For Father Vincent Tinh Vu, the seed of his Catholic faith was planted when he was a boy in Vietnam, and later after immigrating to the United States, it blossomed into a vocation to the priesthood.

And after Cardinal Gregory ordained him on June 17 as one of six new priests for The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Washington, he celebrated his first Mass at his home Church in the United States, Our Lady of Vietnam in Silver Spring, before returning to Vietnam to celebrate Masses of Thanksgiving at communities where he first attended Mass as a child and where he did parish ministry as a young adult.

The priest, who is 30, spent the first half of his life in Vietnam, and then immigrated with his family to Maryland when he was 15, not speaking English then but quickly feeling at home since his mother’s family lived in the area.

Two of those family members are his uncles who serve as priests of the Archdiocese of Washington, and they became instrumental in his vocation to the priesthood. His uncle, Father Paul Nguyen, is the pastor of St. George Parish in Valley Lee, and his uncle, Father John Nguyen, is the pastor of another Southern Maryland parish, Our Lady’s Church at Medley’s Neck. Those two brothers were ordained in 2007.

A key figure in Father Vu’s life was his paternal grandfather, Thuan Vu, who lived next door to his family. When the future priest was a little boy, he and his older sister accompanied their grandfather to Mass every morning.

“He is a very devout man, faithful to the family and faithful to the Lord,” Father Vu said, adding that his grandfather’s gentleness and kindness offered “a visible sign of God’s love.”

The faithfulness and humility of that older sister, Dominican Sister Maria Vincent Nhung Vu, has also been an inspiration to him. She now teaches at a Catholic school in Fort Worth, Texas.

When he was growing up in Vietnam, Father Vu and his three sisters joined the Vietnamese Eucharistic Youth Movement, which he said was “like the Scouts for Catholics.”

Their father, Thuc Van Vu, and their mother, Hong Hoa Thi Nguyen, are also devout Catholics, and after moving to the city of Saigon when he was 9, they joined a prayer group there. Every night before they went to bed, the family prayed together at a shrine in the center of their home that had a crucifix and statues of Mary and Joseph.

“We lived in a communist country and wanted to keep our faith with us,” said Father Vu. “…We went to daily Mass together. We walked to Church, and we walked back.”

He first met his priest uncles when he was a teenager, and he bonded with them especially after entering the seminary.

“I shared with them my ideas and my dreams,” said Father Vu. As he got to know how they lived as priests, he appreciated “their openness to the people of God. They’re very close to the people of God, like Pope Francis is.”

Father Vu first felt called to be a priest at the age of 7, after his First Communion when he was an altar server in Vietnam. “I kept it in my heart,” he said.

When he was 20, he joined the Carmelites and was part of that community for more than four years. “The Carmelite prayer life helped me stay closer to God and be aware of His presence in every moment,” he said.

He drew inspiration from Carmelite saints like St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross and St. Therese of Lisieux. That last saint, the “Little Flower,” is his favorite. “She helped me understand my true calling, to be a saint,” he said. “The Little Way, her way, helped me to always be grateful to God … She had confidence in God, to always trust in Him.”

Feeling that something was missing in his life, after a retreat he decided to leave the Carmelites. “I felt God was calling me to be closer to His people,” he said.

Then he went back to Vietnam for six months, serving at a rural Catholic parish, helping in various ministries, including preparing children for First Communion. He enjoyed visiting the marketplace, and in the afternoons, he borrowed the priest’s bicycle and rode around, talking to people in the village.

Those experiences helped Father Vu understand that God was calling him to be a diocesan priest, to accompany people “and to show God’s love for them.”

In 2018, he became a seminarian for the Archdiocese of Washington, and he studied at the Saint John Paul II Seminary and later at Theological College.

After his ordination, Father Vu’s journey of faith will come full circle, as he returns to Vietnam for Masses of Thanksgiving in his grandfather’s community and in the rural area where he served, and then he will come back to Washington to serve as a parish priest.

“My goal as a priest is to do God’s will, and to be the merciful face of God for his people… to accompany them, to walk with them and to give all of myself to God through my ministry,” said Father Vu, looking forward to his next journey.