Religious sister offers classes in music and painting as path to prayer for adults and children

Friday, Jul. 15, 2016

OGDEN — Daughter of Charity Sister Lucia Nguyen discovered the spiritual art of praying to God through her paintings and playing the guitar, piano and violin, and is now teaching this technique to children and adults at Give Me a Chance in Ogden.

For the past seven years Sr. Lucia’s ministry was in the Fiji Islands and the South Pacific, where she taught the techniques and assisted others in opening themselves to talking to God and to listening to what God has to say to them through their paintings and musical instruments, she said. Now she is fulfilling that ministry in Utah. 

“I have played music and painted for many, many years,” Sr. Lucia said. “I performed with a group in Vietnam and I realized how much I used these arts in my prayer and conversations with God. I would meditate on the sounds of the music and the colors in the paintings; the things I would say and listen for and I learned how much of the time I express myself without really using words.” 

Sr. Lucia paints “icons, landscapes, flowers – everything,” she said. In this way, she was able to express whatever was going through her mind: joy, happiness and inner peace, and “fell in love” with this technique, she said.

Growing up in Vietnam she learned to play the family’s guitar; then she learned to play the piano and the violin, she said. One day she discovered this was a way of praying, she said as she peacefully gazed far off, a smile coming to her face as it lit up.

Seven years ago Sr. Lucia asked for permission from her superiors to develop a spiritual musical arts program to teach the techniques and skills to people; but while she is teaching, “in the back of my mind I am giving them skills to use to develop a career,” she said. “They learn ways to produce paintings or play musical instruments to earn money to support their family.” 

For spiritual growth, Sr. Lucia has a series of questions and reflections she asks her students that lead  them to consider how they can use their gifts to pray to God. The second goal is to learn how to use music and painting to express oneself; the third goal is for service or performance – how God wants them to use these gifts to serve Him. 

“They may learn these techniques will lead them to happiness, joy and self-expression,” Sr. Lucia said.

She has taught people of all different economic levels, including the homeless, she said. “It gives me inspiration to work with those living on the street even though the conditions they are living under are difficult,” she said. 

“Sr. Lucia is a very talented woman,” said Daughter of Charity Sr. Germaine Sarrazin, who tutors children in reading at Give Me a Chance. “She is enjoying teaching classes and doing what she established at the center just a month ago.”

Sr. Lucia majored in music and education with a minor in studio art and sacred art, she said. 

She took her vows as a Daughter of Charity 25 years ago in Vietnam. During the Vietnam War, her father was put in a concentration camp in South Vietnam. As a result, when the war ended the family received a government sponsorship to come to the United States. Sr. Lucia reentered the seminary in California and took her vows again 23 years ago in the Daughters of Charity Western Province in Los Altos, Calif., she said. 

Twenty years ago, Sr. Lucia was assigned to St. Olaf Church and School in Bountiful to teach for a short time. She has also served in Los Angeles and many other places. 

Give Me a Chance is sponsored by the Daughters of Charity Western Province to help low-income women learn to sew to earn a living and support their families. The center has evolved; it’s current goal is to promote systematic change to help the disenfranchised become self-sufficient, according to the website, http://www.daughtersofcharity.com/location/give-me-a-chance/.