Celebration honors Virgin Mary

Carthage, Missouri — The four-day 29th annual Marian Days celebration officially began Thursday with the opening ceremony and Mass.

The four-day event generally draws about 60,000 people to Carthage, most of them Vietnamese. They camp on and around the campus of the Congregation of Mary Co-Redemptrix, as well as filling area hotels and motels.

This year, the special emphasis of Marian Days is "The Year of the Word of God," and the theme is "Mary kept all these things, reflecting on them in her heart" from Luke 2:19.

Marian Days started in 1977 by Vietnamese Catholics who settled in Carthage after the 1975 fall of Saigon.