La Vang, Quảng Trị Province, Vietnam · 1798
Deep in the rainforest of central Vietnam, in a hidden glade of la vang grass, Catholic refugees fleeing persecution at the end of the eighteenth century saw the Mother of God appear among them, holding the Christ Child and surrounded by angels. She came not to deliver them from suffering, but to walk through it with them. La Vang has been a place of refuge for the Vietnamese Church ever since — through every wave of persecution, every war, every long century of waiting.
The Mother in the Rainforest
In the year 1798, under the persecution of Emperor Cảnh Thịnh, Catholics were driven from their homes in central Vietnam. A small band of the faithful fled into the deep forest near a place called La Vang, where the long-stemmed la vang grass grew. They survived on what they could forage, prayed the Rosary together, and waited.
It was there, tradition says, that Our Lady appeared to them — a woman of their own people’s features, dressed in the áo dài, the traditional Vietnamese robe, the Christ Child in her arms. She comforted them, told them to boil leaves of the trees around them as medicine, and promised that those who came to that place to ask her help would be heard.
For more than two hundred years, the Vietnamese Church has come to La Vang in every season of its history. The original chapel was rebuilt many times. The grand basilica was destroyed in the Vietnam War in 1972; only the bell tower remained. A new basilica is now rising in its place. Through every loss, the prayer continued — most often the Rosary, prayed in the language Mary chose to speak there.
The Sanctuary Today
La Vang is the national Marian shrine of Vietnam. Each August, on the feast of the Assumption, hundreds of thousands of pilgrims gather here from across the country and from the Vietnamese diaspora around the world. The grounds, set in the Quảng Trị countryside that saw some of the heaviest fighting of the Vietnam War, are now a place of profound stillness.
The image of Our Lady of La Vang shows her as a Vietnamese woman. She wears the áo dài. Her face is the face of a Vietnamese mother, and her Son in her arms is a Vietnamese child. She came to her people in the rainforest, and she meets them there still.
A Prayer at La Vang
Mother of La Vang,
you who came to your children in the deep forest,
who wore the robes of their own country
and spoke their tongue —
find every people who hide today.
Find those whose faith costs them everything.
Find the refugees, the persecuted, the unseen.
Let them know they have a Mother
who has been where they are,
and who waits with them in the long grass. Amen.
Live from La Vang
When the great pilgrimages gather at La Vang — particularly the Assumption pilgrimage each August — the shrine and the Vietnamese Bishops’ Conference broadcast the Mass and the Rosary. At quieter hours, La Vang offers a contemplative place to pray with the Vietnamese Church.
Visit & Learn More
- Our Lady of La Vang (Vietnamese Bishops): www.lavang.org
- Wikipedia: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_La_Vang
Journey with Mary: A Path to Jesus 