PERTH, WA: April 4, 1991
Registered by Australia Post Publication No. WAR 0202
Number 2733
POST ADDRESS: PO Box 50, Northbridge, 6000 W.A. LOCATION: 26 John St, Northbridge (east off Fitzgerald St). FAX (09) 328 7307 PRICE 60C TELEPHONE: (09) 328 1388
Farmers find a fair way to beat system
Crosses that tell the Easter story • Page 2
• Page 10 A t Darlington crossroads last weekend stood a cross fashioned out of a termite ridden log. It's simple message of Death asked: "Remember Me?" The cross was the idea and the work of Darlington Uniting Church members Brian Burton and Rudi Loran. Its message they said was not to preach but to encourage even non-Christians to think about Christ and to bring Him and His message into the mainstream of life, into the highway of the heart, into the traffic of life.
Great Easter reunion...
Mary's ift A promise to Our Lady has seen a cross of separation turn into a resurrection of re-union for a Vietnamese mother and her priest son.
Fr Francis Ly and his mother
‘004 P00 TIII rLACS
We're raising the standard
More than 90 people crowded Perth airport at 4.15am last week when 82year-old Le Thi No embraced her son Francis whom she had not seen since 1982 but whom she entrusted to Mary's keeping a long time ago. More than a hundred others have beaten a path to her daughter's Mount Hawthorn home while Father Francis was busy with the Holy Week and Easter commitments of the Vietnamese Catholic Community. When Francis was barely two, his mother had feared he would die like his other five young brothers. She took him to a church and placed him on the altar offering him to Mary if he lived. Francis was 14 when his mother told him of her promise to Mary. His parish priest and some
"I became very angry but seminarians he used to see on holidays turned his accepted it and kept going on with my vocation." thoughts to the priesthood. He is the only surviving son With the new communist rule and the youngest of a family in 1975, Francis and other that is still tragically split. seminarians were forced to His mother has left behind work for the government in Vietnam her five other during the day for food, and at daughters who are hoping night they studied. against hope that they will In 1979 Francis left off be able to come to Australia, studying to lead a beach parish two of them to join their of 500 and it was these people husbands who like their and his family that witnessed brother escaped the comhis ordination as deacon on July munist clutches. 3, 1981. Francis Ly has been in But Francis knew this was as Australia since 1983 but only two years ago did it far as he could go. seem possible that the "I accepted the government tragically widowed mother would not allow me to be might get her wish to see her ordained priest." son before she died. So Francis continued to Tragedy was to strike the "preach the Gospel only" to the family early in Francis' life. congregation. Francis was four years into Although he never encourhis Vietnamese seminary training when his father was aged them, his many parishiongunned down along with ers who escaped the country two other adults and two put Francis' position in jeochildren one night as he was pardy because he would be responsible to the government playing cards. The communist excuse for their disappearance. was that the father had been He was eventually forced to politically active in South flee the country himself in December, 1982. Vietnam.
"If I did not escape I would have been put in gaol." So he escaped one night by boat with 25 others, leaving his mother and six sisters behind. "I could not tell' my mother until a day before we left, for fear of being caught. "She was very upset. but she had to accept it." The boat was on the water for three days and two nights before they reached Malaysia. And it was on December 15 when he arrived in Perth to a welcome by the Church. "I was like a boy with the Church looking after me." He moved to St Charle, Vocational Residence in Febru ary 1983 where he was advised to learn English. As his English improved he moved to Mundaring parish to commence pastoral training. Today he is a priest leading the Vietnamese community in Perth. "Iam lucky because Iam here to serve the Church and bring Vietnamese people closer to Australians." His mother is the latest to join his flock.
WESTERN AUSTRALIA'S BIGGEST TOYOTA DEALER IS PROUD TO SERVE THE CATHOLIC COMMUNITY WITH THE BIGGEST SELECTION OF NEW AND DEMONSTRATOR TOYOTA'S AND THE VERY BEST DEALS AND SERVICE. OH WHAT FEELING ALL ENQUIRIES SCHOOL BUSES, 4WD AND COMMERCIALS PASSENGER CARS
63 ADELAIDE TCE, PERTH. PH: (09) 325 8811
TO JOHN O'NEILL A/H (09) 469 9593
GT EASTERN HIGHWAY, ASCOT. PH: (09) 325 8811
TOYOTA!