Miguel Augusto (*)
On 20 September, the Church celebrates the feast of Holy Martyr Andrew Kim Taegon and his companions (more than a hundred martyrs), laymen and priests who embraced Christ to the last breath. On May 6, 1984, at the Yeouido square in Seoul, the celestial crown of holiness descended upon them as they were canonized by Saint John Paul II, in the first canonization ceremony outside the Vatican, among a large crowd of Korean Christians. In Macau, parish priest Pedro Lee of the church of Saint Anthony told CLARIM that parishioners honor the martyr and his companions with a novena of Masses from September 12th to 20th . On the 20th, the feast day Mass is celebrated at 7:30 a.m.
Andrew Kim Taegon was born on August 21, 1821, into a deeply Christian Korean noble family in Solmoe, Dangjin, South Korea. Today the place hosts a Catholic Shrine. His father, because of the persecutions, had formed a “private church” in his home, in the image of the early church, where they prayed, the Gospel was preached, and the sacraments received. Everything went smoothly, until the father was denounced, ending up dying at forty-four, for not denying his faith in Jesus Christ.
Andrew Kim, at the age of fifteen, survived the persecution, thanks to the help of the French missionaries who sent him to China. After being baptized by French priest Pierre Philibert Maubant, he walked for half a year until he came to Macau to study Catholicism. He studied as a seminarian between 1837 and 1842. During his time in Macau, Andrew Kim was in the habit of attending St Anthony’s Church.
He was ordained priest in Shanghai by the French Bishop Jean Joseph Ferreol, becoming the first Korean Catholic priest. In 1845, Andrew Kim returned to Korea together with Bishop Jean Joseph Ferreol and Father Marie Nicolas Antoine Daveluy, dedicating themselves to missionary work. Due to his status as a noble and his knowledge of local customs and thought, he was successful in his evangelization.
At the bishop’s request, he tried to introduce the French missionaries from China to Korea, with the help of the Chinese fishermen. In this risky assignment, Andrew Kim was arrested and sent to the central prison in Seoul, and accused of being a leader of a heretic and traitorous sect to his country. Other members of the believing community, including his relatives, were also discovered.
Andrew Kim, because he belonged to the nobility, was even questioned by the king, in order to renounce his faith and denounce his companions. He refused and was severely tortured for a long period. He was beheaded on September 16, 1846, in Seoul, Korea. A century after his death he was canonized, by Pope John Paul II, being recognized for eternity as Saint Andrew Kim Taegon.
In Macau, his memory is still alive. In the Garden of Camões, there is a statue of St Andrew Kim Taegon, donated by the Korean Catholic Church to the Diocese of Macau in 1986. The parish church of Saint Anthony – whose current parish priest is Korean – also has a wooden sculpture (offered by Korean Catholics living in Hong Kong) and a relic of the Saint.
Curiously, tomorrow September 29, a Korean deacon James Chang (BMC), will be ordained by our Bishop D. Stephen Lee at the Sé Cathedral of Macau at 3:00 p.m.
THE ROOTS OF THE CHURCH IN KOREA
The Korean Church, which emerged in the early 1600s, has one peculiarity, since it was founded and established by lay people, from the annual contacts of the Korean delegations that visited Beijing, where they became aware of Christianity. The layman Lee Byeok inspired by the Jesuit Father Matteo Ricci’s book The True Doctrine of God, founded the first living and active Catholic community in Korea. Lee Byeok was persecuted and, after 15 days of fasting, died at age 31: he was the first martyr of the Korean Church.
In a short time, the Catholic community grew, with thousands of faithful, but began to suffer persecution on the part of the rulers, who launched a carnage between 1785 and 1882 – registering more than ten thousand martyrs – in an attempt to end Christianity. They didn’t recognize that the blood of martyrs is the seed of Christians, as the Christian writer Tertullian had already said in the second century. The Catholic Church in South Korea is the fastest growing church in East Asia. Approximately 30% of the population of more than 51 million inhabitants is Christian, and 11% are Catholic. Today, there are more than 5.5 million Catholics in South Korea.
KOREA UNITED TO MEDJUGORJE
The South Koreans are among many of the Catholic pilgrims traveling around the world to religious destinations. One such example is the pilgrimage to Medjugorje in Bosnia and Herzegovina. And curiously, there is a particularity of Medjugorje, internationally known, of the presence of the Holy Mother, who is linked to Korea: the statue of Our Lady Queen of Peace, located and blessed in 2001 on the Hill of the Apparitions, in the place where the seers had the first appearance of the Holy Mother of God, in June 24, 1981. The work was commissioned and offered to the parish of Medjugorje by a Korean couple in thanksgiving for a wonderful miracle which their family received through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin. The couple who had a deaf and mute son took him to Medjugorje, hoping for a miracle cure. With great faith and perseverance, the miracle took place after three months, because the mother rent a house in the small village and remained there alone with her son, in silence, pain and anxiety. Her prayers and sacrifices bore fruit, for the Mother of God presented her with the grace she had hoped for and the child was healed. This sculpture of Our Lady will be forever linked to Korea. In 2015, the well-known sculpture was vandalized; sculptors came from Italy to repair the damage, and the restoration was completed on 6 May, the same date as in 1984, when Pope John Paul II canonized Andrew Kim Taegon and his fellow martyrs!
(*) with Franciscans (OFM)
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