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김대건 성인과 한국 103위 성인에 대한 영문 자료 |
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2008-01-15 ㅣ No.539 한국 천주교 주교회의 홈페이지에 있는 영문 자료입니다. 참조하세요.
St. Kim Tae-gon Andrew
1. Family Background
Kim Tae-gon Andrew was born on August 21st, 1821, in Solmae, Naepo, Chungchong Province. His great-grandfather, Kim Chin-hu Pius, was the son of a famous noble family in Solmae and once was an official of the regional government. About 1788, when Kim Chin-hu was 50, his son, who was Catholic, urged him to be baptized. After baptism in about 1788, he resigned from office and dedicated himself to a life of faith. Very soon, he was arrested during the persecution and sentenced to death. He spent more than ten years in prison and died there on February 20th, 1814. His grandson Kim Chae-jun Ignatius lived in Solmae with his wife Ko Ursula who gave birth to Kim Tae-gon. Kim Chae-jun Ignatius was martyred on September 26th, 1839. Kim Tae-gon, who was born into this family of martyrs, was a man of excellent intelligence and strong personality. He was also a man of deep faith. When he was young his family moved to Kolbaemasil in Kyonggi Province in order to escape the severe persecutions. Father P. Maubant, one day, visited his village in 1836 and chose him as a seminarian. He was 15 years old at that time. Along with two other seminarians, Ch'ae Pang-je Francis Xavier and Ch'ae Yang-up Thomas he was taught by Father Maubant. The seminarians were sent to Macao where they arrived on July 6th, 1873, after eight months of travel. 2. First Korean Seminarians in Macao
The missionaries of the Far Eastern Procure of the Paris Foreign Mission Society in Macao welcomed the first young Korean seminarians. They studied theology, Latin, geography, history, French and many other subjects. Father Legregois wrote to Father Maubant as follows: "Ch'ae Pang-je Francis Xavier is very quiet but a deep thinker and a gentleman. Ch'ae Yang-up Thomas is meek, precise and wholehearted. Kim Tae-gon Andrew is active but precise, obedient but daring, and has strong will power. He is a very promising young man. He is eloquent and his judgement is good, enabling him to solve problems quickly and easily. Although they have been here only a few months, they can communicate in simple Latin and French." One of them, Ch'ae Pang-je, died in Macao in 1838. In 1842, Kim Tae뽶on left Macao as an interpreter for Admiral Cecile on board a French war ship. He happened to be present at the signing of the Nanking Treaty. After Admiral Cecile returned to France, Kim Tae-gon tried to enter his homeland with Bishop Ferreol through the strictly guarded northern frontiers but all his attempts failed. Kim Tae-gon was ordained a deacon in 1844 in China. As a deacon, he decided to come into Korea alone through Uiju and he arrived in Seoul on January 15th, 1845. For safety reasons, he met only a few leading catechists. He was sick for about a month and when he recovered he decided to lead the French missionaries by sea, and left Chemulpo for Shanghai in a small wooden boat. 3. First Korean Priest
Weathering severe storms he safely reached Shanghai where he was ordained a priest by bishop Ferreol on August 17th, 1845, thus becoming the first Korean priest in the sixty-year history of the Catholic Church in Korea. At the end of August, he returned to Korea by boat with Bishop Ferreol and Father Daveluy. They arrived at Cheju Island first, having been driven there by severe storms. They reached Kanggyong in Chungchong Province in October of the same year. 4. His Missionary Activity and Martyrdom
Father Kim Tae-gon spent some time helping Bishop Ferreol and went to his hometown where he moved around the area, mostly at night, teaching and instructing the various Catholic communities. At the beginning of 1846, the bishop summoned him to Seoul. On the orders of the bishop Father Kim Tae-gon tried to contact Chinese fishermen on Yonp'yong Island in order to have them lead Father Ch'ae Yang-up Thomas and the French missionaries waiting in China into the country. But he was arrested on the island on June 5th, 1846 and was sent to the central prison in Seoul. The King and some of his ministers did not want to execute him because of his great personality and his immense knowledge of western studies and foreign languages. However he was sentenced to be beheaded on Sept 15th 1846 as a ringleader of a heretical school and as a betrayer of his country. In prison Father Kim Tae-gon Andrew wrote a last letter to his faithful. The following are a few excerpts from that latter. "Dear brethren!... Meditate on the fact that from eternity God created all things in heaven and earth and let men, whom He made in His own image, be in charge of the world. "There are many miserable and sad things in the world. If we were born once in this difficult and miserable world and didn't know the Master, who had created us, our lives wouldn't be worth living but would be useless. ... My friends! Keep in mind that Our Lord Jesus has come to this world, suffered countless torments, and founded and fostered His Church through pain and suffering. Since the Catholic Church was introduced into Korea 50 or 60 years ago, our people have suffered many severe persecutions and many Catholics, including myself, have been put in prison. How agonizing it is for us to suffer as one body and how humanly sad it is for us to part! However as the Holy Bible says that Our Lord even takes care of the hair on our heads, aren't these persecutions according to His providence? ... In this difficult time, to be victorious, we must be steadfast using all of our strength and capabilities like brave soldiers fully armed in the battlefield. After we die, please, take care of the bereaved families. ... We will soon go out to the battlefield. Be steadfast, and let us meet in Heaven. ... God will soon send you a much better pastor than I. So do not grieve but practice greater charity and serve the Lord so that we may meet again in God's eternal mansion". (Signed by) Father Kim Tae-gon Andrew. The death sentence was carried out the next day, Sept. 16th in Saenamt'o by the Han River in Seoul where three French missionaries had been previously martyred. He was 26 years old when he was martyred. Just before his death, he made a farewell sermon saying "My eternal life is beginning now", and he calmly and courageously received from God the glorious crown of martyrdom. The feast of Saint Kim Tae-gon Andrew is July 5th. After having published a brief history of the Catholic Church in Korea, in 25 installments in the CBCK Newsletter, we are pleased to present to our readers the brief stories of the lives of the 103 Korean Saint Martyrs who were canonized by Pope John Paul II at the ceremony of canonization that took place May 6, 1984, in Yoido Plaza, Seoul, Korea.
As Pope John Paul II said from the thirteen-year-old Peter Yu Tae-chol to the seventy-two-year-old Mark Chong, men and women, clergy and laity, rich and poor, ordinary people and nobles - many of them descendants of earlier unsung martyrs - they all gladly died for the sake of Christ. "The Korean Saint Martyrs have borne witness to the crucified and risen Christ. Through the sacrifice of their own lives they have become like Christ. 'Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the reign of heaven'(Mt. 5:10). The truth of these words of our Savior, the truth of the Beatitudes, is manifested in the heroic witness of the Korean Martyrs." Pope John Paul II said. As an introduction to the stories of the individual Korean Saints we present here the "Brief Resume of the Lives of the 103 Korean Saint Martyrs" that was presented at the ceremony of their canonization. "God who desired the salvation of all peoples, planted the seeds of the Catholic Faith in Korea, in a remarkable manner and caused them to blossom. The Christian community first began to take shape when Yi Sung-hun started to study Christian doctrine by himself and was eventually baptized and given the name Peter in 1784. In the beginning, because of their belief in God, the first Korean Christians were persecuted repeatedly, rejected by their own families, and suffered the loss of not only their social rank but even their fundamental human rights. Nevertheless, despite persecutions, the faith continued to spread. The Christian community in Korea which had begun without any priest pastor was finally given the assistance of two Chinese priests. But their ministry was short-lived, and another forty years passed before the Paris Foreign Mission Society began its work in Korea with the arrival of Father Mauban in 1836. Until his arrival, the Christian community was moved by an ardent desire for the graces of the sacraments. A delegation was selected and sent 750 miles, on foot, to Beijing in order to beg the Bishop of Beijing, with tears in their eyes, to send them bishops and priests. The same appeal was made to the Holy Father in Rome. Serious dangers awaited the missionaries who dared to enter Korea. The bishops and priests who confronted this danger, as well as the lay Christians who aided and sheltered them, were in constant threat of losing their lives. In fact, until the granting of religious liberty in Korea in 1886, there was a multitude of "disciples who shed their blood, in imitation of Christ Our Lord, and who willingly submitted to death, for the salvation of the world"(Lumen Gentium, 42). Among those who died as martyrs and were canonized were eleven priests and ninety-two lay people. Together with their spiritual pastors, there were men and women, young and old, learned and unlearned, without any distinction of social class. They were bound together by their common faith to witness that God calls all people, without exception, to the life of perfection. Bishop Laurent Imbert and ten other French missionaries were the first Paris Foreign Mission Society priests to enter Korea and to embrace a different culture for the love of God. During the daytime, they kept in hiding, but at night they travelled about on foot attending to the spiritual needs of the faithful and administering the sacraments. The first Korean priest, Andrew Kim Tae-gon, prompted by his faith in God and his love for the Christian people, found a way to make the difficult task of a missionary entry into Korea. However, just thirteen months after his ordination he was put to death by the sword when he was just 26 years old and the holy oils of ordination were still fresh on his hands. Paul Chong Ha-sang, Augustine Yu Chin-gil and Charles Cho Shin-chol had made several visits to Beijing in order to find new ways of introducing missionaries into Korea. Since the persecution of 1801, there had been no priest to care for the Christian community. Finally, they succeeded in opening a new chapter in the history of the extension of the Church in Korea with the arrival of a bishop and ten priests of the Paris Foreign Mission Society. Among the martyrs honored were fifteen virgins, including the two sisters Agnes Kim Hyo-ju and Columba Kim Hyo-im who loved Jesus with undivided heart (I Cor.7,32-34). These women, in an era when Christian religious life was still unknown in Korea, lived in community and cared for the sick and the poor. Similarly, John Yi Kwang-hyol died a martyr's death after having lived a life of celibacy in consecrated service to the Church. It is also important to recall in a special way some of the other martyrs who were canonized that day: Damien Nam Myong-hyok and Mary Yi Yon-hui were models of family life; John Nam Chong-sam, though of high social rank, was a model of justice, chastity and poverty; John Pak Hu-jae who, after he lost his parents in the persecutions, learnt to survive by making straw sandals; Peter Kwon Tug-in who devoted himself to meditation; Anna Pak A-gi who, although she did not have a deep grasp of Christian doctrine, was wholly devoted to Jesus and His Blessed Mother; and finally, Peter Yu Tae-chol who at the tender age of 13, bravely confessed his faith and died a martyr. More than 10,000 martyrs died in persecutions which extended over more than one hundred years. Of all these martyrs, seventy-nine were beatified in 1925. They had died in the persecutions of 1839 (Ki-hae persecution), 1846 (Pyong-o persecution) and 1866 (Pyong-in persecution). In addition, twenty-four martyrs were beatified in 1968. All together, 103 martyrs were canonized on May 6, 1984 - on the shores of the Han River and in view of the martyrs' shrines at Saenamto and Choltusan, where they went to their eternal reward." 0 280 1
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