Readings:
1 Timothy 3: 14 – 16
Luke 7: 31 – 35
Reflection:
“Wisdom has been proved right by all her children.”
Today we celebrate the memorial of St Andrew Kim Taegun and St Paul Chong Ha-sang and Companions, popularly known as the Korean Martyrs. St John Paul II came especially to Korea to canonise them in Seoul on 6th May, 1984. There are 103 in this group who gave their lives for Christ during a terrible persecution in the 19th Century. People from all walks of life – men, women, married, single, young and old. The story of the Korean Church which grew for the first couple of centuries completely as a lay Church is a miracle of grace and a most beautiful and inspiring story.
Jesus laments that some people, particularly the religious leaders and Pharisees use all sorts of excuses to avoid the call to conversion. He refers to a well-known game
the children play in the market-place:
“We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance;
We sang dirges, and you wouldn’t cry.”
So he says people criticised John the Baptist because he appeared too severe and said: “He is possessed.” And now the Son of Man comes and loves to meet and greet all sorts of people, and yet some call him a glutton and a drunkard.
These people in Korea were among a significant number who had come to appreciate the truth of God’s saving presence in Jesus. As Paul attests in the first reading (1 Timothy): “Without any doubt our religion is very deep indeed.”
He quotes an early Christian hymn:
“He was made visible in the flesh, attested by the Spirit, seen by angels, proclaimed to the pagans, believed in by the world, taken up in glory.”
Let us be children of the Divine Wisdom whom we have met in Jesus and respond positively and fearlessly to the call Jesus gives us to embrace his Word to the full,
not with half measures and petty compromises. These Korean brothers and sisters show us the beauty of Loving Jesus in an uncompromising way.
Truly in them we see -“Wisdom has been proved right by all her children!”
Pat McIndoe CP, a Passionist at St. Gabriel’s Retreat, Boroko, Port Moresby