent of time
have ever escaped death, may my loyalty forever illuminate the annals of history" in his poem "Quá Linh Đinh
Dương". (Its original verses in Chinese and Vietnamese are below)

This famous quotation was later quoted by the great Vietnamese military General and well-known prolific poet
Nguyễn Công Trứ in his immortal epic "Chí Nam Nhi" (The Will To Be A Righteous Man):
The spirit of this immortal epic of the
great Vietnamese hero has been eloquently
expressed in the humble and quiet life of the
Dominican friar Fr. Dominic Bảo, being under
voluntary obedience but being lived out in an
incredibly free manner. Fr. Dominic Phạm
Văn Bảo's life has been associated
with endless days of up and down, closely
intertwined with struggling days of the
Vicariate of St. Vincent Liêm since the very
first moment of its conception. One might
say that without this humble friar Dominic
Bảo, the Vicariate could never come into
existence. Therefore, his humble presence in
the Order has become an instrument of God's
caring providence for the Vietnamese
Vicariate. At the reception of his 70th
birthdate, the Regional Prior Joseph Trần
Trung Liêm rightly gave respect to him, "the Dad and the Teacher of the friars of the Vietnamese Vicariate," and
acknowledged his loving and caring presence as a wise and humble shepherd amidst the friars and the
communities, both English and Vietnamese-speaking in Calgary.
 Fr. Dominic Bảo was born on the 3rd of November 1938
in Việt Nam. He entered the Order of Friar Preachers in Việt
Nam, and was ordained in the Philippines in 1968. After being
ordained to the priesthood, he returned to his province and was
made Master to the novices for the next three consecutive
years. In 1972, he was again sent to pursue higher studies in
Manila, Filippines. In the next few years, as the Fall of Sài Gòn
occured, like many other fellow confrares having been scartered
around the world, he has encountered tremendous difficulties.
Simply out of his compassion for his poor fellow countrymen
seeking asylum in refugee camps in the Phillippines, he has put
aside his studies and immersed himself in the religious task-force
ministering for the boat-people. In 1978, he was about to depart
from the Phillippines to resettle in the States, but this plan was totally twisted by the invitation of bishop Paul
O'Byrne to serve about 30 Vietnamese people having just placed their cold-feet in the frigid soil of Calgary.
Unexpectedly, Fr. Dominic Bảo became a bridge for the foundation of the Vietnamese Vicariate in Calgary.
When the Việt Dominican friars scartering around the world wanted to gather together into a community closely
associating with their cultural heritage, it was first intended to be some place in the USA, most likely in Houston,
but this idea was strongly opposed by some American friars for the reason "America is a melting pot."
At the fraternal meeting, 8-10 August 1979, all the friars were harmoniously at one will of establishing the
Vietnamese Vicariate in North America continent. (Tâm tâm tương ấn lập khai Phụ Tỉnh) Fortunately, Fr.
Dominic had all that at stake at the most opportune time. In the divine providence, before Fr. Dominic Bảo left
for the meeting, he was called by the bishop O'Byrne of Calgary to his office, for the bishop has just learned of
the Việt friars and their gathering in Houston. And at his door, the bishop himself personally gave the letter of
invitation to Fr. Bảo to pass onto the friars at the gathering. With the bishop's good-will, sincerity, readiness
for embrace and support, the friars at once accepted his invitation to come to Calgary and established the
headquarter of the Vietnamese Vicariate there. Thanks be to God for giving the Vietnamese friars "a good
Samaritan" at this difficult time. The friars deeply experienced and understood what it meant that while being
rejected from within one's own family, one is accepted by those outsiders. This historical welcome of bishop
O'Byrne thus marked the humble and delicate beginning of the Vietnamese Vicariate of St. Vincent Liêm, OP.
Since 1979 when the very first wave of Vietnamese refugees resettling in Calgary, mid-west province of
Alberta in Canada, Fr. Dominic Bảo was their first pastor shepherding only a group of 30 people, which has been
growing over years. Today it becomes a thriving Vietnamese Parish of 500 families, speaking in terms of a quite
large traditional Vietnamese family, i.e. more than 2000 Vietnamese Catholics. Since last August, he has been
assigned to be associate pastor to serve this community, nowadays St. Vincent Liêm's Parish, as a retiring post.
Over the last 30 years of parochial service to the Diocese of Calgary, in addition to a brief period of the
first two years serving for the Vietnamese refugee group, Fr. Dominic Bảo has laboriously served for many
English-speaking parishes. For the last 10 years, Fr. Dominic Bảo served at the Holy Trinity Parish as its pastor
in lieu of the Redemptorists, whose last pastoral hub in Calgary was finally given up since 1998. Throughout
many years of pastoral service, Fr. Dominic Bảo was notably known for his kind and loving care for those whom
he has been ministering. People have been strongly touched by his kindness and dedicacy and still kept
freshly his kind face in their memory even though years have been long past. A middle age woman retold a story
that she has never forgotten. In her very first days in Canada, when she was just a young lady having recently
arriving from the Philippines, she lost her dad and called a parish office to arrange for funeral mass.
When everything was arranged, they showed up at the step of the church, which she thought that
was already arranged for the funeral mass, but it was not. It was merely a mistake made over the phone call. At
that moment of finding out that mistake, she was desperately shattered in pieces. Fortunately, it was the church,
which Fr. Dominic Bảo was ministering at. Fr. Dominic Bảo was immediately informed of this happenning.
Out of kindness and compassion, he immediately helped and celebrated the unscheduled funeral mass for them.
"After 30 years," she said, "His kind and benign face is still fresh in my memory."
Indeed, each and every day of his humble life has become blessing for others, his fellow confrares and
parishioners. He has been loved not only within the Dominican community, his parish, but also non-Catholics in
the region. It is interesting to notice that nowadays many people in Calgary identify the parish, which he has
served with his own name; e.g. Holy Trinity Parish is now more popularly known as "Father Bảo's Church". It
seems manifesting that one's life becomes meaningful to oneself and blessing to others does not depend upon
how long one lives and how much one has achieved, but rather how genuinely open one is for the hand of God
working in and through him. Apparently, the humble and quiet life of this friar has become an efficacious
instrument for God to manifest his gracious love at a corner of the globe.
Fr. Dominic Bảo will celebrate his Thanksgiving Mass at St. Vincent Liêm's Church on this coming Sunday,
November 8th, at 11:00 AM. Please visit the website of the Vietnamese Dominican Friars www.vinhsonliem.net
for pictures and more.

Nhân dịp mừng Thượng Thọ Thất Tuần

của cha giáo Đaminh Phạm Văn Bảo, OP
tại Calgary, thứ ba ngày 3 tháng 11 năm 2009
Ts. Martin Philip Bùi Thái Nhân, OP
Gia Trang Anh Em Đaminh Hải Ngoại
http://www.vinhsonliem.net