Most
people consider life their most precious possession. However, there are
times that other values are more important: parents will sacrifice
their lives for their children and children for parents. And
sacrificing oneself for an idea or a belief has often occurred
throughout history, always for what was thought to be of greater value
than their own life.
A professor emeritus
writing for the diocesan bulletin reflects on the sacrifice of life by
the Korean martyrs, as they would have seen it. Often we hear that the
martyrs of Korea belonged to a foreign religion. When they list the
Korean traditional religions, it is natural not to include Christianity.
However, when martyrs sacrificed their lives for what they believed,
it was not something separate from their being Korean, says the
professor, but was an integral part of who they were.
When
the Korean martyrs gave their lives, the professor points out, they did
not do so for a foreign religion but for what they believed in. They
accepted their Christianity as having many of the same traditional
values of the Korean culture, and interpreted Christianity from this
background. When Catholicism entered Korea, one of the most important
values widespread throughout society was respect for parents and loyalty
to the king. The cultural values of respect and loyalty were root and
trunk of the Korean ethos, with loyalty valued higher, says the
professor, than filial respect.
The martyrs of Korea,
because of their great respect for God, called him, in keeping with
their cultural heritage, their Great King and Great Father. They felt a
greater, more lofty loyalty and filial piety for God than they did for
their earthly king and parents. They remembered the filial piety Jesus
showed his mother when he was on the cross. The martyrs were very much
taken up with the thinking of the times, and since filial piety and
loyalty were so important in the culture, it was only natural that they
would direct these values onto God the Father. This is where the Korean
values of loyalty and filial piety and the Christian teaching become
one. Therefore, to say that what was done by the Korean martyrs is
foreign to the Korean culture does not fit the facts, says the
professor.
The Christians knew that God was a just God
and that the filial obedience they owed to parents should also be
directed to God. This filial respect is fundamental to our Korean
religions, the professor maintains, adding that the filial piety of our
Koreans is the same kind of piety the Christian martyrs showed to God.
