Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Jul 29, 2025 / 12:43 pm

Every summer, the small city of Carthage, Missouri, becomes a booming landmark of religion and culture as tens of thousands of pilgrims gather to celebrate family and faith, honor the Blessed Mother, and share in Vietnamese traditions.

The Marian Days (Ngày thánh Mẫu) pilgrimage originated as a way to create unity among Catholic immigrants after the Vietnam War. Nearly five decades later, the annual gathering continues to expand as more pilgrims return each year.

This year, the 46th Marian Days pilgrimage will be July 31 to Aug. 3 on the campus of the Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer (CRM) in Carthage. Thousands of Catholics will take over the city to celebrate with daily Mass, processions, religious workshops, and Vietnamese culture.

Congregation of the Mother of the Redeemer

The pilgrimage is organized by the CRM order, which is known for serving the Vietnamese community through ministry, evangelization, and its devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The order was originally founded in Vietnam in 1953 before establishing an unexpectedly strong presence in Carthage. Following the Vietnam War, when the country reunified as a socialist state under the Communist Party, 185 clergy members of the CRM fled with a number of others known as “the boat people.”

“In 1975, the wars had gone and our community left,” Father John Paul Tran, provincial minister of CMR, told CNA.

The priests and brothers left after struggling to preach the word of God under a communist regime. During their travels to America the members looked to Mary for guidance, prompting the order’s lasting devotion to her.

“Almost 200 members left Vietnam and [were] scattered around all the refugee camps in the United States,” Tran said. “There happened to be a big group of us in Fort Chaffee,” a resettlement center for Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in Arkansas.

A chaplain at the base connected the group with then-Bishop Bernard Law of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri. “The bishop … [found] out about us and he sponsored us into his diocese.” The group then moved to Missouri to stay at the vacant Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI) Seminary.

“They were about to close it up,” Tran said of the OMI seminary. “So the bishop … asked them to rent it to us. So he brought every one of us back to this place in Carthage, [where] we live right now.”

Eventually, “we bought the place over from the OMI,” and the order turned the old seminary grounds into the CMR campus. “Then Marian Days started in 1978,” Tran said.

Pilgrimage to Carthage

“Marian Days started … as a small gathering for the Vietnamese people, ‘the boat people,’ to gather, to give thanks, and to celebrate [and] march together. And just to encourage each other,”  Tran said.

The first celebration was only one day with about 1,500 people. Today, the event lasts three days and welcomes so many that they have “stopped counting” how many join, but the priest said the city estimates “around 60,000 to 70,000 people.”

Although the event is primarily organized and attended by the Vietnamese community, many locals and other groups also participate. Carthage has a population of about 15,600 people, but the event brings in almost five times the number of residents. Tran said that over the three days, “the city is packed.”

Hundreds volunteer to help it go smoothly, including religious men and women from a number of Vietnamese orders, including sisters of the Congregation of Mary Queen. Sister Janine Tran, CRM, told CNA they “have been volunteering at Marian Days for over 40 years.” [Editor’s note: Sister Janine Tran is no known relation to Father John Paul Tran.]

In order to house the thousands, the CRM campus welcomes people to camp on the grounds. “We have 60 acres,” Father Tran explained. “It’s first come first served [of] any open space. They can put their tent and park their car there.”

“But then the city, they open up. Everybody who [has] a yard, they let the pilgrims [camp] on their yards and sometimes stay in their houses.” Some Vietnamese pilgrims have stayed with the same Carthage families for decades.

Marian Days

Marian Days is “a big culture gathering, a family gathering, too. It’s religious, but then there’s a culture and a celebration to it,” Tran said. He explained that many pilgrims use the annual celebration as their family reunion and to unite with long-distance friends.

Over the three days, pilgrims attend Mass, receive the sacraments, and deepen their faith at workshops and conferences “for [the] Vietnamese-speaking, for the English-speaking, and for the youth,” Tran said.

On Saturday, pilgrims participate in a large procession with a statue of Our Lady of Fátima. The pilgrims process around the city as they pray the rosary, and many wear traditional Vietnamese attire while holding signs that indicate where they traveled from.

The pilgrims get a strong sense of Vietnamese culture as hundreds of tents and booths are set up around the city with people selling traditional cuisine and people spreading the faith in “vocation booths.” This year, Sister Janine Tran said there is expected to be “10-12 religious communities” set up in the tents “to help promote the consecrated life.”

In the evenings there are performances by attendees and even well-known entertainers to celebrate and honor Vietnamese heritage. Sister Janine shared that “this year, six of [the] sisters along with six young women from the Springfield Vietnamese Catholic community are doing a dance for Friday night’s entertainment to promote religious life as well as the Jubilee Year of Hope.”

After the festivities, the event will “end on Sunday morning with the closing Mass,” Father Tran said. Following the Mass, the pilgrims pack up and leave the small city behind for another year.