Pope Francis continued at the General Audience this Wednesday with his catechetical cycle on the passion for evangelization.
This May 24, he remembered the figure of Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon, the first martyr and priest of Korea, a “great example of evangelization.”
Below is the full text of Pope Francis:
Dear brothers and sisters, good morning!
In this series of catechesis, we put ourselves in the school of some male and female saints who, as exemplary witnesses, teach us apostolic zeal. Let us remember that we are talking about apostolic zeal, which we must have to announce the Gospel.
A great example of a saint passionate about evangelization is found today in a distant land, namely the Korean Church. Consider the martyr and first Korean priest Saint Andrew Kim Tae-gon. But the evangelization of Korea was carried out by the laity. It was the baptized laity who transmitted the faith, there were no priests because they did not have them: they came later, so the first evangelization was done by the laity. Would we be capable of something like that?
Let’s think about it: it’s kind of interesting. And this is one of the first priests, Saint Andrew. His life was and continues to be an eloquent testimony of zeal for the proclamation of the Gospel. About 200 years ago, the Korean land was the scene of harsh persecution: Christians were persecuted and annihilated. Believing in Jesus Christ, in Korea at the time, meant being willing to bear witness until death. In particular, the example of Saint Andrew Kim emerges from two specific aspects of his life.
The first is the way in which he had to meet with the faithful. Given the highly intimidating context, the saint was forced to approach the Christians in a non-obvious way, and always in the presence of other people, as if they had been talking to each other for some time. Thus, to identify the Christian identity of his interlocutor, Saint Andrew used these expedients: first, a previously agreed sign of recognition: you will meet this Christian and he will wear this sign on his clothing or in his hand; later, he would surreptitiously ask her the question -but in a whisper-: “Are you a disciple of Jesus?”
Since there were other people watching the conversation, the saint had to speak in a low voice, saying only a few words, the most essential. Thus, for Andrés Kim, the expression that summed up the entire Christian identity was “disciple of Christ”: “Are you a disciple of Christ?”, but in a low voice because it was dangerous. It was forbidden to be a Christian.
In fact, being a disciple of the Lord means following him, following his path, and the Christian is by nature the one who preaches and bears witness to Jesus. Every Christian community receives this identity from the Holy Spirit, and thus the entire Church, from the day of Pentecost (cf. Vat. Conc. II, Decr. Ad gentes , 2). And from this Spirit that we receive comes the passion, the passion for evangelization, this great apostolic zeal: it is a gift of the Spirit.
And even if the surrounding context is not favorable, like the Korean context of Andrés Kim, the passion does not change, on the contrary, it becomes even more valuable. Saint Andrew Kim and other Korean believers have shown that the testimony of the Gospel given in times of persecution can bear much fruit for the faith.
Now let’s look at a second concrete example. When he was still a seminarian, San Andrés had to find a way to secretly welcome missionaries from abroad. It was not an easy task, since the regime of the time strictly prohibited the entry of foreigners into the territory. That is why it had been -before this- so difficult to find a priest to come on mission: the laity did the mission. Once – think of this thing Saint Andrew did – he walked in the snow, without food, for so long that he fell to the ground exhausted, risking losing consciousness and freezing there. At that time, he suddenly heard a voice: “Get up, walk!” Hearing that voice, Andrés woke up, seeing someone guiding him like a shadow.
This experience of the great Korean witness makes us realize a very important aspect of apostolic zeal. Namely, the courage to get back up when you fall. Do the saints fall? Yes, but from the earliest times: let us think of Saint Peter: he committed a great sin, but he had the strength of God’s mercy and he rose. And in San Andrés we see this strength: he had physically fallen, but he had the strength to go, go, go to carry the message forward.
No matter how difficult the situation may be, which at times may even seem to leave no room for the evangelical message, we must not give up and we must not give up carrying out what is essential in our Christian life, that is, evangelization. This is the way. And each one of us can think: “But how am I going to evangelize?” But look at these great ones and think in your little way, we think in our own little way: evangelize the family, evangelize friends, talk about Jesus, but talk about Jesus and evangelize with a pious heart.