On Sept. 20, the universal church celebrated the feast of the martyrdom of St. Andrew Kim Taegon, St. Paul Chong Hasang, and their companions. The red vestments used in liturgies when memorializing a martyr bring to mind the violent ends they met and the blood they shed for their love of the Gospel.
A hero to Korean Christians, Taegon was born to the aristocratic class there and traveled over a thousand miles to China to study the faith in a seminary in Macao. Christianity had grown in the previous decades primarily among lay leaders. Taegon eventually returned, becoming the first native Korean priest. Both he and the lay Paul Chong Hasang were eventually tortured and killed for the “treason” of spreading discipleship of Christ throughout the Far East.
On May 6, 1984, Pope John Paul II canonized the Korean martyrs in Seoul. In his moving homily there, he said the following to the Korean people about the humble beginnings of their faith, which first arrived on their shores through books and written testimonies about Christ from Europe and elsewhere. “From this good seed was born the first Christian community in Korea, a community unique in the history of the church by reason of the fact that 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.”
The lives and deaths of Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and their companions are good reminders not only of the courage to follow Jesus faithfully despite sometimes overwhelming difficulty, but also of the universal priesthood of the baptized. It is not only priests, nuns and members of religious orders who are called to live a life of witness reflecting the Good News. Each member, from the most scholarly and outgoing to the most humble and childlike, has the duty and privilege of striving to become a living stone in the building of the Church of God. Each of us is called to be an ambassador for Christ’s mission of healing and salvation in our own life, job, family and circumstances. Each has a vocation, or calling, to exhibit care for one another, including the most forgotten, and to give thanks to God for the many gifts he has bestowed on us, both as a community and as individual believers.
Michael M. Canaris, Ph.D., of Collingswood, is a Research Associate at Durham University’s Centre for Catholic Studies in Northeast England.
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