This first native Korean priest was the son of Korean converts.
His father, Ignatius Kim, was martyred during the persecution of 1839 and was
beatified in 1925. After Baptism at the age of 15, Andrew traveled 1,300 miles
to the seminary in Macao, China. After six years he managed to return to his
country through Manchuria. That same year he crossed the Yellow Sea to Shanghai
and was ordained a priest. Back home again, he was assigned to arrange for more
missionaries to enter by a water route that would elude the border patrol. He
was arrested, tortured and finally beheaded at the Han River near Seoul, the
capital. Paul Chong Hasang was a lay apostle and married man, aged 45.
Christianity came to Korea during the Japanese invasion in 1592
when some Koreans were baptized, probably by Christian Japanese soldiers.
Evangelization was difficult because Korea refused all contact with the outside
world except for bringing taxes to Beijing annually. On one of these
occasions, around 1777, Christian literature obtained from Jesuits in China led
educated Korean Christians to study. A home Church began. When a Chinese priest
managed to enter secretly a dozen years later, he found 4,000 Catholics, none
of whom had ever seen a priest. Seven years later there were 10,000 Catholics.
Religious freedom came in 1883.
When Pope John Paul II visited Korea in 1984 he canonized, besides
Andrew and Paul, 98 Koreans and three French missionaries who had been martyred
between 1839 and 1867. Among them were bishops and priests, but for the most
part they were lay persons: 47 women, 45 men.
Among the martyrs in 1839 was Columba Kim, an unmarried woman of
26. She was put in prison, pierced with hot tools and seared with burning
coals. She and her sister Agnes were disrobed and kept for two days in a cell
with condemned criminals, but were not molested. After Columba complained about
the indignity, no more women were subjected to it. The two were beheaded. A boy
of 13, Peter Ryou, had his flesh so badly torn that he could pull off pieces
and throw them at the judges. He was killed by strangulation. Protase Chong, a
41-year-old noble, apostatized under torture and was freed. Later he came back,
confessed his faith and was tortured to death.
Today, there are almost 5.1 million Catholics in Korea.
Comment:
We marvel at the fact that the Korean Church was strictly a lay Church for a dozen years after its birth. How did the people survive without the Eucharist? It is no belittling of this and other sacraments to realize that there must be a living faith before there can be a truly beneficial celebration of the Eucharist. The sacraments are signs of God's initiative and response to faith already present. The sacraments increase grace and faith, but only if there is something ready to be increased.
We marvel at the fact that the Korean Church was strictly a lay Church for a dozen years after its birth. How did the people survive without the Eucharist? It is no belittling of this and other sacraments to realize that there must be a living faith before there can be a truly beneficial celebration of the Eucharist. The sacraments are signs of God's initiative and response to faith already present. The sacraments increase grace and faith, but only if there is something ready to be increased.
Quote:
"The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by lay people. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could boast of 10,000 martyrs. The death of these martyrs became the leaven of the Church and led to today's splendid flowering of the Church in Korea. Even today their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the north of this tragically divided land" (Blessed John Paul II, speaking at the canonization).
"The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by lay people. This fledgling Church, so young and yet so strong in faith, withstood wave after wave of fierce persecution. Thus, in less than a century, it could boast of 10,000 martyrs. The death of these martyrs became the leaven of the Church and led to today's splendid flowering of the Church in Korea. Even today their undying spirit sustains the Christians in the Church of silence in the north of this tragically divided land" (Blessed John Paul II, speaking at the canonization).
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