Deacon Truong Pham: Model older ‘brother’

► Age: 33

► First assignment: St. Angela Merici, Metairie

► First Mass: June 6, 10 a.m., Assumption of Mary, Avondale

► Mass of Thanksgiving: June 13, 11 a.m., St. Luke the Evangelist, Slidell

By Beth Donze
Clarion Herald

Some of Deacon Truong Pham’s earliest memories are of going with his family to Mass in his native Vietnam, where the church would be so packed, congregants often would have to stand outside.

“I remember my dad holding onto my baby sister in one arm, and holding onto my index finger with the other,” said Deacon Pham,  who immigrated to the United States with his family in 1994, at age 7. After a short time in California, the family settled in Marrero, to be near their maternal relatives, joining St. Agnes Le Thi Thanh Church.

“There was a lot of culture shock,” said Deacon Pham, who took five years of ESL classes in his public elementary school – and watched TV – to learn English. He enrolled in St. Agnes’ CCD program, returning after confirmation to help out as a  teacher’s assistant, catechist and youth group member.

After graduating from John Ehret High, Deacon Pham began a seven-year period in which he split his time between studying philosophy at the University of New Orleans and working part-time and summer jobs that included packaging shrimp at a plant in Lafitte and being a personal care assistant for persons with mental and physical challenges.

Around the same time, he met Joseph Vu, a seminarian who ultimately would be ordained a priest for the Diocese of Baton Rouge. The two would talk for hours about their faith, family life, church history, philosophy and theology.

“He became a friend, a catechist and a brother to me,” said Deacon Pham, noting that the friendship assisted the pair’s respective discernment periods.

“In my mid-20s, I started frequenting the sacraments more – daily even – the Eucharist, as well as reconciliation,” he said. During a “transformative” two-week period when his sister was out of town and not needing him to drive her to work, Deacon Pham attended daily Mass at Assumption of Mary Church in Bridge City. There, he felt “God’s grace working through the sacrament.”

“(In 2015) I finally got my affirmation, my conviction, to make that choice and contact the vocation office,” said Deacon Pham, recalling the moment Archbishop Gregory Aymond personally welcomed him into formation at Notre Dame Seminary. Surprised that the process of interviews and paperwork had moved so quickly, his first response to the archbishop was “Thank you!”

“I wanted (Archbishop Aymond) to make sure he knew what he was getting into, because I didn’t even know how to serve Mass!” recalled Deacon Pham. “He told me, ‘You’ll learn!’”

Deacon Pham went into his diaconate internship at St. Luke the Evangelist Parish in Slidell, at the height of the pandemic, with no idea what his role would be in those months of sparse Mass attendance and minimal parishioner interaction.

“I was prepared, for my first homily, to preach to a camera Luckily, that was not the case,” said Deacon Pham, who presided at “a handful of baptisms,” visited the homebound and prepared a couple for marriage.

One Scripture to which he always returns is the “Bread of Life” discourse in John’s Gospel, particularly the part in which Jesus informs his apostles that they, too, will leave them.

“St. Peter asks Jesus, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life,’” Deacon Pham said. “When I’m feeling down, discouraged and doubtful, I go back to this. If Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, where else is there?”