Apparition
Under the reign of King Canh Thinh (1792-1802), life was very hard for Catholics. The king suspected that his opponent Nguyen Anh was being assisted by the French bishop
Pigneau de Béhaine, who had recruited French officers and arms to help Nguyen Anh re-establish his dynasty. Fearful that Catholics would collude with his enemies, the king ordered them to be killed as a preventive measure. Lady of Lavang is profound to both believers and non-believers. There are two accounts for Lady of Lavang's apparition, one Catholic, the other Buddhist.
Catholic version
During Canh Thinh’s persecution, several Catholics from the near-by parish Co Vuu, fled to La Vang. There, in spite of severe sufferings, they gathered every evening under a banian tree to recite the Rosary. One evening, according to the tradition, a lady of great beauty appeared to them, clad in white and surrounded by light, holding the Infant Jesus on her arms, with two charming boys holding a torch standing at her sides. The lady walked back and forth several times in front of the Christians, her feet touching the ground. Even the non-Christians who were there saw the vision. Then the lady stopped and addressed them in a sweet voice: “My children, what you have asked of me, I have granted you, and henceforth, whoever will come here to pray to me, I will listen to them.” Then she vanished.
Buddhist version
There were three villages near La Vang, named Cô Thành, Thạch Hán, and Ba Trụ. The local Buddhists heard that The Heavenly Lady (
Vietnamese: Thiên Mụ) appeared in La Vang under the banian tree, which is considered a sacred tree for Buddha, and that those who went to pray there were miraculously healed. A small temple was erected. During the persecution of Catholics under
Emperor Ming Mang (1820-1840), the Buddhists took over the place and built a pagoda in honor of the Buddha. The night after the dedication of the pagoda, the leaders of the three villages had a dream in which the Buddha appeared to them and told them to remove his statue from La Vang, because, he said, there was a lady more powerful than he occupying the place. The following day they went to the pagoda and saw that the Buddha statue and its ornaments had been moved outside and so they brought
them in. Again, that night they had the same dream and received the same message. As a result, the Buddhists donated the pagoda to the Catholics who converted it into the first chapel of Our Lady of Lavang.
REFERENCES:
The Catholic Encyclopedia
Mission and Catechesis: Alexandre de Rhodes & Inculturation in Seventeenth-Century Vietnam (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1998).