Sunday 7th June – Corpus Christi Sunday
This Sunday at 9am Mass, the St Joan Hoan Community will have a double celebration!
The Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement (Thiếu Nhi Thánh Thể, often abbreviated as TNTT), is a Vietnamese Catholic youth group that is cantered around the Eucharist, or the body and blood of Jesus. The main focus of TNTT is “Live God’s Word and be united with the Eucharistic Christ through Prayer, Communion, Sacrifice, and Apostolic Work under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, particularly apostolic work by the youth: the youth must do apostolic work first and directly to the youth (Decree on the Apostolate of the Laity, 12).”
The group’s purpose is to teach the Catholic youths how to become virtuous people and better Christians. Along with this is also, strengthening their Catholic faith, through the development of leadership, numerous community services, national conferences, and various games, lessons, and activities.
We will also celebrate the Feast of St John Hoan (feast day is 26th May), patron of St John Hoan Community.
Saints John Đọan Trinh Hoan was a Vietnamese priest who suffered in the persecutions of Emperor Tự Đức. He was a martyr of Viet Nam, one of an estimated 300,000 Vietnamese martyrs.
John Hoan was born in 1798 in Thừa Thiên, Việt Nam; he belonged to a rich Christian family, which already had priests and martyrs. He studied at the Penang seminary and was ordained a priest in 1836, when he was nearly forty years old. After ordination he went back to Việt Nam and worked with zeal in all the districts where he was sent, noted for his gift of advice and his ability to solve disputes. He had to live in hiding because of the persecution, but despite all this he took care of the education of the youngest and the catechesis of children from which many religious vocations emerged. He was arrested in 1861 and sent to jail where he was tortured and interrogated; he was beheaded on May 26, 1861 during the government of King Tự Đức.
Pope John Paul II canonized him on 19th of June 1988.
