Tuesday, September 20, 2022
103 KOREAN MARTYRS
Ephesians, Chapter 6,
Verse 5-8
5 Slaves, be obedient to your human
masters with FEAR and trembling, in
sincerity of heart, as to Christ, 6
not only when being watched, as currying
favor, but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the heart,
7
willingly serving the
Lord and not human beings, 8 knowing
that each will be requited from the Lord for whatever good he does, whether he
is slave or free.
“Slaves be obedient to your human
masters with fear and trembling, in sincerity of heart, as to Christ” I often reflected on this verse
while working constructing the South Pole Station especially on those days that
were close to 80 below zero! Therefore, increase in faith, hope, and love.
“Do
not be afraid any longer, little flock, for your Father is pleased to give you
the kingdom.” (Lk 12:32)
Korean Catholics[1]
During the 17th century the Christian faith was brought to Korea through the zeal of lay persons. From the very beginning these Christians suffered terrible persecutions and many suffered martyrdom during the 19th century. Today's feast honors a group of 103 martyrs. Notable of these were Andrew Kim Taegon, the first Korean priest, and the lay apostle, Paul Chong Hasang. Also, among the Korean martyrs were three bishops and seven priests, but for the most part they were heroic laity, men and women, married and single of all ages. They were canonized by Pope John Paul II on May 6, 1984.
St. Andrew Kim Taegon and St. Paul Chong
Hasang and their companions
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 fifteen, Andrew traveled thirteen hundred 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 a married man, aged
forty-five. 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 an annual journey to Beijing to pay taxes. 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 four thousand
Catholics, none of whom had ever seen a priest. Seven years later there were
ten thousand Catholics. Religious freedom came in 1883.
When Pope John Paul II visited Korea
in 1984, he canonized Andrew, Paul, ninety-eight 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 laypersons: forty-seven
women, forty-five men. Among the martyrs in 1839 was Columba Kim, an unmarried
woman of twenty-six. She was put in prison, pierced with hot awls 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 thirteen, 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 forty-one-year-old noble, apostatized under
torture and was freed. Later he came back, confessed his faith and was tortured
to death.
Today there are approximately four
million Catholics in Korea.
Catechism
of the Catholic Church
PART TWO: THE CELEBRATION OF THE CHRISTIAN MYSTERY
SECTION TWO-THE SEVEN SACRAMENTS OF THE CHURCH
Article 7-THE SACRAMENT OF MATRIMONY
V.
The Goods and Requirements of Conjugal Love
1643 "Conjugal love involves a totality, in which all the
elements of the person enter - appeal of the body and instinct, power of
feeling and affectivity, aspiration of the spirit and of will. It aims at a
deeply personal unity, a unity that, beyond union in one flesh, leads to
forming one heart and soul; it demands indissolubility and faithfulness in
definitive mutual giving; and it is open to fertility. In a word it is a
question of the normal characteristics of all natural conjugal love, but with a
new significance which not only purifies and strengthens them, but raises them
to the extent of making them the expression of specifically Christian
values."
The unity
and indissolubility of marriage
1644 The love of the spouses requires, of its very nature, the
unity and indissolubility of the spouses' community of persons, which embraces
their entire life: "so they are no longer two, but one
flesh." They "are called to grow continually in their communion
through day-to-day fidelity to their marriage promise of total mutual
self-giving." This human communion is confirmed, purified, and
completed by communion in Jesus Christ, given through the sacrament of
Matrimony. It is deepened by lives of the common faith and by the Eucharist
received together.
1645 "The unity of marriage, distinctly recognized by our
Lord, is made clear in the equal personal dignity which must be accorded to man
and wife in mutual and unreserved affection." Polygamy is contrary to
conjugal love which is undivided and exclusive.
The fidelity
of conjugal love
1646 By its very nature conjugal love requires the inviolable
fidelity of the spouses. This is the consequence of the gift of themselves
which they make to each other. Love seeks to be definitive; it cannot be an
arrangement "until further notice." the "intimate union of
marriage, as a mutual giving of two persons, and the good of the children,
demand total fidelity from the spouses and require an unbreakable union between
them."
1647 The deepest reason is found in the fidelity of God to his
covenant, in that of Christ to his Church. Through the sacrament of Matrimony
the spouses are enabled to represent this fidelity and witness to it. Through
the sacrament, the indissolubility of marriage receives a new and deeper
meaning.
1648 It can seem difficult, even impossible, to bind oneself
for life to another human being. This makes it all the more important to
proclaim the Good News that God loves us with a definitive and irrevocable love,
that married couples share in this love, that it supports and sustains them,
and that by their own faithfulness they can be witnesses to God's faithful
love. Spouses who with God's grace give this witness, often in very difficult
conditions, deserve the gratitude and support of the ecclesial community.
1649 Yet there are some situations in which living together
becomes practically impossible for a variety of reasons. In such cases the
Church permits the physical separation of the couple and their living apart.
the spouses do not cease to be husband and wife before God and so are not free
to contract a new union. In this difficult situation, the best solution would
be, if possible, reconciliation. the Christian community is called to help
these persons live out their situation in a Christian manner and in fidelity to
their marriage bond which remains indissoluble.
1650 Today there are numerous Catholics in many countries who
have recourse to civil divorce and contract new civil unions. In fidelity to
the words of Jesus Christ - "Whoever divorces his wife and marries
another, commits adultery against her; and if she divorces her husband and
marries another, she commits adultery" The Church maintains that a
new union cannot be recognized as valid, if the first marriage was. If the
divorced are remarried civilly, they find themselves in a situation that
objectively contravenes God's law. Consequently, they cannot receive
Eucharistic communion as long as this situation persists. For the same reason,
they cannot exercise certain ecclesial responsibilities. Reconciliation through
the sacrament of Penance can be granted only to those who have repented for
having violated the sign of the covenant and of fidelity to Christ, and who are
committed to living in complete continence.
1651 Toward Christians who live in this situation, and who
often keep the faith and desire to bring up their children in a Christian
manner, priests and the whole community must manifest an attentive solicitude,
so that they do not consider themselves separated from the Church, in whose
life they can and must participate as baptized persons:
They should be encouraged to listen to the Word of God, to
attend the Sacrifice of the Mass, to persevere in prayer, to contribute to
works of charity and to community efforts for justice, to bring up their
children in the Christian faith, to cultivate the spirit and practice of
penance and thus implore, day by day, God's grace.
The openness
to fertility
1652 "By its very nature the institution of marriage and
married love is ordered to the procreation and education of the offspring and
it is in them that it finds its crowning glory."
Children are the supreme gift of marriage and contribute
greatly to the good of the parents themselves. God himself said: "It is
not good that man should be alone," and "from the beginning (he) made
them male and female"; wishing to associate them in a special way in his
own creative work, God blessed man and woman with the words: "Be fruitful
and multiply." Hence, true married love and the whole structure of family
life which results from it, without diminishment of the other ends of marriage,
are directed to disposing the spouses to cooperate valiantly with the love of
the Creator and Savior, who through them will increase and enrich his family
from day to day.
1653 The fruitfulness of conjugal love extends to the fruits of
the moral, spiritual, and supernatural life that parents hand on to their
children by education. Parents are the principal and first educators of their
children. In this sense the fundamental task of marriage and family is to
be at the service of life.
1654 Spouses to whom God has not granted children can
nevertheless have a conjugal life full of meaning, in both human and Christian
terms. Their marriage can radiate a fruitfulness of charity, of hospitality,
and of sacrifice.
Daily
Devotions
·
Unite in the work of the Porters of St. Joseph by joining them
in fasting: Today's Fast: Reparations
for offenses and blasphemies against God and the Blessed Virgin Mary
·
Make
reparations to the Holy Face-Tuesday
Devotion
·
Pray Day 1 of
the Novena for our Pope and Bishops
·
Religion
in the Home for Preschool: September
·
Tuesday:
Litany of St. Michael the Archangel
·
Litany of the Most Precious
Blood of Jesus
·
Offering to
the sacred heart of Jesus
·
Rosary
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