Prayer Prompt before reading LK 8:19-21 Come, Holy Spirit, teach me how to pray well, interpret the Scriptures for me so that I may know the Truth about who God the Father is and God the Son so that I may know who I am.
“MY MOTHER AND MY BROTHERS ARE THOSE WHO HEAR THE WORD OF GOD AND ACT ON IT.” LK 8:19-21
Humbly submit your will to God (Thy Will be done) and consecrate yourself to the Sacred Heart of Jesus through Mary and Joseph.
Today, Jesus teaches that His family reaches far beyond His physical family. His family is anyone who is dedicated to listening to the Word of God, developing a personal relationship with Him, and living a transformed life. He came with a message of salvation to all souls. His mission is to die, rise, and give new life through Baptism.
We are His brothers and sisters spiritually when we believe in His message, befriend Him, repent, reject Satan, and continue to strive to draw ever closer to Him. Once we have become a believer and understand true love, it is amazing and we want to share it with others. Start sharing it with those in your home and school.
Feast on September 20th
Saints Andrew Kim Taegon, Paul Chong Hasang, and Companions’ Story-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 15, Andrew traveled 1,300 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 married man, aged 45.
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 taking taxes to Beijing annually. 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 4,000 Catholics, none of whom had ever seen a priest. Seven years later there were 10,000 Catholics. Religious freedom came in 1883.
When Pope John Paul II visited Korea in 1984, he canonized, besides Andrew and Paul, 98 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 lay persons: 47 women, 45 men.
Among the martyrs in 1839 was Columba Kim, an unmarried woman of 26. She was put in prison, pierced with hot tools 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 13, 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 41-year-old noble, apostatized under torture and was freed. Later he came back, confessed his faith and was tortured to death.
Reflection: We marvel at the fact that the Korean Church was strictly a lay Church for a dozen years after its birth. How did the people survive without the Eucharist? It is no belittling of this and other sacraments to realize that there must be a living faith before there can be a truly beneficial celebration of the Eucharist. The sacraments are signs of God’s initiative and response to faith already present. The sacraments increase grace and faith, but only if there is something ready to be increased.
Franciscan Media-https://www.franciscanmedia.org/saints-andrew-kim-taegon-paul-chong-hasang-and-companions/
**There are 4 million Catholics in Korea today. North Korea has been the number one persecutor of Christians for the last 15 years. Korea has the 4th most martyrs among Catholics.
Today’s challenge: As you are being formed in the faith, remember you were created to pass it on-evangelize. Come to know God in His Word, Jesus Christ, and be ready to battle to keep Him alive wherever God puts you!!!!
Be a servant, become a saint!
#Christian YODO (You Only Die Once; we will live again!)
Heart, Fight, Trust
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