We are excited to welcome Hung Nguyen, SJ, a Jesuit priest and parochial vicar at Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish in San Diego. Hung is a migrant himself who came to the U.S. from Vietnam as a child. In San Diego, he has helped to lead the parish’s efforts to serve and accompany the local migrant population. During the last years of the Biden administration, the parish ran a shelter to receive migrants after their legal entry into the country. In this new era of heightened immigration enforcement, Hung has helped to coordinate a court accompaniment project with volunteers from across the diocese. Earlier this year, the parish opened the Pope Francis Center to create a welcoming space for immigrant families and help connect them with the services they need. In all these areas of migrant ministry, Hung looks for the holy sacred moments that reveal God’s grace.
Joe and Brian share stories of holy sacred moments in their own ministry. Joe shares the story of a brief encounter at a detention center with a woman who felt she had distanced herself from God. She desperately needed the assurance of being seen and loved by God. Brian shares the story of a deported Mexican national who joined for Mass, but did not come up to receive communion. He sought out Fr. Flavio after Mass, and they shared a holy sacred moment of reconciliation and communion.