Remembered Today
Saint Andrew Kim Taegon
Saint Paul Chong Hasang
Martyrs of Korea
Today's Mass was an illustration of how far some "smells and bells" coupled with Korean reservation and piety can go to make the Novus Ordo a less than excrutiating experience: Father made liberal use of the censor; a wonderful politically incorrect prayer for the suffering Church in the North was offered; the choir sang the Sanctus in beautiful counterpoint to the congregation. Why the Agnus Dei was not sung I do not know. The offertory hymn was the appropriate Faith of Our Fathers, one of my favorites.
These saints of the Universal Church and the estimated 10,000 Koreans who, in the 19th Century, gave up their lives at the hands of their countrymen rather than renounce the Faith are an example to Christians in Korea and the world over. If nothing else, they serve as a reminder to pagan Koreans of the absurdity of the prevailing opinion that "Koreans don't kill Koreans:" that outside forces are responsible for all the misfortunes Koreans have faced, a position seriously maintained by many on the messianically nationalist Left. This position is illustrated by the revisionism surrounding The Daejon Massacre, which occured 55 years ago yesterday.
Most importantly, these saints illustrate what Tertullian observed almost 1900 years ago: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Korea now has the third largest percentage of Christians in its population in Asia, after the Phillippines and Vietnam. If one includes the several hundred Protestant sects active in this country, Korea would rank second.
Tellingly, American Protestant missionaries arrived only after the great persecutions had ended, bringing with them the variety of heterodox doctrines, the absurd teetotalism, and the distasteful nationalism now characteristic of Korean Protestantism. Our separated brethren make fewer demands on their converts: there is little need of study, just one prayer to be memorized. All one has to do is accept someone called Jesus into one's heart. It makes little difference just who this Jesus is. The grace can be cheap indeed. Koreans, like anyone else, will try to buy at the lowest possible cost.
While the French Catholic priests had adopted Korean ways, lived among their flock, and suffered martyrdom alongside them, many of the Protestant johnnies-come-lately lived in mansions and were served by their converts. The Calvinist must be successful in worldly matters. Koreans, wanting too to be rich, were dazzled. What was more, these missionaries came from a faraway and fabulously rich "Christian" country, second only to Heaven itself in its splendor, with its mechanization and industrialization of all spheres of life. The false gospels of prosperity and progress proved very seductive for a destitute people like the Koreans.
Saint Andrew Kim Taegon
Saint Paul Chong Hasang
Martyrs of Korea
Omnes Sancti et Sanctæ Coreæ, orate pro nobis.
Today's Mass was an illustration of how far some "smells and bells" coupled with Korean reservation and piety can go to make the Novus Ordo a less than excrutiating experience: Father made liberal use of the censor; a wonderful politically incorrect prayer for the suffering Church in the North was offered; the choir sang the Sanctus in beautiful counterpoint to the congregation. Why the Agnus Dei was not sung I do not know. The offertory hymn was the appropriate Faith of Our Fathers, one of my favorites.
These saints of the Universal Church and the estimated 10,000 Koreans who, in the 19th Century, gave up their lives at the hands of their countrymen rather than renounce the Faith are an example to Christians in Korea and the world over. If nothing else, they serve as a reminder to pagan Koreans of the absurdity of the prevailing opinion that "Koreans don't kill Koreans:" that outside forces are responsible for all the misfortunes Koreans have faced, a position seriously maintained by many on the messianically nationalist Left. This position is illustrated by the revisionism surrounding The Daejon Massacre, which occured 55 years ago yesterday.
Most importantly, these saints illustrate what Tertullian observed almost 1900 years ago: "The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church." Korea now has the third largest percentage of Christians in its population in Asia, after the Phillippines and Vietnam. If one includes the several hundred Protestant sects active in this country, Korea would rank second.
Tellingly, American Protestant missionaries arrived only after the great persecutions had ended, bringing with them the variety of heterodox doctrines, the absurd teetotalism, and the distasteful nationalism now characteristic of Korean Protestantism. Our separated brethren make fewer demands on their converts: there is little need of study, just one prayer to be memorized. All one has to do is accept someone called Jesus into one's heart. It makes little difference just who this Jesus is. The grace can be cheap indeed. Koreans, like anyone else, will try to buy at the lowest possible cost.
While the French Catholic priests had adopted Korean ways, lived among their flock, and suffered martyrdom alongside them, many of the Protestant johnnies-come-lately lived in mansions and were served by their converts. The Calvinist must be successful in worldly matters. Koreans, wanting too to be rich, were dazzled. What was more, these missionaries came from a faraway and fabulously rich "Christian" country, second only to Heaven itself in its splendor, with its mechanization and industrialization of all spheres of life. The false gospels of prosperity and progress proved very seductive for a destitute people like the Koreans.
Redeemed by Our Savior, I work out my salvation with fear and trembling in Pohang, South Korea, where I live with my wife, daughter, and son and teach English at a science and technology university. Baptized a Methodist and raised a Missouri Synod Lutheran in Buffalo, NY, I spent six years as a guest of the Anglican Communion before being received by the Grace of God into the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church on the Feast of Saint Andrew, my patron, anno domini 2002.
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