Posted by Lisa Hendey in Faith on Saturday, September 20, 2008 7:00 AM
Today, on September 20, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Andrew Kim Taegon, priest and martyr, and Saint Paul Chong Hasang, martyr, and their companions, the martyrs of Korea.
I will admit to not having known many of the details of the lives of these saintly men and women who brought the faith to and founded the Church in Korea. They are noted for their faith-filled bravery in being willing to suffer even unto death for their beliefs. At his canonization of St. Andrew Kim Taegon in 1984, Pope John Paul II shared the following thoughts:
The Korean Church is unique because it was founded entirely by laypeople. 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 many 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 of the Church of Silence in the north of this tragically divided land.
As we continue to pray for our brothers and sisters in Korea, Catholic Culture offers a few suggestions for commemorating the lives of the Korean Martyrs. These men, women and even children lived lives of great strength and virtue and are role models for the laity of today’s world.
To learn more about the Martyrs of Korea, please take time today to listen to “A Saint A Day” The Martyrs of Korea, a brief audio segment by Terry Jones that provides a wonderful overview on the lives of these holy men and women.
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Thank you for this post! I am a Korean-American convert and often times find it hard to relate to the many anglo/european saints. I enjoyed learning about these martyrs and found inspiration from the story of the early Korean Catholic church.
Dear Baltimore Mom, I found their lives and their devotion to spreading the faith so very inspirational. It was great to learn more about them.
While my husband was serving in the USAF, we had the great priviledge to be stationed in Korea for two years. One of the too-numerous-to-count blessings that we were given during our tour was to be a member of a small Catholic International Parish in Seoul. There we met and worshiped with some of the most faithful people I’ve ever in my life met. And YOUNG! College aged young men and women so on-fire for Christ and his Church. I learned so much from them and there is no doubt that they are still now, as the cannonized saints before them, living the lives of saints and martyrs as they practice their Catholic faith--one young woman had to travel a minumum of 2 hours by train to get to our parish and this done as her family, who is not Catholic or even Christian, would have prevented her from practicing. And hers is just one story of the many Catholic Christians living their faith secretly.
Not only am I encouraged by the Korean saints of the past but certainly those still living there today! Thanks for this post to highlight the true heros!
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