It was just before 9 AM on November 26 at Laval University in Quebec City that an auditorium began to fill with friends, acquaintances, fellow students, and, of course, the members of Assumptionist religious community at the Montmartre canadien to attend Fr. Ai’s defense of his doctoral dissertation, “The Narrative Voice in the Story of Joseph (Genesis 37-50).” How might one summarize this work that the academic jury considered scholarly enough to merit him the title ‘doctor’? Utilizing a narrative approach developed by André Wénin and other scholars, Fr. Ai applied it to the narrative voice of the Joseph cycle. His basic question was: how does the narrator speak in his account?

In the weeks ahead Fr. Ai will be moving to Worcester, Massachusetts where he will begin preparing to offer courses at Assumption College. He will be residing in the Emmanuel House community on campus.

It’s been a busy year for Fr. Ai since this native of Vietnam was ordained a priest just this past summer in Quebec.

Congratulations are all fronts, Fr. Ai!