THE BLOOD OF MARTYRS - A PILGRIMAGE TO SOUTH KOREA by Madalina Wu in Hong Kong
Smitten By Faith Issue # 00071 September 2nd 2023
“Then shall they deliver you up to tribulation and kill you, and you will be hated by all nations for My name’s sake.” ( Mathew 24:9 )
Today, I am honoured to share with my readers, a thoroughly inspiring essay about faith and the blood of martyrs - in Korea ! It is written with much thought and discernment by my friend, Madalina Wu, a Catholic convert from Hong Kong, a psycho-therapist, a mother and a generous volunteer to many charitable causes. Madalina is also part of the small but vibrant Regnum Christi Hong Kong team, a Catholic spiritual ‘family’ that seeks to bring the Kingdom of Christ to the lived realities and challenges of everyday life. Madalina’s article is about a recent Regnum Christi pilgrimage to South Korea.
Above : ‘The 103 Holy Martyrs of Korea’ beatified by Pope St. John Paul II in 1984; Hyehwa Dong Catholic Cathedral in Seoul. In this painting, you can see some French missionaries who came to Korea in the 19th century to proselytise to the already growing Catholic flock.
First - a quick word about the depth and unique face of Christianity in Korea which flourished in the 18th and 19th centuries and can be directly linked to the horrific persecutions and the blood of more than 10,000 martyrs spilled during these two centuries. There were no priests; Christianity was spread largely by word of mouth in what can be termed simply as astonishing ‘grass-roots’ efforts - an indigenous lay movement of ordinary Catholic converts.
The Martyrs of Korea made their Church unique and gave it strength. A martyr is someone who suffers and dies for his or her belief - surely the supreme witness of the truth of faith. In the case of the Roman Empire, after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, tens of thousands of Christians were sporadically persecuted from the 1st century to the 4th century. However, the early Christian Church did not die with the blood of the these first Martyrs. In fact, their martyrdoms became the seeds of a great harvest. Tertullian, the 2nd century early Church priest, scholar and defender (Apologist) of the Christian faith who lived during the Roman Empire said it well :
“The blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church. When a tyrant dies, his rule ends but when a martyr dies, his rule actually begins !” (Tertullian in ‘Apologeticus’)
And so on the blood of the martyrs, the seeds of the undefeated Church grew from its blood-stained beginnings two thousand years ago to the present – multiplying in strength and great numbers throughout the Mediterranean lands, Europe, Africa, the Americas and all the way to Asia in the Far East. So, let’s fast forward in time and space to the modern era and to Korea. Today, the statistics about Christianity in Korea will astound you especially when you read about the horrifying history of persecutions of Christians in Madalina’s essay below. As of 2022 in Korea, there are around 8.6 million Catholics and 5.8 million Protestants in a country of around 51 million people. So, about 29% of the population are Christians. We can safely say that the seeds of Christianity have taken firm root on Korean soil.
So, let’s join Madalina Wu now as she writes about her incredible Korean pilgrimage with her Regnum Christi friends and their spiritual director, Father Marco Cho LC, tracing the footsteps of Korean martyrs who suffered and bravely died for their faith.
_____________________________________________________________________
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF MARTYRS – A PILGRIMAGE TO SOUTH KOREA
by Madalina Wu in Hong Kong September 2nd 2023
On 14 September 2018 three pilgrimage routes in Korea were formally declared by the Vatican as pilgrimage routes of international shrines of saints - the ‘Good News Road’, the ‘Eternal Life Road’ and the ‘Unity Road’. These were also the first pilgrimage routes in Asia. How was it that a relatively small country in Asia would come to be the home of Vatican-decreed international shrines, among only a dozen around the world? In spring of this year our group of 16 pilgrims set foot on these hallowed paths laid by the blood of countless Korean martyrs. We were members and friends of ‘Regnum Christi’ Hong Kong and we were so blessed to be shepherded by our spiritual director, Father Marco Cho LC who actually was born and spent his childhood in Korea.
Right : Regnum Christi HK pilgrims - at the famous Myeongdong Cathedral in Seoul which is the largest church and seat of the Archbishop of Seoul.
Left : Map of Korea – - Carte de la Corёe – hand-drawn by Korea’s first ordained priest, St. Fr. Andrew Kim Taegon in 1845
While somewhere in my mind I was aware that persecution had been fierce and martyrs had played a elemental role in the early Catholic church in Korea, it was not until I went on this pilgrimage, stood on the holy sites and heard their personal stories of so much suffering and hardship which the martyrs of Korea endured that my heart was deeply touched by their courage and moved by the immensity of God’s grace. Over the course of nearly a week as we retraced the footsteps of the Martyrs, we were immersed in accounts, one after the other, of great faith and great sacrifice. So, what follows is not a trip summary or a memoir (there are some glaring omissions - for example descriptions of the famous Myeongdong Cathedral and Jeodulsan); not a chronology of the Catholic history of Korea, but rather an invitation to come with me, view some of the photographs of my personal gallery and in the process, share in the images and experiences of these holy men and women whose stories have come alive for me and truly touched my heart.
A Unique Beginning
Left : Early Korean Christian scholars who had to gather secretly at private homes for prayer meetings, study and refuge.
Right: An example of wall art in a shrine showing the martyrs and at the bottom, a wooden headlock which makes it impossible for the victims to rest the head properly - one of the cruel instruments of torture.
The Catholic Church of Korea is unique in that it is founded and spread by the faith of lay people. While a smattering of missionaries and Japanese Christians passed through in the 16th Century, the roots of Catholicism in Korea can really be traced to the early 1780’s, where Korea scholars came upon Seohok or western learning. This exposed them to reading the bible and other Christian texts. At that time Korea was deeply rooted in Confucianism with its strict laws governing societal and familial hierarchies. The country was very much closed to the outside world - although evidently no walls could keep out the grace of God, nor keep in the fire of faith. The initial academic interest in the church’s literature was soon kindled into the fire of a living faith.
In 1784 a scholar, St. Peter Yi Seung-hun was baptized while travelling in China. He later returned to Korea carrying the precious religious texts, and as faith grew, he baptised many fellow countrymen. It is as if God had planted the seeds Himself, by hand, one by one, or I imagine the Holy Spirit breathing faith directly into these fervent hearts. This young home church grew under this grace. As this fledgling church grew, the first persecutions struck. Almost half of the next two centuries ( in the 18th and 19thcenturies ) is marked by systemic discrimination, persecution and martyrdom. Believers were hunted down, forced to renounce their faith and eventually killed. Waves of persecution would continue until the freedom to practice their religion was officially granted to Korean Catholics in the 1880s. During that time as many as 10,000 Catholics died for their faith.
Above: ‘Danggogae Martyr’s Shrine’ also known as ‘A Mother’s Shrine’.
On a beautiful Sunday morning we arrived at our first pilgrimage site. Built on a quiet hill nestled among the sparkling skyscrapers of modern Seoul, the Danggogae Martyr’s Shrine or A Mother’s Shrine stands on the site where ten Catholic men and women were martyred in 1839. It is also known as ‘A Mother’s Shrine’ because three of the martyred women had young children. Of the ten, nine were made saints in 1984, while the remaining one, Blessed Mary Yi Seong-rye was beatified much later, in 2014.
Left : Blessed Mary Yi Seong-rye, martyred at A Mother’s Shrine
Right : Blessed Columba Kang Wan-suk, catechist and martyr
Blessed Mary Yi Seong-rye’s story captivated me. I think of her as the epitome of Catholic motherhood, an incredibly brave woman who steeped her children in her Catholic faith. At the age of 17, she married St Francis Choe Kyeong-hwan and their first son, Thomas Choe Yang-up, was to become Korea’s second ordained priest. To escape persecution the family moved frequently - at that time small Catholic villages sprung up all over the countryside where families escaped capture and kept the faith. (I would ‘meet’ her again later when our group visited the ‘Surisan Holy Ground’. ) It was in Surisan that Blessed Mary Yi Seong-rye and her whole family were finally arrested. She yielded to her captors, denying her faith, and was released from prison. But, she regretted this soon after; she reaffirmed her faith and was sentenced to death, beheaded at the age of 39 where ‘A Mother’s Shrine’ now stands.
Right : Inside the Gahoe-dong Catholic Church. Our Fr. Marco Cho LC is celebrating mass for the Regnum Christi ‘family’.
Left : In the tranquil grounds of the Gahoe-dong Catholic church, my mother ( also a convert ) is having an impromptu spirited spiritual discussion with Father Marco Cho. In the background, you can see the big statue of St. Fr. Andrew Kim Taegon, the first Korean-born Catholic priest and patron saint of the Catholic clergy in Korea ‘watching’ over them - children of God in the universal church!
When Father James Zhou Wen-mo (1752-1801), a Chinese priest arrived secretly from China at the end of 1794, just a decade after the baptism of St. Peter Yi, he found some 4,000 Catholics, none of whom had ever seen a priest! And, on Easter Sunday 5th April 1795, the first mass on Korean soil was celebrated by Blessed Father James Zhou Wen-mou. I was incredibly moved imagining that first Sunday mass. What it must have been like for the brave Koreans to hear the liturgy for the first time, to receive the Eucharist for the first time, to receive absolution for the first time ! Hunted almost from the day he set foot in Korea, it was through the effort of countless others that Fr. James Zhou was kept safe for quite a few years. Many were tortured and killed for refusing to divulge his whereabouts, and ultimately Father James gave himself up to stop the sacrifice of those protecting him and he was arrested and beheaded in 1801.
The Gahoe-dong Catholic church in Seoul in the heart of the historical Bukchon village area, considered the centre of the early Korean church, commemorates this event. Almost two and a half centuries after Korea’s first mass on this ground, we pilgrims from Regnum Christi in Hong Kong came together in thanksgiving in Sunday mass. We sometimes take for granted something so many thousands of martyrs have yearned for so fervently and sacrificed so greatly. How blessed are we to be able to come together for mass any day. I think of so many around the world who still do not have safe access to mass or to receive the Eucharist and how precious priestly vocations are to the Church.
Every Korean martyr has been inextricably linked with the sacrifice of so many others in a community of the faithful bound by devotion and purpose. This was the case with Fr. James Zhou and Blessed Columba Kwang Wan-suk ( see the photograph above ) who helped bring Father James from China to Korea, hid and protected him in her home, supporting the effort with her connections as well as financially; and gave with the ultimate sacrifice of her own life. Blessed Columba was among the first to be baptised by Fr. James Zhou . She reminds me of the women of the Gospel who followed our Lord, supporting Him and the apostles financially as well as practically - Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Susanna, and many unnamed others. Columba Kang was appointed by Father James to be a catechist, among the country’s first. Historical accounts speak of her strong personal charisma as an evangeliser. During the Sinyu persecution in 1801, Columba Kang was arrested and tortured at length in an attempt to make her reveal the location where Father James was hiding, but she didn't give in. Later that same year, she was condemned to death.
Surisan Holy Ground - Hello again, Blessed Mary Yi
Centre : The Shrine of St Francis Choe & family. The names of St. Francis Choe and Blessed Mary Yi are rendered here in Hangul. The Shrine is nestled in a beautiful, prayerful place of nature, watched over by Our Lady in the Grotto.
Right : The Choe family tree shows the immensity of God’s grace - a common ancestor links the families of Father Thomas Choe ( on the the left side) to that of St Andrew Kim’s (the branch on the right side).
Left –At the Shrine, Christ on the cross. In front, you can see our guide, Mr. Kim one of our trip’s angels. Mr Kim, owner of the company that organised our pilgrimage locally is a devout Catholic and he accompanied us throughout our trip, showing us the life of the martyr’s through the eyes of faith - more evangelist than tour guide.
We leave the hustle and bustle of Seoul for the countryside, visiting the ‘Surisan Holy Ground’, the location of one of the early ravine communities settled by many Catholics where they could practice their faith while still maintaining proximity to the capital. A short but steep hike up the hillside brings us to the family shrine of St Francis Choe, husband to Blessed Mary Yi whom we ‘met’ earlier and father to Korea’s second ordained priest, Thomas Choe. St Francis Choe was immune to extreme torture in prison, refusing to deny his faith. He told those in his prison cell that he had hoped to suffer beheading for Christ, but since God willed for him to die in prison, "his will be done."
At the Choe’s family shrine here at Surisan, carved into a marble monument were dozens of names of his descendants. Our understanding of Chinese characters enabled us to make out their names one by one and in amazement, we saw the designation of so many priests and nuns among them. St Francis Choe and blessed Mary Yi’s deep faith and ultimate sacrifice were to bring great blessings to their family.
Finally, let’s meet Korea’s first ordained priest
Left: Father Andrew Kim Taegon, the first Korean born ordained Catholic priest.
Right : At the house where St Andrew Kim was born, a statue of Pope Francis commemorating his visit in 2014 for World Youth Day during which he beatified 124 martyrs.
It is impossible to speak of the history of Catholicism in Korea without mention of St Father Andrew Kim Taegon, Korea’s first ordained priest and the patron saint of Korean clergy.
On a cold and rainy morning we came to the ‘Solmoe Holy Ground’, the birthplace of St Andrew Kim and the family’s ancestral home. It was an elaborately constructed site with an amphitheatre and many statues. Evident was the planning and effort that went into building a shrine worthy of Korea’s saints and martyrs for the 2014 papal visit of Pope Francis on World Youth Day.
Most know St. Fr. Andrew Kim died young - when he was just 26 years old, executed just a year after his ordination. Like all the martyrs we met, there’s an entire web of sacrifice surrounding him - his great grandfather, his grand uncle, his father were all martyrs before him; some counts report up to 11 martyrs in his extended family. Fleeing persecution, his family lived a life of struggle and poverty. I learned that three 16 year old seminarians (Andrew Kim, Thomas Choe and Francis Choe who died before he could be ordained) walked for months from Seoul, over 1,200 miles, through China to Macau where they studied for the priesthood. In the ensuing years he was to travel in and out of Korea on foot and by sea repeatedly, seeking routes into the closed country that would allow foreign missionaries to enter the country. He recruited more young people for the priesthood. It was a dangerous life for the young seminarian. After years of study, travel, intense work and the threat of arrest, St. Andrew Kim was ordained in Shanghai on 17 August 1845. The very next day he embarked on the treacherous 40 day journey home by sea. His tireless work continued. In addition to preaching and evangelising (often in disguise and at night), this role of bringing in foreign missionaries was pivotal to the growth of the early Korean church. It would also lead to his arrest and trial for heresy and treason on one of his returns from China by sea. After three months of torture, he was beheaded in September 1846, barely a year after his ordination.
I would like to end with some excerpts from the final exhortation of St. Fr. Andrew Kim Taegon (1821-46), priest and martyr. It is moving and poignant. The Blood of Martyrs indeed lives in Korean Catholics !
From : St Fr. Andrew Kim Taegon - Love and Perseverance are the Crown of Faith
My brothers and sisters, my dearest friends, think again and again on this: God has ruled over all things in Heaven and on earth from the beginning of time; then reflect on why and for what purpose he chose each one of us to be created in his own image and likeness. In this world of perils and hardship if we did not recognize the Lord as our Creator, there would be no benefit either in being born or in our continued existence. We have come into the world by God’s grace; by that same grace we have received baptism, entrance into the Church, and the honor of being called Christians. Yet what good will this do us if we are Christians in name alone and not in fact? We would have come into the world for nothing, we would have entered the Church for nothing, and we would have betrayed even God and his grace. It would be better never to have been born than to receive the grace of God and then to sin against him.
……
Dearest brothers and sisters: when he was in the world, the Lord Jesus bore countless sorrows and by his own passion and death founded his Church; now he gives it increase through the sufferings of his faithful. No matter how fiercely the powers of this world oppress and oppose the Church, they will never bring it down. Ever since his ascension and from the time of the apostles to the present, the Lord Jesus has made his Church grow even in the midst of tribulations. For the last fifty or sixty years, ever since the coming of the Church to our own land of Korea, the faithful have suffered persecution over and over again. Persecution still rages and as a result many who are friends in the household of the faith, myself among them, have been thrown into prison and like you are experiencing severe distress. Because we have become the one Body, should not our hearts be grieved for the members who are suffering? Because of the human ties that bind us, should we not feel deeply the pain of our separation?
But, as the Scriptures say, God numbers the very hairs of our head and in his all-embracing providence he has care over us all. Persecution, therefore, can only be regarded as the command of the Lord or as a prize he gives or as a punishment he permits. Hold fast, then, to the will of God and with all your heart fight the good fight under the leadership of Jesus; conquer again the diabolical power of this world that Christ has already vanquished. I beg you not to fail in your love for one another, but to support one another and to stand fast until the Lord mercifully delivers us from our trials.
… As we are all near the final ordeal, I urge you to remain steadfast in faith, so that at last we will all reach Heaven and there rejoice together. I embrace you all in love.
The blood of martyrs lives in us.”
I recall the intense expression on our guide, Mr Kim’s face when he gestured repeatedly to the crook of his arm showing his veins and saying “the blood of martyrs runs in us”. At first I only thought of this remark in connection with the descendants of the Korean church. It is only now as I put the final touches to this article and ponder the graces from the trip, that I realise this statement is true for each and every one of us. Not just for Koreans. The grace and love of God brings us together, across time and space; all of us here on earth and the great community of the saints in heaven. With the same love and mercy He brought together 16 people from Hong Kong of all ages and backgrounds in their faith journey - on a pilgrimage that deepened our friendship with Christ, with the martyrs and with each other.
September 20th will be the feast day of St Fr. Andrew Kim Taegon and his companions.
Martyrs of Korea, pray for us !
___________________________________________________________________________
Editor’s Note :
Dear Reader, thank you for reading this edition of SMITTEN BY FAITH. We publish every fortnightly on a Saturday. ALL articles in every issue are FREE.
For those of you who upgraded to be a PAID Subscribers for US$ 60.00 a year, thank you so much ! All proceeds go to the Regina Apostolorum Foundation to promote Catholic higher education.
PAID Subscribers can download the Bitly links to the digital copy of the book by Joan Foo Mahony, ‘LATE HAVE I LOVED THEE’ and THE COLLECTED ARTICLES, VOLUME ONE 2021; VOLUME TWO 2022 and VOLUME THREE 2023 of Smitten By Faith, DIGITAL COMPILATIONS of all the previous years’ 2021, 2022 and 2023 articles.